Hacker News Reader

Comment by pmlnr | Hacker News Reader

I love how everyone skips the part that freenode's democratically elected former leader was the one who simply sold something they shouldn't have been able to - blame should first be directed at them.

View on HN

Possession of stolen good is equally punishable as theft..

*Knowingly

It's not so much a question of possession so much as ... if the good was stolen, you simply have no contract, because the seller didn't own it. It's not your good to begin with. You may not have stolen it, but you still need to return it.

They weren't stolen though. They gave someone leadership power and that person entered into contracts on behalf of the organisation. Multiple blogs mention there is no legal recourse so they have asked lawyers and it's all legit.

An organization doesn't get ownership over a volunteer run project by sharing a name.

It might just be that there's no affordable legal recourse.

They get ownership of the domains and name. They said specifically no legal recourse with a likelihood to win.

Interestingly enough, there are drastic differences written in law regarding this. In some countries, you are in fact allowed to keep purchased stolen goods, if they were bought in good faith. While in other countries, you as the buyer can be in serious trouble, even if you couldn't know if it was stolen and at least need to prove that you were misled and did everything you could to prove ownership.

I guess you were arguing morally, just pointing out this isn't legally true everywhere.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com