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Please remove mitsuhiko/*

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Re: Please remove mitsuhiko/*

#161

Post by dlisboa »

cookiecaper wrote: post #109
dlisboa wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not all open source developers want money for their open source software. You think collecting money using someone else's hard work isn't a bad thing. A hard work that the person explicitly went to the trouble of making free and abstained from any income derived solely from it.

Lots of people want to make money from their open-source projects, directly or indirectly.

This project is only directly, which violates indirectly. Lots of people don't want to be paid directly for their open-source projects.

Mainly because that's precisely what open-source isn't: it's not distribution of software services. There isn't a consumer-producer relationship.

Indirectly is what works great: someone with a vested interest pays an open source developer for his expertise to make sure the open source project continues on. The developer is backed by the full extent of labor laws, welfare services and all other work-related niceties her or his country might have. Or the developer provides a service with clear boundaries which other people pay for, helping provide income for the project's developer and possibly giving it guidance.

Directly there's none of that. There's only people giving money to someone who now has to bear the full legality of it, unaware of the purpose or source of said money. If they don't want it, don't force it on them. Not to mention most projects which want money already have a system set up for it, a system which they explicitly decided was the best for them.

There are loads of other ways to support open source developers other than forcibly putting them in a situation in which they need to hire a lawyer.

Re: Please remove mitsuhiko/*

#162

Post by kingkilr »

jacques_chester wrote: post #127
ubernostrum wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We (Django) already threatened that a while back. They still insist they will not remove projects or stop collecting donations on behalf of non-consenting projects. All they did was manually disable some of the spam coming toward our committers.

Who holds the trademark for Django? That person or organisation might have standing in some jurisdictions to ask for it to be removed. (IANAL, TINLA)

Django's trademark is held by the Django Software Foundation.

Re: Please remove mitsuhiko/*

#163

Post by [deleted] »

jnbiche wrote: post #156
ubernostrum wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

particularly since they are "opt-out" Clarification: they aren't "opt-out". They aren't "opt", period. Once someone types a project name into their search box, it appears that project and its contributors are in their listing, and that's that. Which is sort of the point of the linked issue, and several other issues asking for removal on behalf of individuals and organizations, none of which have been acted on so far…

Good point. I meant to communicate that point. I'll correct my comment accordingly.

[deleted]

Re: Please remove mitsuhiko/*

#164

Post by enraged_camel »

jnbiche wrote: post #142
malloreon wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"scores of established corporations choosing to accept Bitcoin" What percentage of these established corporations "accept" bitcoin through VC-funded startups (which are gambling on the possibility of rising bitcoin value), receiving dollars and never actually holding a bitcoin?

OK? I agree with you. I never claimed they were holding it. Lots of Bitcoin-accepting businesses don't hold Bitcoin, and instead use it as a payment processor. I don't see the problem with it. They still accept Bitcoin, no scare quotes needed.

The point is that a corporation "accepting" Bitcoin is not an endorsement by the corporation for Bitcoin. And even if it were, corporations are hardly the pinnacles of ethics and legality.

Re: Please remove mitsuhiko/*

#165

Post by enraged_camel »

spindritf wrote: post #151
exDM69 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How can there be taxation consequences unless ... Tax? Perhaps not, but the OP was talking about tax and other legal consequences. These can vary wildly from country to country. My local legislation requires applying for a permit before asking for donations. If a 3rd party would add my projects to this website, I could face criminal charges and the proof of burden would be on me.

What? You live in a country where someone can use your name in a fund-raiser without your approval or authorization and you will face criminal charges with presumption of guilt? Some project on github is not even remotely your biggest problem here.

>>What? You live in a country where someone can use your name in a fund-raiser without your approval or authorization and you will face criminal charges with presumption of guilt?

The point is that, because there isn't a way to opt-out of the project, it is the responsibility of the tip4commit developers to do their due diligence and make sure they aren't putting anyone in hot waters with their project.

Not only have they not done that, they're also being indignant assholes about it.

If they changed it to opt-in, I would think the whole problem would go away.

edit: clarification

Re: Please remove mitsuhiko/*

#166

Post by apendleton »

iolsantr wrote: post #62
brador wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assuming you had the muscle, what's the worst a dev could theoretically hit them with? Could they be succesfully sued? DMCA?

If a project name was trademarked, you might be able to get them for trading on that name, maybe?

Maybe, but if they make it clear that they're not sponsored or endorsed by the project in question, it'd probably be considered nominative fair use, at least in the US: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nominative_use

Re: Please remove mitsuhiko/*

#167

Post by amalcon »

Blahah wrote: post #143
malloreon wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"scores of established corporations choosing to accept Bitcoin" What percentage of these established corporations "accept" bitcoin through VC-funded startups (which are gambling on the possibility of rising bitcoin value), receiving dollars and never actually holding a bitcoin?

Who cares? It's no different to accepting Euros but getting dollars in your bank account. The point is that they allow users to spend bitcoins (or Euros).

OK, but nobody is arguing that Amazon.com's acceptance of the Argentine peso is a good sign for the future of the currency.

Re: Please remove mitsuhiko/*

#168

Post by jordanpg »

jnbiche wrote: post #119

These kinds of episodes are making me increasingly depressed. On one hand, I'm incredibly disappointed in the ethics and morality of some of the people who have latched on to Bitcoin. And sadly, I'd have to include tip4commit in that group, particularly since they are "opt-out" and yet have been spamming people after each commit [ubernostrum points out below that they aren't even "opt-out", since they're not honoring…

From Bitcoin's own FAQ [1]: "One could argue that gold isn't backed by anything either. Bitcoins have properties resulting from the system's design that allows them to be subjectively valued by individuals. This valuation is demonstrated when individuals freely exchange for or with bitcoins. Please refer to the Subjective Theory of Value."

Like it or not, Bitcoin has a PR problem. It needs be liked and trusted in addition to "extremely useful, in principle." For all of the grumbling about central banks, most of us enjoy the benefits of them and trust them at some gut level, even if we don't realize we're doing it.

> If Bitcoin does fail, a large part of the blame will be one the shoulders of so many software and IT people who make a flash decision that Bitcoin was "tulips" or a "ponzi scheme", and who refused to change their minds in the face of evidence otherwise

It might also fail, in part, because the community failed to realize that a quasi-fiat currency like Bitcoin has to solve the social problems at least as much as it needs to solve the technological ones.

[1] https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Myths#Bitcoins_don.27t_solve_any_...

Re: Please remove mitsuhiko/*

#169

Post by apendleton »

arsenische wrote: post #129
roganartu wrote: post #84

The tip4commit website is vulnerable to Heartbleed: https://filippo.io/Heartbleed/#tip4commit.com Don't sign in or register or you may have more to worry about than undesired tax liabilities. EDIT: It's fixed now.

Thank you very much! I am quite surprised because I remember fixing this issue in the same day patch became available and I run update recently. Upgrading the distro, hopefully it fixes the problem.

Upgrading the distro is likely insufficient, as your private key has potentially (likely, at this point) been compromised. At a minimum you need a new key and cert.

Re: Please remove mitsuhiko/*

#170

Post by amalcon »

randallsquared wrote: post #45
ubernostrum wrote: post #5

I do not normally rant, but tip4commit and its ilk are some of the most infuriating people in the world to deal with, since they're opting other people's projects into something that has all sorts of legal/taxation consequences and think that "we have no way to remove you once you get opted in" is an acceptable answer. I'd push complaints further up to GitHub, since I'm sure something in the way this works violates t…

How can there be taxation consequences unless you act to set up a bitcoin address and accept the offered tip? If you've done all that, I think it's clear you know what you're doing. If you don't do that, then the money (apparently?) returns to the project you committed to, from whence it came. The only way there could be tax is if you receive the money, and that can only happen by you deliberately becoming involved.

So if I don't want to accept the taxation consequences, the shady project gets to use my name to raise money? There is no response I can have that doesn't have some cost to me.
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