The last time I was there, I had the poor luck to schedule my train out of Berlin as a protest was being held. People were super polite, parting ways for me then going back to their thing. One of the leaders must have heard through the grapevine I was a travelling academic and tried to put me on the spot if I "supported" the protest. (They were unhappy about the Trans Pacific Partnership).
I told him I study privacy, not law nor economics so I don't feel qualified to comment on a trade agreement, but I certainly support their right to express their opinion.
And with that, what very little hostility I'd encountered that day vanished, and I went off to eat my currywurst, drink my beer, and watch some videos on my laptop while waiting for my train.
I'm going to pause and say maybe this is the kind of policy question we should leave to the citizens of said country... it seems to center around extremely technical terms in a legal system a lot of us on (overwhelmingly American) HN have very little understanding.
Germany has a history of being extremely supportive of open source -- when I was exploring the clubs, the only black shirt I had was one with a giant Firefox logo, and I got a lot of postive feedback and even let past the line at one place, so I'd be curious what German citizens have to say on the matter before forming my own opinion.
Indeed it should be up to Germans to decide how to handle this, but given their general respect for The Common Good, I'm positive about such a law. Godspeed!
So definitely want to be mindful you don't open the door to tax avoidance and exploitation under the guise of charity.
I know very little about the EU, but I've worked with nonprofits a lot in the USA and there's a lot that are basically corporate cut outs used to lobbying that's a stretch to say is in the public interest.