Open source aspirations of credibility exploited to legitimize Bitcoin

[pocock]

Free / Open source is not absolutely perfect or secure but many people feel it gives a better hope of security and independence than proprietary software.

Over many years, proponents of Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency have tried to align themselves with open source developers and well known projects or organisations.

Many people have remained neutral about this topic up to now.  Recent news reports talk about a "death spiral" or "crypto winter" after the BTC price crash.

Does anybody feel projects should do more to distance themselves from Bitcoin?

Could Linux distributions be legally liable for including Bitcoin packages in their distribution?

When Bitcoin  does implode, whether it is next week or in 10 years, could it impact the reputation of other open source initiatives and people promoting geeky innovation?

What would be the criteria for an open source project, such as a Linux distribution, to include or exclude a particular Cryptocurrency?

I started putting some of my observations in blog posts, this one begins to cover the relationship with open source phenomena

[TimKelly]

I started putting some of my observations in blog posts, this one begins to cover the relationship with open source phenomena

I don't have a comment overall, but I find it ironic that very early on in his post, Daniel posts an 2011 email from the debian-private mailing list in which Philip Hands says "Likewise IANAL, but as I understand it, if one does not defend a trademark, one risks losing it."

A reminder to the readers that after Daniel had been expelled from Debian and stripped of his developer status, he registered multiple domains with "debian" in them, forcing Debian to file suit against Daniel to defend their trademark (Daniel was ordered to turn over the domains).  Daniel states Debian has spent $120,000 in legal fees as a result of his actions.

[pocock]

I started putting some of my observations in blog posts, this one begins to cover the relationship with open source phenomena

I don't have a comment overall, but I find it ironic that very early on in his post, Daniel posts an 2011 email from the debian-private mailing list in which Philip Hands says "Likewise IANAL, but as I understand it, if one does not defend a trademark, one risks losing it."

If you accept Bitcoin from anybody who wants to use your trademark and then the Bitcoins lose all their value, what was the point?

A reminder to the readers that after Daniel had been expelled from Debian and stripped of his developer status,

I resigned from some voluntary activities at a time when I lost two family members. People spreading rumours about relationships with interns are lying, please read the proof about the relationships

There is nothing in copyright law to say people can expel each other.  If authors stop working together they still have to recognise the status of their peers.  Not respecting the status of a co-author is not expulsion, it is plagiarism.

he registered multiple domains with "debian" in them, forcing Debian to file suit against Daniel to defend their trademark (Daniel was ordered to turn over the domains).

DNSLytics found over 2,850 domain names containing the Debian trademark.  They did not start a trademark dispute about any of those domains.  They only attacked approximately a dozen domains registered by me because they want to censor debian-private emails revealing the the real history of Debian

Daniel states Debian has spent $120,000 in legal fees as a result of his actions.

In every serious development team I've worked in, if you have a dispute between people, you have a meeting and you look each other in the eye and you sort it out.

Debian didn't spend $120,000 because of my actions.  They spent $120,000 to avoid looking me in the eye.  They spent $120,000 to avoid apoligising to my family.  They spent $120,000 because they want other developers to be afraid of them in future.  They hope they can give people orders and people will obey them out of fear.  That is modern slavery.

FSFE received a bequest of EUR 150,000.  That is money that probably was meant for the real FSF.  The Fellowship had elected me as their representative and I didn't want to see the money wasted so I tried to provide some constructive suggestions about how to use that money.  The FSFE lost over $500,000 because they didn't listen to when we tried to discuss it