For example, the initial product generates "hello world".
What it was supposed to do was control a robot to automatically do pick and place.
It's Definitely a bug that the program failed to work, it's even tracked as a defect in the issue management. No R&D involved just fixing a pretty severe software bug, namely that the product does not work.
Not only that but ALL costs. Salaries, benefits, servers, subscriptions, even the percentage of utilities that go to software development have to be figured out and amortized.
This is insane and bankrupting a lot of small business if left in place.
“For purposes of this section, any amount paid or incurred in connection with the development of any software shall be treated as a research or experimental expenditure.”
So you can drop the license in an envelope and recognize the revenue immediately, but only if the recipient could have used it if they'd grabbed it from the mailbox.
If the license isn't usable for another month, you can send it to the customer, they can pay for it, and you can even spend the cash, but the payment sits on your balance sheet as a liability until the moment the license becomes valid.
But yes, in the sense that work that should not be treated as development work will no longer be treated as development (and thus no longer eligible for the R&D credit). So, actual bug fixing should not be development work going forward if the fix is simple and straightforward to carry out.