Forum Moderators: phranque
Can anybody make a logical argument that a website is a pice of software? Is it possible?
SOFTWARE
Dictionary.com defines "software" as follows:
1. Computers. the programs used to direct the operation of a computer, as well as documentation giving instructions on how to use them. Compare hardware (def. 5).
2. anything that is not hardware but is used with hardware, esp. audiovisual materials, as film, tapes, records, etc.: a studio fully equipped but lacking software.
3. Television Slang. prepackaged materials, as movies or reruns, used to fill out the major part of a station's program schedule.
American Heritage defines "software" as follows:
The programs, routines, and symbolic languages that control the functioning of the hardware and direct its operation.
WEBSITE
Dictionary.com defines "website" as follows:
Web site
–noun Computers. a connected group of pages on the World Wide Web regarded as a single entity, usually maintained by one person or organization and devoted to one single topic or several closely related topics.
American Heritage defines "website" as follows:
n. A set of interconnected webpages, usually including a homepage, generally located on the same server, and prepared and maintained as a collection of information by a person, group, or organization.
Please help me out with this one ... thanks.
Consult an internet-savvy Patent, Trademark, and Copyright attorney.
Jim
A website may *use* software in it's deployment.
But a website, in and of itself, is not software.
The Apache webserver is software. Your PHP scripts are software.
Your content is NOT software.
All IMO, of course.
Context is needed to understand what you are talking about, so why not provide further definition?
R&D tax credit? (Does that still exist?) Software purchase? (Your web hosting fees are for a SERVICE.)
In other words, a portion of your site might be considered software, HOWEVER, if there is a tax advantage to be gained, there is probably a strict definition of software for tax purposes.
Kaled.
It's primarily for manufacturing products, but also applies to several other categories, including computer software and music (but, oddly, not films). The deduction increased from 4% to 6% of net profit from qualified activities this year, and increases to 10% in 2010.
As far as software goes, it applies to software for sale or lease. It's not clear to me that it would also apply to works for hire, (it may be in this case either there is no deduction or the client could take it). It clearly does not apply to software you develop for your own use.
The deduction is limited to net profit from qualified activities, and also limited to 50% of U.S. W2 wages paid. (Doesn't look good for sole proprieters, but might be worth changing business structure to take advantage of it in some cases.) It explicitly does not apply to offshored work.
For profits derived from multiple activities, you have to allocate accordingly. If a web site does qualify, you'd still have to determine what percentage of the activity was related to content and which percentage to software.
That would be mighty interesting if a webpage could be software don't you think. :)
A web page is content + meta data + markup. Neither of the first two are "software", and I doubt that "markup" can be classed as software either.
There may be some room for a gray-area with respect to advanced CSS, but static HTML is clearly data. A website contructed with php (or perl, etc.) has the potential to be considered software - clearly, there is a large element of software to this site.
There are probably more gray-areas, spreadsheets perhaps.
Kaled.
