Live data from Hacker News

SourceHut terms of service updates, cryptocurrency projects to be removed

sourcehut.org

31–40 of 279 posts

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

#31
post #3

Any technology that we built is used for both good and evil. For example, assembly was used to get people on the moon, but also to navigate missiles to kill millions of people. Perl was used to sequence the genome, but also it was the main language that script kiddies used in the 2000s to deface millions of websites. Almost any library written is dual use, from openssl to left-pad. The web itself is used to enable wo…

It's subjective. For us, it's a question of social impact. Sure, torrenting copyrighted material is illegal, but what's the actual social consequence of it? Little to none. Bittorrent also has a wealth of legitimate use-cases. For cryptocurrency, this is not the case: the social impact is grave, and there are few to no legitimate use-cases for it.

I appreciate you taking a stance like this.

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

#35
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if any of their projects (or the projects of anybody who's reading these comments) are affected, this is a sign of things to come - kicking projects out for political reasons and moving to the EU means that one never knows what may come next.

We do not kick people out for political differences.

[deleted]

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

#36

This is disappointing. I'd previously been a big fan of the sourcehut model. I can understand not wanting to be associated with the billions of tinycoin ICO scams or NFTs that are just URL links or whatever else. But to reject things like Bitcoin or Ethereum seems to me to be a denial of reality. Just because it's not useful for you, doesn't make it not useful. For clarity, I will be affected by this change and I don…

It says they are willing to make exceptions if you contact them with compelling reason.

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

#38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We do not kick people out for political differences.

Your position, and your platforms position, on cryptocurrency projects is a political position. Kicking out projects over that position is kicking people out over a political difference.

In a sense, you're correct: this is a political position. But hell, so is everything else, including doing nothing, which is a political position in support of the status quo. We have always prohibited malware and bigoted comments, for example, which is a political stance in the same sense. However, I think that we have justified the stance on cryptocurrency pretty well with objectivity rather than opinion, which to my sensibilities is the key distinction between "political" and "non-political" opinions to the layman, in so far as such a distinction can even exist.

But kicking out projects and kicking out people is not the same thing. We will not ban anyone who expresses support for cryptocurrency -- they can host any of their projects which are not cryptocurrency related and participate in the rest of the platform as always.

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

#39

what exactly is this site alternative to?

a site doesn't have to justify its existence by being an alternative to anything.

No, but it gives contexts to those unfamilar. Comparisons and genres are how we categorize and understand the world.

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

#40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We do not kick people out for political differences.

Your position, and your platforms position, on cryptocurrency projects is a political position. Kicking out projects over that position is kicking people out over a political difference.

It sound like a business decision more than anything, although they do give some ethical rational my guess is that these projects are a legal liability and abusing the platform.
Post reply on HN