Ask HN: Is there a precedent for legislation that mandates code changes to OSS?

18 点作者 fsociety999超过 2 年前

I was reading this post on HN earlier today about how the White House may consider executive action or legislation to ban Bitcoin mining:https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32789325When reading the linked article and the White House press release (https://www.whitehouse.gov/ostp/news-updates/2022/09/08/fact-sheet-climate-and-energy-implications-of-crypto-assets-in-the-united-states/), this particular section jumped out at me:> Should these measures prove ineffective at reducing impacts, the Administration should explore executive actions, and Congress might consider legislation, to limit or eliminate the use of high energy intensity consensus mechanisms for crypto-asset mining.I am curious if the U.S. government actually has that power. Would this be considered constitutional? I can understand issuing penalties or otherwise stepping in to regulate businesses, but considering Bitcoin is an open-source, community driven software project (and so are many other crypto projects), can the government enforce that the software has to be written a certain way? Would this be considered a violation of the First Amendment?I am sure in this specific case many people may agree with the intentions or believe that this change is not a problem, but the precedent to me is pretty scary. Imagine if in the future, rich and powerful people can lobby the government to limit or crush any open-source software they want if they feel like it poses a threat to an existing company or industry.Based on this article, it sounds like code is considered free speech: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/is-code-free-speech/

10 条评论

racingmars超过 2 年前

I suspect a more effective method would be for Congress to pass a law that says you aren't allowed to use or trade high-energy-use cryptocurrencies.It would be difficult to make the software unavailable, that cat's out of the bag and it runs into problems with free speech, compelled speech, etc.But the prevailing interpretation over the years of the Commerce Clause gives the Federal Government enormous constitutional power to do just about anything it wants when it comes to regulating anything that has any remote conceivable effect on interstate commerce.So I don't see what would stop them from saying you can't buy or sell goods with cryptocurrencies. They can make it illegal for any federally regulated bank (i.e. all banks) to get anywhere close to cryptocurrencies, such as accepting deposits from customers who traded crypto for cash, or providing banking services to companies that accept or trade in crypto.The Federal Government can withhold various federal monies from states that don't agree to implement similar restrictions domestically (that's how Congress can get around the "interstate commerce" part of the Commerce Clause--they can just bully states into complying with Congressional desires that the Constitution doesn't grant Congress the power to enact).Enforcement, of course, is another question. But if high-energy-cryptocurrencies are effectively declared illegal in the U.S., a majority of current users will likely not want to try to get around the legislation and that may be enough to shrink the market small enough to have the desired effect.

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dahart超过 2 年前

> can the government enforce that the software has to be written a certain way?The answer is yes, but this is not enforcing that the software is written a certain way, it is proposing to regulate proof-of-work energy use because of it’s negative environmental effects. The government already does regulate the environmental outcomes of many other businesses, and not necessarily the method by which they achieve this outcome. Also see export controlled software. Car exhaust, factory exhaust, chemical dumping, waste dumping, water pollution, toxic waste storage… there’s a huge list of regulations that are both constitutional and good for society.> it sounds like code is considered free speechThat has no bearing, and sounds like a misconception about what Free Speech actually is. Free Speech rights in the US do not give you the right to say anything you want without consequences. They only prevent the government from jailing you over some kinds of public speech, and there is a long list of types of speech that are not protected (Google “free speech exceptions”). Generally speaking, the kinds of speech that are not protected are the kinds that do harm to society, so regardless of whether you consider code to be speech, some kinds of speech are not only not protected, there is mountains of precedent for regulation and punishment of speech that does damage.

yjftsjthsd-h超过 2 年前

IANAL, etc. They don't have to legislate the code that you're allowed to write, only what you do with it. In the same way that it's completely possible to write software for an open source cell tower, but there are very tight restrictions on what you can do do with that code before the FCC starts to have an opinion about it.

toast0超过 2 年前

> can the government enforce that the software has to be written a certain way?The government is unlikely to be able to enforce that. PGP was exported in printed form (as a book published by MIT press) even though it was prohibited from export as a munition. No charges were filed. I wouldn't expect to see books of bitcoin source (or whatever) confiscated either.Running the software may be prohibited, and enforcement of that could happen. Plenty of people get in trouble for running networked software that causes problems.Realisticaly, it makes more sense to audit high energy use customers, and see if you can reduce their use. When you find crypto farms, confiscate and destroy or whatever. That and tracking of the exchanges, etc.

syrrim超过 2 年前

> can the government enforce that the software has to be written a certain way?I doubt they would intend to. Instead, they would make it illegal to run, and possibly to otherwise involve yourself with, software written in a certain way. The bitcoin community could choose to either withdraw from the US and any allied country that aided in enforcement, or they could choose to change the software to no longer behave that way. In practice, the latter option would basically force them to move to proof of stake. But given the origins of bitcoin as an anti-government system, they would likely choose some variant of the former option.

mytailorisrich超过 2 年前

I suppose they can ban mining, possession, trading of crypto-currencies on a per crypto-currency basis using specific criteria, one of which might be the algorithms used.

txbuck超过 2 年前

If anything is gonna happen it's more likely The Powers That Be would limit use and/or distribution instead of mandating a change to code itself. Half of them probably don't know how to connect to their home Wifi network, nevermind authoring and mandating a commit.

MattPalmer1086超过 2 年前

Government won't tell anyone what code they can write. But they can legislate on the usage of things.If it's illegal to mine in the US, then miners won't set up mining businesses there. Job done.

Zerverus超过 2 年前

Not needed. Oppa Ofac Style.

whateveracct超过 2 年前

I believe this would be compelled speech.Now, depending on the project and code change in question - the US govt could 1) fork and make the change themselves and 2) potentially make certain uses of the unchanged code illegal (again, in a situation where there is actual illegality. Like piracy).