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blog/2020/july/signal.html

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 				<p>I must admit, I erupted in laughter when I saw the so-called <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200713171551/https://github.com/climate-strike/license">"Climate Strike Software License"</a>. The general gist of it is that certain pieces of software, mostly Python math-related modules from the list they provided, are in use by companies contributing to the climate crisis, and thus they must be stopped by a... digital piece of paper. Never mind that the CSSL violates the <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200721024722/https://opensource.org/osd-annotated">canonical Open Source Definition</a>, and thus, if a piece of software switched to this new license, it would immediately break GPL compatibility and thus fuck over every FOSS project relying on it, climate-accelerating or not. Do you <em>really</em> think that a megacorporation so obviously protected by the governments that allow it to exist would be cowed by a mere text file? Only relatively recently has the GPL been proven <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200721015944/https://www.theregister.com/2017/05/13/gnu_gpl_enforceable_contract/">to be able to be upheld in court</a>, but even then, it was <em>in court</em> by an entity with the financial resources to take the offender to court. And changing the license will ultimately do nothing, as <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200721025033/https://opensource.stackexchange.com/questions/7375/is-it-possible-for-linux-developers-to-retroactively-pull-their-code-from-linu">you can't retroactively revoke a license from code</a> as the code-of-conduct controversy with the Linux kernel proves. Said harmful companies could just continue to use the old versions of the programs covered under licenses that they aren't violating and carry on with their day so long as the code still works.</p>
 				<p>In the case that I cited above, it was one company against another company. One entity with the money to pursue litigation against another company with the money to defend themselves. Although I wouldn't use <em>vonu</em> to describe their position, the existence of <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200721030530/https://anti-slapp.org/what-is-a-slapp">SLAPPs</a> prove that corporations and governments have little to no fear of individual people mounting complaints against them. Do you really think you can successfully defend your piece of "intellectual property" from license violation in any meaningful way without litigation? <strong>In the end, without the threat of violence, nobody gives a shit about licenses, and those who do have a cop in their heads. Your code, your art, is going to get stolen anyway, and there isn't anything you can do about it other than hope you have the social clout for people to know who it really belongs to anyway and respect that of their own free will.</strong></p>
 				<p>Video games are technically pieces of software. Almost all of them are under a proprietary license that forbids making backups or sharing them with friends or obtaining the software through "unauthorized" channels. But I don't give a shit! Nintendo's "copyright" is a phantasm to me. I will download <a href="https://the-eye.eu/public/rom/">every classic ROM they have</a> (and a few... <em>contemporary</em> ones, while we're at it) and not feel a single shred of guilt.</p>
-				<p>Licenses that exclude entities on the basis of falling into some category or another, like the <a href="http://archive.md/N2zNP">"No Harm"</a> license, have little to no power in the actual world. For example, one with a vendetta against me who knew I used a piece of software under the aforementioned license could easily take my post about <a href="../../2019/may/gender-critical.html">being gender-critical</a> and claim that I am contributing to "hate speech or discrimination" regarding gender and gender identity. Even though nowhere in the post do I advocate for violence or claim to hate anyone with a "gender identity", merely just state that I find the concept of gender personally stifling, it's their word against mine.</p>
+				<p>Licenses that exclude entities on the basis of falling into some category or another, like the <a href="http://archive.md/N2zNP">"No Harm"</a> license, have little to no power in the actual world. For example, one with a vendetta against me who knew I used a piece of software under the aforementioned license could easily take my post about <a href="../../2019/05/gender-critical.html">being gender-critical</a> and claim that I am contributing to "hate speech or discrimination" regarding gender and gender identity. Even though nowhere in the post do I advocate for violence or claim to hate anyone with a "gender identity", merely just state that I find the concept of gender personally stifling, it's their word against mine.</p>
 				<p>In all that I do, I strive more and more to achieve <em>vonu</em>, to become invulnerable to coercion. That's why there's so many darknet gateways into this website. That's why I write under a pseudonym. That's why I left the Zaibatsu and the tildes and Neocities. I already know that, in my short time on the internet, I have made a myriad of enemies who would love to see me go dark and never post a single thing again, who would gladly shut me up had they the power. And some days, I have to admit, I wonder what it would be like to throw it all away and return to being a normie. But this website is my home. It is the one thing I can come back to at the end of day and know that it is truly mine. And even then- even <em>then</em> it is not completely vonu. I still rely on other parties: Namecheap and Namesilo for domains, Vultr for VPS hosting, Paypal to pay them off every month or year, a bank to pay Paypal off, a job to pay the bank off, enough positive/neutral social standing to keep my job, enough customers at the place I work at to justify my slot on the payroll... I feel freer than I did when I started MayVaneDay five years ago, and yet I am still so entrenched in the ruts of other people's lives, still at the mercy of so many entities.</p>
 				<p>Take the aforementioned example of my stance on gender. I am neither "trans-exclusionary" nor a "radical feminist". But I am sure that someone, somewhere, has labeled me as a "TERF". That is why I laugh when I see codes of conduct like the one at the Gemini hosting service <a href="http://archive.md/zLsDI">tanelorn.city</a>. You have the right to decide who uses your server resources. You have the right to decide who you want to associate and dissociate with. I am in no way advocating that authoritarians be given free rein to shit up everything, or even to be listened to. <strong>Just remember: those who you do not want to share your spaces with will set up their own spaces. Just like how you wish they would cease to exist, so do they wish the same upon you. The ways you protect yourself will be the ways they protect themselves. You cannot stop them. But they cannot stop you either.</strong> Tor's anonymity comes agnostic of the beliefs of the person using it. GPG encryption works regardless of the beliefs of the person using it. Any attempt to weaken these, like the State's persistent attempts to get backdoors inserted into proven encryption methods that plague their investigations, will not only weaken those who truly need it but also do nothing to people not under the State's duress, to the exact people you <em>don't</em> want using those tools.</p>
 				<p>You do not want to associate with me because of who you think I am, impression true or false regardless? Fine. But technologies like Tor and I2P allow me to be <em>vonu</em> from you. I don't want to use Gemini for <a href="../june/homo.html">reasons I stated in an earlier post</a>, but if I did want to set up my own server, there is nothing Solderpunk could do to stop me. Not a license, not a strongly-worded letter to fuck off, not a legal campaign (and honestly, I doubt he would sling the court system against me both because he is a very kind man and because he lives in a different country than me). I have the source code to multiple servers and clients. Given enough time, I could write my own. And who is to stop me from using them once I have them? A protocol is an idea. Ideas want to be free.</p>