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Comment by aurelien | Hacker News Reader

Once again Open Source demonstrate its danger in front Free Software. Stop to waste your time, bring progress to fsf.org

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Structurally, the FSF works the same as this project and works to unilaterally control the copyright of projects (by only accepting contributions under a license agreement: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-assign.en.html ).

I agree it would be a departure from their core philosophy to act against their contributors, but if evil goblins took control of the FSF, there would be no way to stop them from using whatever license they wanted, and the community would be left with the last release under the old license, just as in this case.

edit: oops, there are FSF projects where the FSF does not hold the copyright. Anyway, what I said works for the projects that FSF holds copyright for.

FSF is still a 501(c)(3) with legal obligation to their stated mission, so it couldn't just be taken over and corrupted quite so simply.

I think if they stopped accepting donations and spent remaining funds carefully, there would be no penalty for losing that status (it's largely an exemption from income taxes).

I doubt it is that simple to change a 501(c)(3). I'm not a lawyer, but getting the tax exemption under 501(c)(3) has all sorts of requirements including things in Articles and Bylaws about how dissolution / acquiring works. Even losing 501 status doesn't instantly eliminate the legal status of the Articles/Bylaws that founded the (c)(3)…

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