6 ms·

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 fine

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.
    - kube-system 3mo ago
      The person you replied to is using "could"/"could not" to mean "would comply with the law"/"would not comply with the law" Nobody here is saying that anyone is going to swoop in and physically prevent this software from being distributed on the internet. > 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. The legislators who passed this don't give a shit about that. Their intended target of this legislation is mainstream devices and mainstream users.
      - lrvick 3mo ago
        Agreed. They are never going to actually come for niche Linux distros. All the more reason I am pushing back on all the fear. The correct response from the Linux community is to say "fuck off", and get back to making their distros more secure, more private, and easier to use.
        otterley 3mo ago
        [flagged]
        iamnothere 3mo ago
        I see you’ve moved on to personal attacks, failing the “friendly advice” angle.
        otterley 3mo ago
        "Don't be an Internet Tough Guy" is among my friendly advice. People can see right through it, and it often works against you.
        kube-system 3mo ago
        Major distros will comply because they want to sell their services in Illinois. I don’t think noncompliance of a container image is much of a “fuck you” since I don’t think lawmakers have ever heard of you nor would they really care about your compliance anyway. This bill is primarily about kids using smartphones.
- kube-system 3mo ago
  > Our FOSS code is constitutionally protected free speech and I would defend on those grounds. You have precisely zero additional speech rights as a FOSS project than any other organization has. If "free speech" was a valid defense for you, then Meta would be doing the same. > 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. Being unable to comply is not a valid legal defense. > 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. This is the law in various places under various mechanisms. It is handled by putting people in prison or taking people's assets.
  - greyface- 3mo ago
    > Being unable to comply is not a valid legal defense. Sure it is. Lawyers even have a pithy Latin maxim about it: lex non cogit ad impossibilia.
    - kube-system 3mo ago
      If you could stop doing that thing, it isn't an impossibility under lex non cogit ad impossibilia.
      - nemomarx 3mo ago
        what could they be compelled to stop doing here? Mechanically speaking, I mean. I can imagine fines or contempt of court, etc But how would you remove an international distro from "the marketplace" if it's free and not operating a business?
        otterley 3mo ago
        Same way anything else gets pulled from distribution. You shut down the servers, destroy keys, remove files, etc. Sure, the files may remain in circulation from unofficial sources, but that's not your problem, as long as you're no longer facilitating it.
- pornel 3mo ago
  Technical solutions may be seen as kindly as handcuffing yourself to something when told to leave. "I can't, I've made it impossible for myself to obey the law". They might not be able to break your private keys, but they can fine you or jail you for not complying.
  - lrvick 3mo ago
    I could, at worst, resign from the project. International maintainers would carry on the work, but I will never be compelled to write code I do not wish to write.
- aleph_minus_one 3mo ago
  > No need to hack the law. Our FOSS code is constitutionally protected free speech and I would defend on those grounds. "Der Proceß" [The Trial] by Franz Kafka is just a realistic description of the court system (Franz Kafka studied law).
- wkrsz 3mo ago
  What if you "complied" and released your personal version/fork with age verification that no one would use?
  - lrvick 3mo ago
    I could probably play games like this, but I outright do not believe this law is constitutionally valid, and believe it must be challenged by anyone they try to wield it against. I would refuse to even give the appearance of compliance in hope to motivate others to do the same.
- singleshot_ 3mo ago
  No, not all code is constitutionally protected free speech. Generally speaking, code can be considered speech, but it can also be considered defamation, a munition that could not be exported, a dangerous device that a convicted person could not possess, or a number of other Very Bad Things that could get a fella in a jam. Look to Universal Studios v. Corley for an example of code (speech) that is nonetheless not free, because the government has an interest and can regulate subject to intermediate scrutiny. > Truly I dare someone to try to take me to court over this. Would be great publicity for our coercion resistant approach. IANYL but that’s commendable. Ain’t a lot of people got a code to live by anymore. But it’s double the reason you should touch base with an attorney. Remember this: test cases have to know what they’re testing. If you want to move the law forward you have to break it correctly.
graceful6800 3mo ago
There is no "market"
JoshTriplett 3mo ago
> Again, speak with your attorney. Do not try to "hack the law" yourself; many who have tried have regretted it later. Also reach out to the EFF, who may be able to help/advise, especially if you genuinely want to fight this. This is a terrible law. That doesn't mean it's not a law, and courts do not look kindly on people subject to their jurisdiction (which unfortunately often includes state laws to people in other states) who try to dodge the responsibility the court thinks they should have.
- lrvick 3mo ago
  If someone is stupid enough to try to target me over my open source Linux contributions, the EFF would be my first call.
deleted 3mo ago
[deleted]
blurbleblurble 3mo ago
Or maybe we're at the point where we'll go to prison because of unjust laws.
- otterley 3mo ago
  You first!
  - blurbleblurble 3mo ago
    With all due respect I sense that you might be neglecting the big picture. Unjust laws, slopped out illegal orders and an extreme activist court are all in play.
    - otterley 3mo ago
      Those are valid opinions. However, I also see a lot of bluster here about going to prison for their beliefs from people who wouldn't last a minute behind bars.
      - iamnothere 3mo ago
        Given your comment history, I suspect that you are sympathetic to these laws and you’re trying to prevent people from opposing them, using your “friendly advice” as cover. Believe it or not, there are plenty of people in the US willing to go to jail (or worse) for their beliefs. It’s kind of the founding mythology of the nation. US history is full of people who successfully challenged violations of their rights and government overreach. Success isn’t guaranteed, sure. It never is. But cowering in fear because the tyrants might put you behind bars is downright un-American.
        otterley 3mo ago
        Not at all! I think these laws are dumb and I don't want my state to pass one. But when I play, I play to win. Openly thumbing one's nose at the courts and the state is rarely a winning strategy. The way to win is through the democratic process: persuading elected officials to take your side. That, in turn, requires persuading the public to take your side.
s3p 3mo ago
I'd trust the judgement on an open source maintainer on how to best maintain their code. Your comment seems like it was made out of genuine concern but I think you need a lawyer too before you can argue this with certainty

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.
  - kube-system 3mo ago
    The person you replied to is using "could"/"could not" to mean "would comply with the law"/"would not comply with the law" Nobody here is saying that anyone is going to swoop in and physically prevent this software from being distributed on the internet. > 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. The legislators who passed this don't give a shit about that. Their intended target of this legislation is mainstream devices and mainstream users.
    - lrvick 3mo ago
      Agreed. They are never going to actually come for niche Linux distros. All the more reason I am pushing back on all the fear. The correct response from the Linux community is to say "fuck off", and get back to making their distros more secure, more private, and easier to use.
      - otterley 3mo ago
        [flagged]
        iamnothere 3mo ago
        I see you’ve moved on to personal attacks, failing the “friendly advice” angle.
        otterley 3mo ago
        "Don't be an Internet Tough Guy" is among my friendly advice. People can see right through it, and it often works against you.
      - kube-system 3mo ago
        Major distros will comply because they want to sell their services in Illinois. I don’t think noncompliance of a container image is much of a “fuck you” since I don’t think lawmakers have ever heard of you nor would they really care about your compliance anyway. This bill is primarily about kids using smartphones.
kube-system 3mo ago
> Our FOSS code is constitutionally protected free speech and I would defend on those grounds. You have precisely zero additional speech rights as a FOSS project than any other organization has. If "free speech" was a valid defense for you, then Meta would be doing the same. > 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. Being unable to comply is not a valid legal defense. > 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. This is the law in various places under various mechanisms. It is handled by putting people in prison or taking people's assets.
- greyface- 3mo ago
  > Being unable to comply is not a valid legal defense. Sure it is. Lawyers even have a pithy Latin maxim about it: lex non cogit ad impossibilia.
  - kube-system 3mo ago
    If you could stop doing that thing, it isn't an impossibility under lex non cogit ad impossibilia.
    - nemomarx 3mo ago
      what could they be compelled to stop doing here? Mechanically speaking, I mean. I can imagine fines or contempt of court, etc But how would you remove an international distro from "the marketplace" if it's free and not operating a business?
      - otterley 3mo ago
        Same way anything else gets pulled from distribution. You shut down the servers, destroy keys, remove files, etc. Sure, the files may remain in circulation from unofficial sources, but that's not your problem, as long as you're no longer facilitating it.
pornel 3mo ago
Technical solutions may be seen as kindly as handcuffing yourself to something when told to leave. "I can't, I've made it impossible for myself to obey the law". They might not be able to break your private keys, but they can fine you or jail you for not complying.
- lrvick 3mo ago
  I could, at worst, resign from the project. International maintainers would carry on the work, but I will never be compelled to write code I do not wish to write.
aleph_minus_one 3mo ago
> No need to hack the law. Our FOSS code is constitutionally protected free speech and I would defend on those grounds. "Der Proceß" [The Trial] by Franz Kafka is just a realistic description of the court system (Franz Kafka studied law).
wkrsz 3mo ago
What if you "complied" and released your personal version/fork with age verification that no one would use?
- lrvick 3mo ago
  I could probably play games like this, but I outright do not believe this law is constitutionally valid, and believe it must be challenged by anyone they try to wield it against. I would refuse to even give the appearance of compliance in hope to motivate others to do the same.
singleshot_ 3mo ago
No, not all code is constitutionally protected free speech. Generally speaking, code can be considered speech, but it can also be considered defamation, a munition that could not be exported, a dangerous device that a convicted person could not possess, or a number of other Very Bad Things that could get a fella in a jam. Look to Universal Studios v. Corley for an example of code (speech) that is nonetheless not free, because the government has an interest and can regulate subject to intermediate scrutiny. > Truly I dare someone to try to take me to court over this. Would be great publicity for our coercion resistant approach. IANYL but that’s commendable. Ain’t a lot of people got a code to live by anymore. But it’s double the reason you should touch base with an attorney. Remember this: test cases have to know what they’re testing. If you want to move the law forward you have to break it correctly.

graceful6800 3mo ago

There is no "market"

JoshTriplett 3mo ago

> Again, speak with your attorney. Do not try to "hack the law" yourself; many who have tried have regretted it later. Also reach out to the EFF, who may be able to help/advise, especially if you genuinely want to fight this. This is a terrible law. That doesn't mean it's not a law, and courts do not look kindly on people subject to their jurisdiction (which unfortunately often includes state laws to people in other states) who try to dodge the responsibility the court thinks they should have.

lrvick 3mo ago
If someone is stupid enough to try to target me over my open source Linux contributions, the EFF would be my first call.

deleted 3mo ago

[deleted]

blurbleblurble 3mo ago

Or maybe we're at the point where we'll go to prison because of unjust laws.

otterley 3mo ago
You first!
- blurbleblurble 3mo ago
  With all due respect I sense that you might be neglecting the big picture. Unjust laws, slopped out illegal orders and an extreme activist court are all in play.
  - otterley 3mo ago
    Those are valid opinions. However, I also see a lot of bluster here about going to prison for their beliefs from people who wouldn't last a minute behind bars.
    - iamnothere 3mo ago
      Given your comment history, I suspect that you are sympathetic to these laws and you’re trying to prevent people from opposing them, using your “friendly advice” as cover. Believe it or not, there are plenty of people in the US willing to go to jail (or worse) for their beliefs. It’s kind of the founding mythology of the nation. US history is full of people who successfully challenged violations of their rights and government overreach. Success isn’t guaranteed, sure. It never is. But cowering in fear because the tyrants might put you behind bars is downright un-American.
      - otterley 3mo ago
        Not at all! I think these laws are dumb and I don't want my state to pass one. But when I play, I play to win. Openly thumbing one's nose at the courts and the state is rarely a winning strategy. The way to win is through the democratic process: persuading elected officials to take your side. That, in turn, requires persuading the public to take your side.

s3p 3mo ago

I'd trust the judgement on an open source maintainer on how to best maintain their code. Your comment seems like it was made out of genuine concern but I think you need a lawyer too before you can argue this with certainty