[thaumasiotes]

For this, and for the criminal justice use case, it seems to me that it isn't possible for "work on open source" to receive this kind of formal recognition. Anyone is free to self-certify that they're working on an open-source project headed by, and exclusively contributed to by, themselves.

You'd need to formally recognize open-source projects that the German state approves of, on a case-by-case basis.

And even then you have questions like "If Hans Reiser is sentenced to community service for killing his wife, can he satisfy that by working on reiserfs? How is that different from sentencing him to no punishment?"

[em-bee]

the punishment argument makes no sense. it is already a problem if someone volunteers in any capacity and then commits a crime. sometimes community service is not the right punishment.

[account42]

Community service is not supposed to be a punishment but rather an opportunity to offset wrongs done by doing more good than the average person. If someone was already doing good deeds before then that is not an issue. If anything, courts already consider past good deeds when determining sentencing.

It's obviously not something that is an appropriate remedy for all crimes.

[Mountain_Skies]

True. It would need to be something associated with a registered non-profit organization/NGO. But isn't that already the case with other types of volunteer work?

[thaumasiotes]

But in that case, what is this petition hoping to achieve?

[zeeZ]

Maybe this would have helped with something like Mastodon losing non-profit status? https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2024/04/mastodon-forms-new-u.s...