bazkie 👩🏼💻 bitplanes 🎵we used to fight the system by moving from windows to linux
now we have to fight the system again by moving away from systemd distros
I hate how spineless people keep making life less comfortable for those wanting to make a stand
John Regan@bazkie what absolutely sucks is - I think this all could be struck down by the supreme court, as a first amendment, coerced speech issue.
But I don't think anybody has standing to bring up a case until their rights are infringed - as in issued fines or arrested for not complying.
That all gets very expensive, so if your options are drain your life savings fighting a case versus complying... That's a tough spot.
It speaks to how broken our legal system is and how much it favors the wealthy
Hoping a bigger company like canonical or red hat will choose to not comply since they'll have the resources to deal with the legal system.
That relies on it being a good business decision and I'm not sure if it is or not. I could see the argument for "this opens us up to liability we don't want" and it being a good strategy to fight it. Could see the opposite.
If any distros start a fundraising campaign to take this to court I'll absolutely donate.
@jprjr yeah I don't know, I'm actually expecting the corporate distros to fall in line, because corporations have no morals, only a bottom line.
I'm not sure, in the case of open source "hobbyist" distros, who would be liable. I feel people comply too easily, even if there is a risk - after all, if we all comply all the time we end up in some surveillance state, that's not good either. so we need to show some spine there
@bazkie agree. It's all very murky and hobbyists aren't lawyers (and also - neither am I, at all).
The laws are pretty poorly-written and assume operating systems are made by corporations.
I think the way this gets struc kdown is to not comply at all. Don't geoblock, don't throw up warnings, don't make users vouch they're not in a state with these laws. Do absolutely nothing different.
Then get sued/fined/arrested/whatever, go to court.
Sadly this will cost a lot of money.
@bazkie Something else that sucks about all of this - anybody that falls in line ahead of time is weakening the coerced speech argument.
@jprjr but I'm not so sure about that part. who exactly would get sued? and what if they don't live in the US? odds are non corporate entities are rather hard to sue.
but I guess we'd need a lawyer to learn more about this! where's the mastodon lawyer when you need them
@bazkie Yep. Even within the US - say a hobbyist living in Maryland (which doesn't have these laws (yet)) publishes a non-compliant distro on the internet. Users in California download the distro.
Does California have any right to go after that out-of-state individual? Could they be extradited to California?
We won't really know until California tries it and a court says yes or no.
These lawmakers know it will be too expensive to fight it.
Again: broken system that favors the wealthy.