Sympathy for the unemployed is nice, but it should never be an excuse to hold back progress that benefits the public as a whole.
Besides, even if you try to regulate it, unscrupulous cheaters will take advantage of it anyway and it will enter the market by force no matter how well regulated it is, which will leave law abiding businesses at a competitive disadvantage.
The proper way to deal with people losing their jobs over new technology is to help them adapt. Those jobs are doomed anyway because of the reasons cited in the previous paragraph.
If he's so evil then how did he pass the background check to get the security clearance that his boss damn sure should have required before assigning him as a sysadmin in the first place?
Piracy actually proves just how valuable the IP is.
It doesn't matter how much it costs you to produce. You also need to take into account opportunity costs of giving up other activities you could spend your time on.
And in the free market, opportunity costs count because they drive supply.
I'm not ok with piracy.
But I am ok with indies and open source software that give the proprietary media (both software and entertainment) a run for its money.
However, copyright infringement is still wrong, so let them collect legal expenses...if they win.
If they lose, though, THEY should pay the DEFENDANT's legal bills. And promptly, I should add, with immediate sanctions per day if they go beyond 14 days or so without paying up, along with charges for contempt of court.
This way, a brave defendant that is in the right can get charitable backing more easily, especially if the backers can get a refund after they help squash the big corporation.
And it's the organization's inherent prerogative to make its money as hard to give away as it wants to.
The "so be it" is an acknowledgement of the organization's ownership of the money in question, not an insult against people who would like to help open source projects.
If the only way to do X is to also do Y, and you can't do Y, it doesn't make you lazy if you can't do X.
And also, hiring someone else to do your legal stuff for you doesn't let you off the hook. All it does is let you burn them if someone burns you. It's still your ass on the line, and there's speculation else where that accepting this in such a way could have been construed as tax fraud by the project in question.
So, are you SURE they could have hired H&R block for this?
Unfortunately it's the federal government's prerogative, by its judges, to regulate copyright as it sees fit. It's a reserved matter in the constitution delegated to the feds.
And that includes the legal system's battle of the budgets getting to decide who the judges even hear.
Could the receiving project actually accept it if it wasn't a donation?
Don't forget that the project probably has its own paperwork to worry about.
Finally, the money belongs to the same organization that established the "accounting practices" in the first place. It can account how it pleases, and if that makes donations more difficult, so be it.
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Who do those journalists answer to?
Who pays their paychecks?
Journalists who don't kowtow to the wishes of whoever funds the payroll do not last long.
Sympathy for the unemployed is nice, but it should never be an excuse to hold back progress that benefits the public as a whole.
Besides, even if you try to regulate it, unscrupulous cheaters will take advantage of it anyway and it will enter the market by force no matter how well regulated it is, which will leave law abiding businesses at a competitive disadvantage.
The proper way to deal with people losing their jobs over new technology is to help them adapt. Those jobs are doomed anyway because of the reasons cited in the previous paragraph.
If he's so evil then how did he pass the background check to get the security clearance that his boss damn sure should have required before assigning him as a sysadmin in the first place?
It still will be. There was retroactive clawback that was approved by SCOTUS itself, don't forget.
I first want grandfather clauses in favor of already lapsed works so that they STAY public domain.
THEN we can bring sanity to the length of a copyright. Otherwise limits are meaningless becuase they can be retroactively extended at will.
I'm not ok with rewarding greed, even if it's by allowing beneficial piracy.
And if an author wants to "ratify" a piracy by proclaiming in advance he will not prosecute anyone for it, more power to him.
So crack down on piracy as much as the copyright onwers want. It's their foot to shoot off if they want to.
Also, the RIAA cannot prosecute someone for pirating indie work. And if they even try, they should be fined for wasting the court's time.
Piracy actually proves just how valuable the IP is.
It doesn't matter how much it costs you to produce. You also need to take into account opportunity costs of giving up other activities you could spend your time on.
And in the free market, opportunity costs count because they drive supply.
I'm not ok with piracy.
But I am ok with indies and open source software that give the proprietary media (both software and entertainment) a run for its money.
Here's what I think.
It's the copyright holder's responsibility.
However, copyright infringement is still wrong, so let them collect legal expenses...if they win.
If they lose, though, THEY should pay the DEFENDANT's legal bills. And promptly, I should add, with immediate sanctions per day if they go beyond 14 days or so without paying up, along with charges for contempt of court.
This way, a brave defendant that is in the right can get charitable backing more easily, especially if the backers can get a refund after they help squash the big corporation.
Keeping the spoils OUT of the war chest of the seizing agency would go far to reducing the incentive for corruption.
It's not quite as tempting to steal something when the proceeds won't give your budget a boost.
Definitely not safe to orgasm while pedaling on the road.
You're a pervert enough if you fantasize about it in public.
I'm still wondering what led you to even go look for it.
You must be a troll.
That's not the project's problem.
And it's the organization's inherent prerogative to make its money as hard to give away as it wants to.
The "so be it" is an acknowledgement of the organization's ownership of the money in question, not an insult against people who would like to help open source projects.
Perhaps there is no solution.
If the only way to do X is to also do Y, and you can't do Y, it doesn't make you lazy if you can't do X.
And also, hiring someone else to do your legal stuff for you doesn't let you off the hook. All it does is let you burn them if someone burns you. It's still your ass on the line, and there's speculation else where that accepting this in such a way could have been construed as tax fraud by the project in question.
So, are you SURE they could have hired H&R block for this?
If a big company wants your ideas, you're screwed anyway.
Publishing them in public is probably the best thing you can do about it, because it prevents them from taking it away.
Can ideas even be stolen in the first place?
Is someone who reverse engineers your product stealing your ideas?
Unfortunately it's the federal government's prerogative, by its judges, to regulate copyright as it sees fit. It's a reserved matter in the constitution delegated to the feds.
And that includes the legal system's battle of the budgets getting to decide who the judges even hear.
Not necessarily.
Could the receiving project actually accept it if it wasn't a donation?
Don't forget that the project probably has its own paperwork to worry about.
Finally, the money belongs to the same organization that established the "accounting practices" in the first place. It can account how it pleases, and if that makes donations more difficult, so be it.
The underhandedness is in fudging the paperwork to satisfy management's conditions on the donation.
And a donation is by definition something you get for free, without anything being received.
My question is...what was received?
You also can't afford to BE sued.
My allegation was that the IRS chose to be stricter with X.org than it is with other nonprofits.
3 years of silence and then a sudden tax exempt revoke is a very cagey response to 3 years of not filing any tax returns.
The IRS shouldn't have waited that long without sending notice.
The fact that the feds and the corporations are in bed elsewhere is also a good reason to at least suspect underhandedness on the IRS's part.
Good clarification.
Either way though, TFA's implication that this is somehow the open source project's fault is insulting and absurd.
You completely evaded my point (not missed, but deliberately dodged) that the IRS chose to remain silent about it.
My point is that it appears the IRS did nothing *at all* for 3 years, then ambushed them all at once.
Surely the IRS should have given them *some* kind of notice about failure to file?
The complications are from your own company.
Don't blame the open source project for your own beancounters and managers making things difficult to donate.
You are the one making them jump through hoops, not the other way around.
What gets me is that the IRS chose to wait for 3 years to nail them for a late return.
Contracts do not trump those laws, but those laws do not trump the contracts either.
Unless a contract is illegal, you are bound to it.