4549 sats \ 21 replies \ @theariard OP 27 Feb \ on: AJ Towns censoring on Delving Bitcoin to cover Bitcoin Core backdoors ? bitcoin
I’ll make one more public comment as I being asked by a Bitcoin Core contributor I trust what is going on.
I’m not the first one who has sent lawyers letters to another Bitcoin developer to produce a chilling effect.
Alex Morcos from Chaincode did last year, it’s documented here:
https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/lightning-dev/2023-March/003887.html
For everyone awareness, a lot of Bitcoin Core developers, a lot of younger and elders devs cannot speak freely on the subject as their legal fees in the context of some of the BDFL litigations is contributed by Alex Morcos.
From my appreciation, a lot of developers fear to speak up their minds in public and to be threat to be withdrawn legal support provided in the context of current or any future litigation.
Personally, I’m not a defendant in the CSW litigation so I don’t have this constraint and I stay free to speak up my minds about other developers’s behaviors, who ever they are.
For everyone awareness, a lot of Bitcoin Core developers, a lot of younger and elders devs cannot speak freely on the subject as their legal fees in the context of some of the BDFL litigations is contributed by Alex Morcos.
Speaking as one of those devs, being in three different lawsuits with Craig Wright right now funded I'm part by Chaincode, it would be good if Chaincode could publicly confirm that the letter you received was real or not.
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I confirm the authenticity of the letter.
I can also confirm there were no material evidences backing up this letter according to Chaincode’s own legal firm. A practice which is very ethically questionable according to US bar guidelines in matters of lawyers’s letters.
I’m still waiting for Alex Morcos to clarify his pattern of behavior here.
Overall I believe the BDFL is a positive thing, at the very least in terms of having one or more legal defense group for FOSS developers at the image of the EFF. Without this becoming a factor of centralization itself.
I fully empathize with you on being a defendant in three lawsuits with CSW. You can be very certain the legal basis to open additional counter-litigation against CSW and Calvin Ayre have been explored on my side.
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a lot of younger and elders devs cannot speak freely
a lot of developers fear to speak up their minds in public
Hmm I wonder fucking why. Maybe because of bullshit like this post.
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I didn’t qualify AJ’s maintenance of Delving Bitcoin of bullshit.
Quite the contrary, I did invite to clarify his position and make it clear I was interested to engage in the conversation.
In matters of FOSS, if you have an issue with transparency and justifying your public actions in the public domain, something is wrong in my opinion.
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I'm extremely skeptical of your point of view based on you sending a lawyer letter alone. This is a questionable extreme escalation at best and CSW-esque that pushes more conversation offline in privacy at worst.
Can you say anything further to convince the general pleb public that this was a reasonable course of action and you had exhausted other options?
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Are you daft? @theariard was the one who RECEIVED a letter from a lawyer. What are you on about, anon?
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I don't read it that way. If the archives are correct he was accused of making legal threats before making any statement that can be construed as one.
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Yes, my original post on Delving Bitcoin was to raise awareness on any long-term risk we could have to have design development process happening behind “close-doors” especially related about IP.
When we see how CSW is making claims based on decade-old communications, and some of the very OG developers (e.g Sirius) have publish their own personal archives to bring clarity, I sincerely think we should minimize private technical conversations only for grounded reasons.
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How can you argue it's a separate case to this one when the discussion is about whether or not Bitcoin development is being corrupted by involvement of a corporation who sent a letter from their lawfirm a year prior to the discussion in question.
https://github.com/jamesob/delving-bitcoin-archive/blob/master/archive/rendered-topics/2024-02-February/2024-02-22-workgroup-lifecycle-id598.md
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Is this as simple as at that github link the OP stating, "At the very least, people engaging in such private communication channels should consult lawyers in the main major juridictions, if such communication practice is not specially tainting their responsibilities in case of future FOSS software defect in some way." in a genuine way of trying to say "hey I don't know if this is legally acceptable with this software license maybe we should ask a lawyer" and getting misconstrued as a direct legal threat and all spinning out of control from there? Could most of this just be a misunderstanding that got out of hand? However when I read that it definitely feels to me like a legal threat, but maybe it was just a well intentioned question that wasn't well phrased?
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"hey I don't know if this is legally acceptable with this software license maybe we should ask a lawyer
I had especially in mind the CSW’s database case, where CSW is making claims based on a sui generis rights recognized by the EU laws.
Whatever we can think of the EU laws legitimacy in this area, seeing how they can be leveraged against the interest of the Bitcoin ecosystem, especially we should be more careful of marking “original work” in critical Bitcoin areas the public domain. Systematically closing the doors to future CSW’s like judicial contests.
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Comes off as more of a warning to potential liability than a threat.
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To make clear is this correct: the proper understanding is the OP received a Cease & Desist Letter in 2017 from Chaincode. Separately also now in 2024 OP is also saying lawyers need to be consulted - but not directly threatening legal action or sending a letter directly from a lawyer?
Sorry this is hard to follow. Just trying to get this straight. Not trying to give anyone a hard time.
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The year I received a cease-and-desist letter from Chaincode was 2023 (last year) not 2017.
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For full clarity towards the general pleb public.
I have never sent a lawyer letter to AJ Towns, neither threats him in private to take this course of actions.
However, I did receive lawyer’s letter in the past from some bitcoin core development organization for matters related to development. See one of my post above about March 2023 mailing list event. I think I made it very clear it constituted a break of “good faith” communications in the community.
I’ve never receive from them formal excuses for such conduct of actions leading to a "CWS-esque” situation as you said so. Neither invitation to clarify our misunderstanding on the appropriate channels.
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I will speak for most people here: FUCK LAWYERS - most politicians are former lawyers - politicians write the laws which lawyers rape the citizens are judged with. And all judges are also former lawyers.
This is ->THE<- reason why Bitcoin devs should work only via a pseudonym. Keep writing code laws can't touch.
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what do you do if you have an opsec failure and your pseudonym doesn’t bind?
better to have defense in depth ready.
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100%. If you are wise; you adopt a page from the governmental mafia: A fully separated and hardened device, and network (Tor/VPN/??), for your clandestine ops. This need not be a high cost device - it's not your daily driver.
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