[Official Announcement] Flattr support enabled in Jolla Harbour and Jolla Store!

What is the point of that law anyway, almost sounds as stupid as the US teacher who banned linux with her pupils and confiscated free floppies distributed by one of the pupils, just out of pure ignorance. She thought Linux just was some illegal pirate thing.

This is like saying, "Software should not be funded in a free and open manor, only evil big-a$$ corporations should be allowed to take money for software". Finland is a nice country in most ways, but this is just the worst dumb-a$$ crap-law I've heard about.

I also question that law in this context, because it leads in with the text "without anything in return" and this is not the case here, the software is indeed something in return. I can completely understand if this is something law that wants to prevent beggars and such (which indeed is a big problem), but software funding is something completely different.

@Larswad: "Purpose of this Act is to enable the organization of the financing of non-profit activities and prevent dishonest activity in connection with money collections."

@avhakola: Thanks, but what does that really mean in plain English? What is an example of dishonest activity this would prevent? Money laundering?

And the first reason, can one enable non-profit activities by forbidding software funding? Its sounds to me like there is contradiction between the two.

I am not quite sure about Finnnish law, but in Sweden we have laws about organisations that seek donations. They need to register and have a limit on how much overhead they may cut out of the donations. Basically it is a law to stop scammers. Flattr on the other hand seems more like what a street musician would do, and that is certainly legal, at least in Sweden.

P.S. For those who wonder why I am rambling on about Swedish law when the question was regarding Finnish law: The two countries have very similar legislation, in fact they used to be a single country.

@simo, @00prometheus: So judging by your explanations/views it seems as though it all comes down to interpretation and precedence in courts. Obviously Finland then interprets this quite differently.

I would guess they need to try this again in Finland, for software of this sort it becomes sorta ridiculous.

Publishing software is giving something in return, so IMO no need to read that law at all

Exactly!