A lot of the comments so far have been negative, so I’ll add a positive one: I think this was the right move, and I’m content (as an actual paying member) with it.
Kudos particularly for the well-laid-out position statement. Drew and I have extensive differences in opinion when it comes to software, but his sincerity and willingness to put his money where his mouth is are apparent in cases like this.
I don’t believe Drew or any of the other Sourcehut admins profess to be the moral guardians of humanity.
The “first they came for X” argumentative tack is built around the common understanding that you should stand up for those who can’t stand up for themselves, because nobody will be left to stand up for you should you need it. Are you claiming that the cryptocurrency industry can’t stand up for itself? I thought that was the whole point of this autonomous, uncensorable, etc. stuff.
That's not how the argument and poem[1] goes. If a devops team for a pro-choice campaign was being censored on SourceHut because it does not align with Drew's moral compass, nobody would defend this with "well, they can just run their own git hosting services, so what's the problem?"
A lot of people building crypto tools also are happy to use centralized services like GitHub, SourceHut, GitLab, because they might not be satisfied with the alternatives.
I'm very familiar with the poem, thanks. Take a look at the last line!
> If a devops team for a pro-choice campaign was being censored on SourceHut because it does not align with Drew's moral compass, nobody would defend this with "well, they can just run their own git hosting services, so what's the problem?"
Actually, I suspect that's precisely how some people would defend it. And why wouldn't they? It's completely independent from agreement or disagreement with the position.
"... but what if your business was the one being purged because the owners profess to be the moral guardians of humanity?"
I'm sympathetic to your objection but I note with interest that their announcement included this paragraph:
"We will exercise discretion when applying this rule. If you believe that your use-case for cryptocurrency or blockchain is not plagued by these social problems, you may ask for permission to host it on SourceHut, or appeal its removal ..."
... which is a catch-all that covers edge cases that I might be worried about.
It's not scalable, but sr.ht isn't that big so it works for me.
I would accept that another person has chosen not to do business with me and take my money to a vendor who would choose to do business with me. Or host my own source control. Anyone is free to choose not to take my money because they disagree with the business I choose to conduct.
Well, you login, no big warning signs, you become a paying customer, years later the owner decides that you are not welcome. Why was it Ok before? Don't know. Same could happen to anyone anywhere and that is not ok. And a violation of basic human decency, I guess. Not that I think this one would connect.
> We will exercise discretion when applying this rule. If you believe that your use-case for cryptocurrency or blockchain is not plagued by these social problems, you may ask for permission to host it on SourceHut, or appeal its removal, by contacting support.
First of all, they keep the gate open for appealing the decision, and they are not applying a blanket, shoot first, ask questions later ban on the matter.
On the other hand, I'm supporting the decision made by Drew and the company, as a paying SourceHut member.
Do you know literally anyone who is running a business that is reliant on sr.ht and cannot be moved? sourcehut is small, and they go out of their way to help you migrate data away from their service. If this kills you, move to github and digitalocean like a normal person.
Kudos particularly for the well-laid-out position statement. Drew and I have extensive differences in opinion when it comes to software, but his sincerity and willingness to put his money where his mouth is are apparent in cases like this.