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SourceHut terms of service updates, cryptocurrency projects to be removed

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Re: SourceHut terms of service updates, cryptocurrency projects to be removed

#171

Post by woodruffw »

zeroclip wrote: post #167
woodruffw wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t believe Drew or any of the other Sourcehut admins profess to be the moral guardians of humanity. The “first they came for X” argumentative tack is built around the common understanding that you should stand up for those who can’t stand up for themselves, because nobody will be left to stand up for you should you need it. Are you claiming that the cryptocurrency industry can’t stand up for itself? I thought th…

That's not how the argument and poem[1] goes. If a devops team for a pro-choice campaign was being censored on SourceHut because it does not align with Drew's moral compass, nobody would defend this with "well, they can just run their own git hosting services, so what's the problem?" A lot of people building crypto tools also are happy to use centralized services like GitHub, SourceHut, GitLab, because they might not…

I'm very familiar with the poem, thanks. Take a look at the last line!

> If a devops team for a pro-choice campaign was being censored on SourceHut because it does not align with Drew's moral compass, nobody would defend this with "well, they can just run their own git hosting services, so what's the problem?"

Actually, I suspect that's precisely how some people would defend it. And why wouldn't they? It's completely independent from agreement or disagreement with the position.

Re: SourceHut terms of service updates, cryptocurrency projects to be removed

#172

Post by naasking »

vladharbuz wrote: post #73

There are people here who seem to take the view that businesses hosting the content of others ought to absolutely protect their "freedom of speech", no matter the content. I disagree. Some things are harmful to the lives of those around us, and just as the private individual can cast a social/cultural vote against this harmful thing by refusing to engage with it and support it, a business can cast a vote in the same…

> There are people here who seem to take the view that businesses hosting the content of others ought to absolutely protect their "freedom of speech", no matter the content. I disagree.

I also disagree, so long as competitors that disagree with such decisions are also permitted, and so long as the entity in question is not monopolistic or is acting as some kind of widely used utilities for speech. On some issues dissent isn't permitted, and there are many cases where some platforms are arguably acting as utilities.

Re: SourceHut terms of service updates, cryptocurrency projects to be removed

#173

Post by tossl568 »

woodruffw wrote: post #166
tossl568 wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin isn't going away. More people are putting their trust in it as their monetary standard every day, not less. Bitcoin, the asset and network are neutral. Scams on top of it, shitcoin affinity scams, or whatever "oodles of other great reasons" don't change that. The majority of Bitcoin mining is already renewable, it already incentivises renewables this isn't a hypothetical future. If somebody proposed a law tom…

This is a polemic. I don't have a stated position on whether Bitcoin is or isn't going away, and we've completely drifted away from the factual matter at hand (that Bitcoin does currently incentivize coal burning). If Bitcoin is neutral as you say, it cannot incentivize renewable production. It can only induce energy demand and, consequently, seek out the cheapest energy on the market. It doesn't get to sit on any la…

Bitcoin mining secures hundreds of billions of value for hundreds of millions of people going back to the very first transaction. It produces security, a forcefield around a financial system, and the miners get paid to do that.

Re: SourceHut terms of service updates, cryptocurrency projects to be removed

#174

Post by anxiously »

lostmsu wrote: post #159
anxiously wrote: post #101

I was recently considering moving to Sourcehut or Github after self hosting using gitrc for over a year. I have been going back and forth over self hosting versus leveraging an existing service, but this news and fumblings over Gitea last week have pretty much put me right back into self hosting..

How does this affect GitHub?

Because Github is a company I have no control over, like Sourcehut, Gitlab and others? The fundamental problem is, "Do I hand over control to entity X?" and I am leaning more heavily towards no than I was previously.

Re: SourceHut terms of service updates, cryptocurrency projects to be removed

#175

Post by 1MachineElf »

djha-skin wrote: post #137

As a paying customer, I am disenchanted. I agree with Drew's views on cryptocurrency on a personal level, but banning someone for using a technology before even knowing whether or not it's primarily being used to break the law is not what I had in mind. Sure, ban harassment, spam, illegal activities, and abuse of platform. But this kind of banning seems more arbitrary even than GitHub's, which is sort of what I was g…

Thanks for sharing RocketGit. This is the first time I've heard of it, and yes, it does look like a cool copyleft solution to self-hosted Git.

Another interesting option is Brendan Caroll's got[0], which allows sharing of repositories over INET256[1]. I'm sure there are other P2P approaches to Git, but this one recently piqued my interest. Unfortunately, it has a confusing and unresolved naming[2] conflict with OpenBSD's got (Game of Trees)[3].

[0] https://github.com/gotvc/got

[1] https://github.com/inet256/inet256

[2] https://github.com/gotvc/got/issues/20

[3] https://gameoftrees.org/

Re: SourceHut terms of service updates, cryptocurrency projects to be removed

#176

Post by exo762 »

Herbstluft wrote: post #140
rvz wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Put yourself in the maintainers' shoes — would you be happy to idly stand by when you know your service is being used to actively harm others' lives? [^1] Perhaps you would, and if so, I would be interested in hearing your view. Yeah, just like Tor, which is also heavily associated and almost exclusively used for illicit and illegal activities; especially by fraudsters, criminals, scammers, tax / sanctions evasion…

The difference is that projects like Tor were certainly not created with any devious purpose in mind. Arguments and use cases for anonymity are very easy to come up with. Blockchain related projects cause damage on two fronts: - They are commonly created with the explicit goal to scam most people while making very few people rich. - The tech around blockchains ( almost ) qualifies as snakeoil. The use cases are nonex…

> The difference is that projects like Tor were certainly not created with any devious purpose in mind.

Oh it was. It was created specifically to enable US agents communication with the headquarters. Which is definitely a military/intelligence purpose. And giving general public a tool for anonymity was specifically an exercise in providing a anonymity set for agents.

Re: SourceHut terms of service updates, cryptocurrency projects to be removed

#177

Post by zeroclip »

woodruffw wrote: post #171
zeroclip wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not how the argument and poem[1] goes. If a devops team for a pro-choice campaign was being censored on SourceHut because it does not align with Drew's moral compass, nobody would defend this with "well, they can just run their own git hosting services, so what's the problem?" A lot of people building crypto tools also are happy to use centralized services like GitHub, SourceHut, GitLab, because they might not…

I'm very familiar with the poem, thanks. Take a look at the last line! > If a devops team for a pro-choice campaign was being censored on SourceHut because it does not align with Drew's moral compass, nobody would defend this with "well, they can just run their own git hosting services, so what's the problem?" Actually, I suspect that's precisely how some people would defend it. And why wouldn't they? It's completely…

Yikes, I hope that people on HN would not defend such a decision this way.

Re: SourceHut terms of service updates, cryptocurrency projects to be removed

#178

Post by arghwhat »

tossl568 wrote: post #113
arghwhat wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's wasting huge amounts of precious resources, often from buying out old, unclean and otherwise decommissioned powerplants to make it extra bad. All with no immediate benefit. Even if Bitcoin was Proof of Stake, it's still a pretty "eh" technology. The best thing that happened to Bitcoin was when it got banned in China so that the mining capacity was vastly reduced, taking part of the environmental footprint with i…

No it isn't. If that energy is cheap enough to be used for securing Bitcoin then it can't have been used for something "useful" (in your opinion). Energy isn't fungible and transport costs exist. The immediate benefit is securing and making possible an open, permissionless digital financial system anybody can use. That is an absolutely stunning technological innovation. Proof of stake is the perpetual motion machine…

Sure, when we have a 100% renewable grid where Bitcoin neither takes away renewable quota, add dirty energy, cause grid to have to expand, or causes issues when TWh of heat is vented, and it is then adopted for legitimate reasons and not primarly for speculation and scamming, then Bitcoin goes from extremely harmful to mildly interesting.

Yes there are cases where they buy good power plants, but they also power from grid and buy dirty power plants. Even in case of good power, the investment should instead be made to make this power useful. Heck, folding at home or similar would be a hell of lot better usage.

But that isn't where we are. We're in a huge energy crunch, and having to go back on green policies because of it. During this time, ANY consumption is bad, and no, regardless of opinions on its usefulness, Bitcoin does not yet contribute in a meaningful enough way to sacrifice other utilities.

So yeah - I agree with you that we can waste power when and only when the vast majority of dirty power has been replaced.

Re: SourceHut terms of service updates, cryptocurrency projects to be removed

#179

Post by zeroclip »

ddevault wrote: post #161
zeroclip wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lol, hilarious. I guess Endaoment and any EVM-based project would also not be permitted, then. Now I wonder what would pass this nebulous Drew-review.

I mean, those are clearly cryptocurrency-related projects which fall well within the scope of this policy. The exceptions are not to let the "good" cryptocurrency projects in -- there are no such projects -- but to make sure that projects which are close to this domain get a fair shake, like something which incidentally uses a blockchain-like data structure, GNU Taler, etc.

Seems like you are saying that anything primarily relying on a permissionless and distributed consensus mechanism will not get a pass.

Re: SourceHut terms of service updates, cryptocurrency projects to be removed

#180

Post by woodruffw »

zeroclip wrote: post #177
woodruffw wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm very familiar with the poem, thanks. Take a look at the last line! > If a devops team for a pro-choice campaign was being censored on SourceHut because it does not align with Drew's moral compass, nobody would defend this with "well, they can just run their own git hosting services, so what's the problem?" Actually, I suspect that's precisely how some people would defend it. And why wouldn't they? It's completely…

Yikes, I hope that people on HN would not defend such a decision this way.

Well, me neither, but that doesn't mean I don't expect it :-)
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