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I think you fail to understand what a charity is:

FOSS donates their time and money to help create free software for all to use. So please, do tell how this is not a charity.

So the governments of the world were incorrect when they gave non-profit charities tax exemption?

Wtf... how is it a charity? They make software, just the same as companies that have people pay for a license to the software. They don't give it way out of pure selflessness. It is nothing like a charity, i can't believe you honestly think this.

Obviously i agree with charities recieving tax-exempt status, they are not in it to make a profit. Next you will be telling me Television stations that don't ask for payment to watch are also charities, hahaha dumbass



How exactly does Linux not charging money for use help this people? I use it, and i am not poor, ill or helpless. You really are quite naive and i feel bad that i didn't explain myself fully at any time, i kind of thought you were joking. I mean come on, no one really believes free software is a charity.

I can understand the point Tyler is making which may have no direct bearing on what I am about to present as my opinion regardless of what is behind the curtain or inner working as you might say.

A Obligation
I think that if I use some software that is free then I have a obligation to help the organization that covers this software by:

• Promoting the software.
• Filing bug reports.
• Testing the software.

I feel that the current version I am using should always be free for my to use and that before a version becomes commercial as many bugs in my current version should be fixed as to bring the software to a functional state equal to or above a average that would be determined using some standard method.

I can also consider my obligation a payment for usage of the software, and that is possible because I have more time for a obligation than the average yearly amount of money I posses.

Special Treatment
I do not think the organization deserves any special treatment. I do think that people should fulfill their obligation if they have one. The obligation should not include:

• Misrepresenting the software with functionality, stability, or usability that does not exist.
• Making hype about the software is beyond a normal excitement for it.
• Breaking communication rules for a medium of communication in order to fulfill the obligation.
• And anything included under Murphy's Law.

As most certainly the:
Breaking communication rules for a medium of communication in order to fulfill the obligation.
Or any thing similar which I would definitely consider special treatment. This should class the non-profit organization with a commercial organization in terms of rule breaking.

So if you consider this obligation special treatment then you are welcome to hold that opinion, but I feel it does not hold true since instead of being special treatment I am simply converting my time into money for them.

Interpretation Of Tyler's Argument
I actually do understand what you mean in that the organization should not be given special rule breaking powers or the severance of honesty to make the software look better than it really is just to compete with a commercial equivalent software. And, if my understanding is correct then I agree with what you are saying.

I would imagine that a non-profit and profit organization should both remain on the same level at the playing field and only one factor should be different which is the type of obligations.

• Pay me with time.
• Pay me with currency.

As far as the tax rules go for non-profit and profit organizations I have no actually idea since I know very little about these things. I would imagine that there are loop holes in a system such as this which people could manage to exploit - and with that being said this alone might be a good reason to further clamp down on holding some non-profit organizations to the same playing field as profit organizations.

You can blame it on dishonest people frankly.

And yes I do agree that the words used to describe a company or products such as:

• non-profit
• donation
• charity

Can become quite misleading when used in the appropriate situation.

It can become so serve as to be fit with a example of:
You retain information from someone in order to lead them to help you make gains unknowingly which creates a misleading conception of you from them.

Such that A:
Produces Z and C cost where H is in time and J is in money with reason R.
Such that B:
Produces Z and M cost where V is in time and O is in money with reason L.

Such that both A and B produce Z or something that falls with in a threshold that allows it to be considered the same.

Where H, J, V, and O are directly from the consumer while ((C>=(H+J)) && (M>=(V+O))) due to other sources in income which are influenced by R and L for each A and B respectively which will later become a point point of this explanation.

A has zero J and all H, while B has all O and zero V. However:

Where reason R also directly becomes a allocation for resources:
[LR].A = We are doing this to pay for our research, employment, and ect.
L.B = We are doing this for free.

The problem is (H+J) = (V+O) yet (R!=L) which makes no sense. Where is the resource allocation on L.B going? It is going somewhere. The reason it is a type of resource allocation is because it influences people's decisions on which company to choose not based on what they have to offer but simply by misleading them (intentionally or not?).

This is not a matter of profit or non-profit, however once you include the profit and non-profit into the mix you add another factor that influences people's decisions but if no one is over-paid and the resources gained from the influence factor of non-profit and L.B are truly converted into [LR].A which the remaining placed into Z then I would have no problem.

It actually should not matter if: C and M are equal for A and B. That is beyond the point but it does worsen the problem if (C > M) because L.B are NOT truly converted into [LR].A with the remaining placed into Z.

I think this is what Tyler is saying if my interpretation is correct.

"Click here to download. It's free. Under the GPL. Do as you will." Here, here. I'll write it real slow like:

• Lots of people write big software.
• Many people give big software to c-o-m-m-u-n-i-t-y. (A community is like all of those people on the street.)

That is a charity\public service. Giving time and work for the benefit of others.


No, because they're not giving anything to the community. FOSS spends massive amounts of time and effort writing huge pieces of software, which it then gives to the community. Their goal is not to make money. The television station's is. (Through commercials and such.)


You still fail to give some reason as to why it's not. It fits all the criteria. Saying: "They're secretly trying to make money by brain washing the toolbar of Firefox." doesn't count.

You said "No" because:
..spends massive amounts of time and effort writing huge pieces of software..
But I say "Yes" because:
..spends massive amounts of time and effort managing program schedules and dealing with equipment transmitting huge amount of video and audio information..
For free. (When we are talking about a television station not cable or satellite.)

Okay and check this one out:
Their goal is not to make money. The television station's is. (Through commercials and such.)


Who is they? The people or the company. The company has no thought process due to not being a living organism. What does a company need to survive? Resources. So if we consider money and time both a resource then we can also consider that they both want money/time.

How do you think the light bill gets paid even if the office is 10m by 10m? It still needs some electricity. Time = Money.

The only difference is that it is easier to hide/miss money than time. And certainly you missed the money part in FOSS and the time part in the television station. Of course you might have also indirectly missed effort if you consider that representing a percentage of time with a effort magnitude applied as a factor.

Also think about:
People with more money have less time in a period.
People with more time have less money in a period.[/i]
When we can consider time being free, spare, or slack time. Which is great for fulfilling a obligation.

If we consider that most FOSS projects aren't companies, then we can then assume that they don't need\want money. Take Konch for example. It's just FOSS. There's no big company asking for money. Its developer is giving away his software\property for free to anyone. Now, when we consider that there are thousands of FOSS projects like that, we can then assume that it is a public service by the FOSS community.


FOSS projects don't generally have offices...

If you consider a apple is food and not a fruit then, No.
<group>.<specialized group>
Since we are talking about things in the <group> not the <specialized group>.

A project(group) needs volume. This volume can exist in the middle of a desert or could encompass the magnetic field and electrons flying down a wire carrying information.

For the collaboration to exist there must exist some physical matter. In order to manipulate this matter you have to use energy and it costs.



My source of information is:


How does it feel? .. when you run right into the wall you thought you were running from.

In the case of FOSS, this 'cost' is a developer's internet connection. That's their problem. Not the projects. Web space is often provided by a service like SF, or other. When not, then, the project head usually uses his web site.

What do you mean? How are those even connected?

Most (exceptions being firefox, wikipedia, etc.) FOSS projects don't have multi million dollar incomes. (Those that do use them for reasons I listed somewhere above.)

This still holds true:

If you keep sub-diving the scope of the argument further and further you will become correct eventually by the fact that you will settle on top of one point that does not consist of any factor that is contradicting the original argument scope.

Before long you will move out of the organization and into a individual who is donating time which is not all that was included in the original argument scope.

You might be able to reduce the scope to someone's shoes..



How does it feel? To run into that wall again..

..There's no big company asking for money..
..many large free software foundations are 501c3's.

The original scope was: "Is FOSS a charity?"

It is, because its volunteers donate their time and money to developing software for the community to use for free.

I can't find this wall you're referring to. You're simply abstracting things and popping quotes everywhere to confuse everyone into missing the obvious: "That FOSS is a public service."


I don't believe I said: "Every FOSS project isn't asking for money with a big company", did I? I said most.

Besides, these big companies are actually non-profit foundations. Doesn't that kind of ruin your entire point? It's like saying:

No its covered in the obligation to them to:

• Promoting the software.
• Filing bug reports.
• Testing the software.

That is not special treatment. Its just treatment, but the treatment includes payment because it is a standard: To help someone when they help you with out:

The (below) four items would be considered special treatment.

• Misrepresenting the software with functionality, stability, or usability that does not exist.
• Making hype about the software is beyond a normal excitement for it.
• Breaking communication rules for a medium of communication in order to fulfill the obligation.
• And anything included under Murphy's Law.

They are going to play the game just like the profit organization. The only difference is they get to use L.B. If they use L.B or something similar with explanation (below) and here

But a problem exists with them using L.B see the last part of this post.

With exception. in short, to non-profit organizations having a potential loop hope (if this condition was true):
if (C > M) because L.B are NOT truly converted into [LR].A with the remaining placed into Z.





No, not if you understand that there is no certainty that a non-profit foundation returns the excess resources back into the product. We have the IRS to investigate these things, but that does not make it a fact just a opinion.

So:
"""So, yes, they do deserve special treatment, because they are free."""

• Is not correct because you are not fulfilling your obligation if you consider them free.
• If no one fulfilled their obligation these software organizations would not exist in the state they exist in now.

What are we arguing over!!!!???

So you're arguing that we should promote FOSS, because they're a charity\free? It's a duty, even? Isn't that what I'm saying?

I think there has been a miscommunication...

PS: Your letter notation is greatly giving me a headache.

The Obligation


He did not say special treatment. He said promotion which is part of your obligation.

Not Right Because Of Opinion Not Fact But Supports Parts Of My Argument


I think this is wrong, but he states - "and this is not compeltely correct".

Not Right Because Of Special Treatment


Here you say.. they need special treatment because they are free but if you read back a few posts I explain why special treatment is not needed.

And you have included special treatment in multiple posts as a basis for you view which is incorrect.

Also your analogy of the TV station and non-profit software organization.
http://www.osdev.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.p ... ght=#97450

Yes. The design was to confuse you with bull crap so that I can win the argument. It is actually a well known tactic to push so much information out that it becomes impossible to accurately account for it all and starts to cause confusion amoung the participants.

By special treatment, I wasn't referring to the above. I was basically referring to promoting the software where promotion is usually not welcomed. (Like a forum, for instance.)