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Posting in double from this Delving Bitcoin thread (https://delvingbitcoin.org/t/code-of-conduct-violation-banning-antoine-riard-for-3-months/1254/2) to ensure good information of the Bitcoin community
Giving an update on this thread.
I’ll pursue Matthew Corallo in front of courts of justice, be it a North Carolina one or another competent US court.
I started to contribute on the rust-lightning project in 2018, when it was actually 2 active contributors working on it, i.e only Mr Corallo and myself, far before Square Crypto was a thing, so we know each other quite well.
This will avoid unrelated third-party people like Rusty Russell again being lied to and being instrumentalized to serve the very private interest of Mr. Corallo, or also as I might suspect a commercial interest of Mr. Corallo’s current employer.
I’ve been asked by some journalists to clarify what’s going with those issues, and again very recently by people I’m usually not connected with, so I’ll re-said in public what I’ve been saying in private.
Those issues are not related to the US national security. Neither anything w.r.t US intelligence agencies.
This is more simply an old-fashion quarrel among 2 foss guys. One guy thinks he’s the benevolent dictator for life of each open-source project he’s touching, and in consequence that other contributors should just shut up and obey, and even believe it’s okay to do private phone calls to threat the professional reputations of the ones who don’t comply.
The other guy disagrees.
Courts of justice it’s usually the civilized way of solving conflicts among grown up people. It will take the time that it will takes, years if we have to. The timeframe of courts of justice is usually not the one of publishing an online social media post, and there people most of time, think before to speak.
It will be interesting to have a US court of justice have a say on what “decentralization” really means in an open-source project. Up to the Supreme Court of the US, if it’s necessary.
Warmly,
Antoine Riard.
17 sats \ 4 replies \ @anon 10 Jan
Classic Antoine Riard post. I'm not sure I've missed this kind of drama.
Good luck!
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Beyond, there is nothing more to say, and builders build.
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Thanks to remind me my own words.
I do think the last time I wrote and tested bitcoin code was yesterday and the last time I reviewed bitcoin consensus changes were during the last weeks.
For the reasons motivating any lawsuit against another developer this will be explained in the lawsuit itself, and by default the courts of justice are public.
This is contrary to the emails I have received from the self-appointed lightning code of conduct, of which said emails are received in private.
Publicity is good as any interested bitcoin media will be able to know more.
Sadly, bitcoin developers do not have other ways of solving conflits among themselves rather than old school courts of justice.
One can do a lawsuit with one hand and keep building with the other one.
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0 sats \ 1 reply \ @anon 10 Jan
Sadly, bitcoin developers do not have other ways of solving conflits among themselves rather than old school courts of justice.
Why not forking off? And do what you want on your chain? Otherwise, consensus is the way to go, not the court. That's Faketoshi's way.
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This is a good question.
I should have precised inter-personal conflicts among devs, not technical consensus ones. On the technical philosophy, I think the people I’m singling out in my post are in agreement most of the time with my ideas, and vice-versa.
The debate or present conflict is on the conduct of the janitorial maintenance of the public communication channels at large, where Bitcoin domain experts are having usual conversations on technical consensus, while those channels being abused by some to damage one’s professional reputation.
Those channels are shared among all and usually administratively transferred among generations of devs on technical merits criteria. This is consistent with the claim that the Bitcoin development is the "private property” of no one. Otherwise that would mean all the discourse about “decentralization” of Bitcoin is baseless.
The problem of Faketoshi was not going to courts. In democratic societies where the rule of law is reigning this is the norm. The problem with Faketoshi a.k.a CWS was him producing a massive amounts of forged evidences, lying repeatedly in front of judge and engaging in fantasist stories about the past.
Beyond, there was a prominent bitcoin dev, far more veteran than I am, that have been to courts in the past years to defend his own professional reputation against allegations of a recognized applied cryptographer. I do not exactly remember the outcome in this case, though courts records are usually public, and one can go to read them.
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"To ensure that project forums are open and friendly, we count on maintainers and project representatives to behave in a way that is not disruptive to any one participant's well-being."
translation: contributors can be cancelled for non technical subjective reasons, with oversight by a trust me bro committee.
Lightning is Woke.
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This is 100% the point the “trust me bro committee”.
Let’s add a bit more of fact-based context. From my experience I don’t think the majority of Lightning developers and engineers contributing to the protocol development are woke, by what we usually understand under those terms. There is a clear vocal minority embodying wokeness, of which I think Mr. Corallo and its utmost superior Mr. Dorsey are constitutive (not even all the folks at Spiral or Block Inc in my opinion, some are clearly not woke). I’ve met Mr. Dorsey in-person too in the past, so I’m talking with good knowledge of the facts.
Of course, I do not question one’s to hold political opinion including woke ones, especially in the US with the 1st Amendment, as long it does not interfere with the professional domain and conversations about objective technical reasons.
Now among those silent Lightning developers and engineers, given the current majority mode of funding of Bitcoin open-source large, i.e the research grants and other similar type of employments, most of those silent Lightning engineers are fearing to speak up on those issues, or at least express what they’re really thinking in public by some anxiety to be singled out when it’s time of their next open-source grant renewal (— or find their next job, potentially at Block Inc). That’s one fundamental issue with how grants are allocated today, the criteria of allocations are very nebulous or opaque (I can think only non-profit org that start to be more transparent on how they’re allocating each grant individually). So generally it helps if you have “friends” in the open-source grant committee to get your new grants for the ones making a career in bitcoin open-source development (or speaking more frankly to do the “sucker”). Let’s remind the very active role that Mr. Dorsey is playing in the funding of the Bitcoin open-source stage (somehow to his positive credit, it’s not a “black-and-white” situation).
To this phenomena of the youngest Lightning protocol devs being reticent to express on those issues by apprehension of some fireback on their professional careers, there is the other phenomena of the “Old Guard” of historic developers on the Bitcoin Core implementation, which have seen their legal fees covered by the Bitcoin Defense Legal Fund in the series of CSW cases, this initiative also being partially funded by Mr. Dorsey.
So in my view this group of people, which are technically skilled, with some years of veteranship to express themselves with more depth and breadth on open-source culture are also deliberately staying silent on those issues (apart of one or two from them), to not seing themselves excluded from being legally represented in the still finishing series of CSW cases (here more likely a “self-chilling” effect than a threat that has been effectively pronounced).
Back to the topic of wokeness, the problem with this philosophy where its advocates are ready to commit bunch of tactics (phone calls in private, self-appointed morally righteous committees, private admonestations to the “code of conduct” penitents, usage of a double-standard to appreciate “moral” infringment, etc) it doesn’t fly very well under the spotlight and publicity. There are reasons all the woke measures have generally lose in front of US courts, being in 1st instances or circuits of appeal. Blue or red juges they’re fundamentally used to the notion of “due process”. In the meanwhile, a vocal minority of developer(s) and stakeholder(s) is sustaining a deleterious culture in bitcoin open-source stage…
That’s the frank state of things under my view — And why I think it’s indeed very interesting to have a US court of justice have a say on what “decentralization” effectively means in an open-source project by litigating Mr. Corallo.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @nym 13 Jan
Nice post
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Instead of fucking the banksters now we are fucking each others....
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There always have been disputes and conflicts among Bitcoiners (cf. the block size war).
In my humble opinion, while I have not been active into it, the dismay of the so-called “block size war”, have been the uttermost self-conviction of actors on both side to think they were representing the camp of “Good” and the other camp the “Evil”, or that one camp thought they detained the monopole of truth.
The advantage of going to courts of justice, it’s a century-old well-established process, which has internalized in its unfolds that social life isn’t “black-or-white”.
Sadly, it’s a phenomena that we’re seeing far too often with online internet forums, as the tactic of loudly claiming to represent the camp of “Good” is very cheap rhetoric to try to gain the conviction of the online forums audience.
By its nature, modern online forums are not communication mediums favoring deep reflections and careful consideration, there people usually prefer to resume a complex situation with simple GIFs and other memes.
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Only Craig Wright is trashing bitcoiners to court. If you go so low you are no different than that douchebag.
Courts are for real crimes, not for stupid shit. Be a man, not a kid, only kids go to cry in a court.
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Let’s give more context.
If you take the series of CSW cases in the UK, what effectively did stop him of claiming he’s Satoshi and that Bitcoin Core developers as a group owed him fiduciary duties and other dubious claims, was indeed another counter-lawsuit (the COPA one), dragging him in front of courts.
Be certain, I’ve said multiple times in public in the past that CSW is clearly a douchebag as you said so, and now I can a say a proven fraud in claiming he’s Satoshi.
More anecdotally, in the feud among Matt Corallo and myself, he was the first to make more or less veiled threats to drag people non-complying to the rust-lightning code of conduct in front of court of justice, here in 2022: https://github.com/lightningdevkit/lightningdevkit.org/pull/184#issuecomment-1368126430
So why there would be a “double standard” among bitcoin devs, some for which it’s okay to announce the intent to open pursuits in front of court of justice, and some for which it’s not ? I’ll let you come with a justification, because I cannot see one.
Now, on the “courts are for real crimes”, let’s obviously keep a sense of proportion. This is _not _ a claim there has been something penally serious that has been committed such as murders, rapts, human trafficking or mass terrorism. We’re only talking about an inter-personal conflict among 2 professionals developers in a quite young industry with very few social norms. Courts of justice also usually intervene in far more minor legal cases in societies, such as when 2 neighbors disagree on where is exactly the physical limit between their 2 private properties, if their respective title deeds are unclear.
Beyond, I can certainly see among the bitcoiners, especially ones with a anarchistic philosophical lean, an in-grained suspicion about the court of justice as a legitimate human institution in itself, or as pure emanation of the Nation-State. Of course, court of justice are not perfect and there are only a very pragmatic way to appease human conflicts. For your wider personal culture, historically courts of justice have not always been a monopoly of the Nation-State, in the past churches and merchant guildes have been determinant in the formation of certain areas of laws (— I do not wish to be pedantic here, on the other hand the history of judicial institutions is a domain rarely studied).
I’ll shrug on your pun on “Be a man, not a kid, only kids go to cry in a court”, my virility is sufficiently fine to not have reticence in the need to not go to court of justice to prove I’m a “real” man. More sincerely, I don’t know you though might I observe that pointing out that courts are reserved for “kids" is more symptomatic of the lack of comprehension of the daily role played by court of justice in solving conflicts in a civilized way in modern democratic societies.
On your qualification that those issues are only “stupid shit”, I think this your right to use such terminology, like it’s my right to go to court if I think this “stupid shit” is sufficiently serious to deserve a judgement. Zooming out, I’ve technically contributing for years in the bitcoin open-source field, I have worked for or with many open-source organizations in this industry, I’ve seen some being setup and built under my eyes, so I’m more in the position of an “insider” to gauge that something is culturally broken and act in consequence.
So to conclude, I’m not convinced by your position, neither by what I understand as the expression of solving conflicts among professional and civilized adults in the bitcoin world.
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Drama?
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I’m not the one who started to advocate the establishment of code of conduct or moderation rules among bitcoin open-source projects, even if I’m still estimating civility and courtesy in online conversations.
One problem is if you start to think that other human beings should act morally in some way, this doesn’t work if your personal actions as a self-appointed enforcement officer of said moral norms are not consistent with your words.
That’s socially known as hypocrisy, to not even couch the drama in more precise legal terms.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @nym 10 Jan
Interesting. I wasn’t aware of this going on
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