SourceHut will remove software projects that leverage cryptocurrencies and the blockchain
The news was released that the founder and creator of the collaborative development platformo SourceHut, SourceHut, Drew DeVault, has announced an upcoming change to their terms of use. The new terms, which will take effect on January 1, 2023, prohibit the publication of content related to cryptocurrencies and blockchain.
After the start of the new conditions, also they plan to delete all similar projects previously placed. In a separate application to the support service for legal and useful projects, an exception can be made.
As well restoration of deleted projects is allowed after appeals. Accepting donations in cryptocurrency is not prohibited, although it is highlighted as a non-recommended method of support.
The reason for the ban of cryptocurrencies is the abundance of fraudulent developments, criminal, malicious and deceitful in this area, which negatively affects SourceHut's reputation and harms the community.
These domains are strongly associated with fraudulent activities and high-risk investments that take advantage of people suffering from economic hardship and a growing global wealth inequality. Few or no legitimate use cases have been found for this technology; instead, it is primarily used for fraudulent “get-rich-quick” schemes and to facilitate criminal activities, such as ransomware, illicit trade, and sanctions evasion. These projects often encourage large-scale energy waste and e-waste, contributing to the deteriorating health of the Earth's environment. The presence of these projects on SourceHut exposes new victims to these scams and is detrimental to the reputation of SourceHut and its community.
DeVault said the ban would be enforced with some discretion., which means that the developers who feel that their use of cryptocurrencies or blockchain “is not affected by these social problems” they can request permission to host it on SourceHut or appeal its removal by contacting support. Otherwise, they have until January 1, 2023 to migrate a banned project to a different platform.
According to SourceHut, cryptocurrencies are associated with risky investments, manipulation by people with little understanding of economics, quick money scams, and criminal schemes associated with ransomware, illegal trading, and sanctions evasion.
Despite the general usefulness of the blockchain idea, it was also decided to apply the block to projects using blockchain, since most of the projects that promote blockchain-based solutions have the same social problems as cryptocurrencies.
We recognize that the basic idea of a blockchain, so to speak, can be useful in general. However, most projects trading on blockchain technology are subject to the same social ills as cryptocurrencies. Consequently, we have chosen to include blockchain-related projects in this ban for the time being.
For those who are new to the Sourcehut platform, you should know that it has a distinctive interface, unlike GitHub and GitLab, but it is simple, very fast, and works without JavaScript. The platform provides features such as working with public and private Git and Mercurial repositories, flexible access control system, wiki, bug reporting, built-in continuous integration infrastructure, chat, email-based discussions, list archive tree view mail, web review of changes, adding annotations to the code (attaching links and documentation).
“Little or no legitimate use cases have been found for this technology; instead, it is primarily used for fraudulent ‘get-rich-quick’ schemes and to facilitate criminal activity such as ransomware, illicit trade and sanctions evasion,” DeVault said. “These projects often encourage large-scale energy waste and e-waste, contributing to the deteriorating health of the Earth's environment.
"The presence of these projects on SourceHut exposes new victims to these scams and is detrimental to the reputation of SourceHut and its community."
If the appropriate setting is enabled, users without local accounts can participate in development (authentication via OAuth or email participation).
If you are interested in knowing more about it, you can check the details In the following link.