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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

by lrvick 2mo 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 2mo 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 2mo 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 2mo 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 2mo 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 2mo ago
        [flagged]
        iamnothere 2mo ago
        I see you’ve moved on to personal attacks, failing the “friendly advice” angle.
        otterley 2mo 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 2mo 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.
        lrvick 2mo ago
        Containers, desktop, server. We do all of it. Anyway. Kids are an excuse to get it passed. It is about testing the waters of how much control can be exerted by government on end user devices, and we need all maintainers to hold the line.
kube-system 2mo 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- 2mo 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 2mo ago
    If you could stop doing that thing, it isn't an impossibility under lex non cogit ad impossibilia.
    - nemomarx 2mo 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 2mo 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 2mo 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 2mo 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 2mo 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 2mo ago
What if you "complied" and released your personal version/fork with age verification that no one would use?
- lrvick 2mo 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_ 2mo 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.

by lrvick 2mo ago

otterley 2mo 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 2mo 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 2mo 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 2mo 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 2mo ago
      [flagged]
      - iamnothere 2mo ago
        I see you’ve moved on to personal attacks, failing the “friendly advice” angle.
        otterley 2mo 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 2mo 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.
      - lrvick 2mo ago
        Containers, desktop, server. We do all of it. Anyway. Kids are an excuse to get it passed. It is about testing the waters of how much control can be exerted by government on end user devices, and we need all maintainers to hold the line.

kube-system 2mo 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- 2mo 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 2mo ago
  If you could stop doing that thing, it isn't an impossibility under lex non cogit ad impossibilia.
  - nemomarx 2mo 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 2mo 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 2mo 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 2mo 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 2mo 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 2mo ago

What if you "complied" and released your personal version/fork with age verification that no one would use?

lrvick 2mo 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_ 2mo 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.