7 ms·

If you're in the USA or plan to visit someday, I would recommend you speak with your attorney before making such commitments.

lrvick 3mo ago
I am in the USA, but I literally cannot comply because by design it is not possible for me to ship changes without the international maintainer team agreeing to them. And Illinois legislators have no power over them. Also, we are not a company. We are an independent community owned project. Our code is free speech and I will burn the world down to defend that right. Truly I dare someone to try to take me to court over this. Would be great publicity for our coercion resistant approach. They might as well try to mandate code changes to a blockchain and mandate the whole world host them.
- rsyring 3mo ago
  Thank you.
- mebizzle 3mo ago
  Thank you for fighting the good fight.
- EA-3167 3mo ago
  I respect your principled stance on one hand, while on the other I’m amazed that someone as successful as you hasn’t learned that logic doesn’t dictate how governments work. Don’t make a target of yourself, there are countless ways for a government to make your life miserable.
  - lrvick 3mo ago
    I will never show fear to tech-illiterate bullies trying to compromise constitutionally protected rights. That is how freedoms get quietly lost. Users need to see that the people in positions of influence in FOSS projects they trust are not afraid of this bullshit. I -hope- someone is stupid enough to take a case like this to court so we can establish some much needed case law here. These overreaches deserve to be contested.
    - otterley 3mo ago
      > constitutionally protected rights Wait, which constitutionally protected right is that? I'm an attorney and constitutional scholar and am particularly interested in what right you believe is being violated here.
      - misphrasing 3mo ago
        Code is speech. Forcing someone to implement something is legally-compelled speech, assuming no complicating factor like commerce.
        otterley 3mo ago
        That argument has been going on for decades, and has had few victories in the court system. The DMCA, which prohibits trafficking in anticircumvention devices, even though there's a lot of code in them, is still alive and well.
        lrvick 3mo ago
        And the DMCA has been rightfully weakened to the point that archive.org has every Nintendo Gamecube game ever made hosted for the public, for years, uncontested. So too will these other silly laws go I expect.
        iamnothere 3mo ago
        Not only that, but people like myself are working on underground distribution networks in case they’re ever needed. Absolute worst case we’ll do sneakernet. More likely we’ll just distribute via overlay networks. Some of us are crazy enough to be full on free speech martyrs, believe it or not.
        hnlmorg 3mo ago
        I’m not a lawyer and even I know that argument would never hold up given the plethora of other laws that have been implemented through software. Not to mention copyright and patent claims too.
- otterley 3mo ago
  There are a lot of remedies available to a court with respect to a recalcitrant party, ranging from an injunction to remove your product from the market to fines and imprisonment. Again, speak with your attorney. Do not try to "hack the law" yourself; many who have tried have regretted it later.
  - lrvick 3mo ago
    No need to hack the law. Our FOSS code is constitutionally protected free speech and I would defend on those grounds. The technical design of the project just makes it so no one can force changes on the distro unwanted by the maintainer team regardless of any courtroom outcomes. Like, what if someone made a law that said Bitcoin nodes must KYC? They could make the law I guess, and the international network operators would just laugh at it.
    - otterley 3mo ago
      The concern here is probably with the shipping of the product (i.e. the binary artifacts), not the code itself. I can imagine a situation in which you could continue to make the code available, but could not produce a shippable artifact from it that Illinoians could access.
      - lrvick 3mo ago
        If they are successful at doing so, then those distribution methods were too brittle. I expect in response one of the maintainers outside US jurisdiction of their own volition publishes via bittorrent, tor hidden services, and embedding blobs in public blockchains with no help from me. Then the problem the legislators sought to solve just got a lot worse, while calling a lot of attention to how little power they actually have to control decentralized FOSS software projects. Of course another point of the project is building the entire thing from source code with deterministic results only takes a few hours. For many, this would be faster than downloading artifacts. It is not needed for maintainers to publish binaries at all. Publishing signatures on the expected hashes would suffice at worst.
- deleted 3mo ago
  [deleted]
- 28304283409234 3mo ago
  Honey, that just means you cannot ship.
- polski-g 3mo ago
  If you're in the ninth circuit you're safe because of Bernstein v DoJ.
  - DennisP 3mo ago
    If you're in the sixth circuit you're even safer because of Junger vs Daley.
    - deleted 3mo ago
      [deleted]
    - otterley 3mo ago
      Stop it. This is not something either of you are competent to provide legal advice about. Anyone concerned about this should consult a licensed attorney, not get advice from randos on HN.
      - lrvick 3mo ago
        I for one found two new cases to read about, and appreciate their comments. Anyone should be free to research, discuss, and try to understand the law for themselves. Lawyers do not own the law. But if actually pulled into a courtroom, sure, get a lawyer.
        otterley 3mo ago
        > Anyone should be free to research, discuss, and try to understand the law for themselves. Lawyers do not own the law. This isn't mere research and discussion; it's suggesting an outcome (i.e., "you're safe[r]"). That crosses a line into advice. > But if actually pulled into a courtroom, sure, get a lawyer. By the time you get pulled into a courtroom, it is often far too late. The time to talk to an attorney is well before that, when you’re contemplating action. That is the main point I’ve been trying to make, and it seems you just don’t want to pay heed. Yes, you've said multiple times that you're not afraid of the consequences, but you'll forgive me if I don't believe you. History is replete with people who regretted their actions once prosecutorial actions were commenced and punishments meted out. Defending oneself is expensive, and convictions impact not just the guilty but also their career and family. Ultimately, it's your life and you have to live with the decisions you make. (And, possibly, your family, should you have one.) Your bluster and actions may not harm you in this specific instance because you’re involved with a project too small to attract a prosecutor’s attention, but it doesn’t make my caution any less valid. It may not persuade you, personally, but hopefully others who read this will get the message.

lrvick 3mo ago

I am in the USA, but I literally cannot comply because by design it is not possible for me to ship changes without the international maintainer team agreeing to them. And Illinois legislators have no power over them. Also, we are not a company. We are an independent community owned project. Our code is free speech and I will burn the world down to defend that right. Truly I dare someone to try to take me to court over this. Would be great publicity for our coercion resistant approach. They might as well try to mandate code changes to a blockchain and mandate the whole world host them.

rsyring 3mo ago
Thank you.
mebizzle 3mo ago
Thank you for fighting the good fight.
EA-3167 3mo ago
I respect your principled stance on one hand, while on the other I’m amazed that someone as successful as you hasn’t learned that logic doesn’t dictate how governments work. Don’t make a target of yourself, there are countless ways for a government to make your life miserable.
- lrvick 3mo ago
  I will never show fear to tech-illiterate bullies trying to compromise constitutionally protected rights. That is how freedoms get quietly lost. Users need to see that the people in positions of influence in FOSS projects they trust are not afraid of this bullshit. I -hope- someone is stupid enough to take a case like this to court so we can establish some much needed case law here. These overreaches deserve to be contested.
  - otterley 3mo ago
    > constitutionally protected rights Wait, which constitutionally protected right is that? I'm an attorney and constitutional scholar and am particularly interested in what right you believe is being violated here.
    - misphrasing 3mo ago
      Code is speech. Forcing someone to implement something is legally-compelled speech, assuming no complicating factor like commerce.
      - otterley 3mo ago
        That argument has been going on for decades, and has had few victories in the court system. The DMCA, which prohibits trafficking in anticircumvention devices, even though there's a lot of code in them, is still alive and well.
        lrvick 3mo ago
        And the DMCA has been rightfully weakened to the point that archive.org has every Nintendo Gamecube game ever made hosted for the public, for years, uncontested. So too will these other silly laws go I expect.
        iamnothere 3mo ago
        Not only that, but people like myself are working on underground distribution networks in case they’re ever needed. Absolute worst case we’ll do sneakernet. More likely we’ll just distribute via overlay networks. Some of us are crazy enough to be full on free speech martyrs, believe it or not.
      - hnlmorg 3mo ago
        I’m not a lawyer and even I know that argument would never hold up given the plethora of other laws that have been implemented through software. Not to mention copyright and patent claims too.
otterley 3mo ago
There are a lot of remedies available to a court with respect to a recalcitrant party, ranging from an injunction to remove your product from the market to fines and imprisonment. Again, speak with your attorney. Do not try to "hack the law" yourself; many who have tried have regretted it later.
- lrvick 3mo ago
  No need to hack the law. Our FOSS code is constitutionally protected free speech and I would defend on those grounds. The technical design of the project just makes it so no one can force changes on the distro unwanted by the maintainer team regardless of any courtroom outcomes. Like, what if someone made a law that said Bitcoin nodes must KYC? They could make the law I guess, and the international network operators would just laugh at it.
  - otterley 3mo ago
    The concern here is probably with the shipping of the product (i.e. the binary artifacts), not the code itself. I can imagine a situation in which you could continue to make the code available, but could not produce a shippable artifact from it that Illinoians could access.
    - lrvick 3mo ago
      If they are successful at doing so, then those distribution methods were too brittle. I expect in response one of the maintainers outside US jurisdiction of their own volition publishes via bittorrent, tor hidden services, and embedding blobs in public blockchains with no help from me. Then the problem the legislators sought to solve just got a lot worse, while calling a lot of attention to how little power they actually have to control decentralized FOSS software projects. Of course another point of the project is building the entire thing from source code with deterministic results only takes a few hours. For many, this would be faster than downloading artifacts. It is not needed for maintainers to publish binaries at all. Publishing signatures on the expected hashes would suffice at worst.
deleted 3mo ago
[deleted]
28304283409234 3mo ago
Honey, that just means you cannot ship.
polski-g 3mo ago
If you're in the ninth circuit you're safe because of Bernstein v DoJ.
- DennisP 3mo ago
  If you're in the sixth circuit you're even safer because of Junger vs Daley.
  - deleted 3mo ago
    [deleted]
  - otterley 3mo ago
    Stop it. This is not something either of you are competent to provide legal advice about. Anyone concerned about this should consult a licensed attorney, not get advice from randos on HN.
    - lrvick 3mo ago
      I for one found two new cases to read about, and appreciate their comments. Anyone should be free to research, discuss, and try to understand the law for themselves. Lawyers do not own the law. But if actually pulled into a courtroom, sure, get a lawyer.
      - otterley 3mo ago
        > Anyone should be free to research, discuss, and try to understand the law for themselves. Lawyers do not own the law. This isn't mere research and discussion; it's suggesting an outcome (i.e., "you're safe[r]"). That crosses a line into advice. > But if actually pulled into a courtroom, sure, get a lawyer. By the time you get pulled into a courtroom, it is often far too late. The time to talk to an attorney is well before that, when you’re contemplating action. That is the main point I’ve been trying to make, and it seems you just don’t want to pay heed. Yes, you've said multiple times that you're not afraid of the consequences, but you'll forgive me if I don't believe you. History is replete with people who regretted their actions once prosecutorial actions were commenced and punishments meted out. Defending oneself is expensive, and convictions impact not just the guilty but also their career and family. Ultimately, it's your life and you have to live with the decisions you make. (And, possibly, your family, should you have one.) Your bluster and actions may not harm you in this specific instance because you’re involved with a project too small to attract a prosecutor’s attention, but it doesn’t make my caution any less valid. It may not persuade you, personally, but hopefully others who read this will get the message.