Hacker News Reader

Comment by M2Ys4U | Hacker News Reader

One important question not touched on my the blog post: Where will the Foundation be located?

Will is be US-based like Mozilla, or will it be somewhere else, like Europe?

A couple of foundations have moved away from the US in recent years, for example the Eclipse Foundation (Belgium) and the RISC-V Foundation (Switzerland).

It seems foundational (if you'd forgive the pun) to know under what laws the foundation will operate, and who (if anybody) will be excluded from taking part in the project because of sanctions regimes.

View on HN

Where else?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rust_Belt

One hundred years from now, nobody would suspect that the original meaning of the term "Rust Belt" had something to do with industrial decline.

We have not made that decision yet.

I really hope that a neutral jurisdiction will be chosen. RISC-V is a good example to follow, here is a quote from their website:

Incorporation in Switzerland has the effect of calming concerns of political disruption to the open collaboration model. RISC-V International does not maintain any commercial interest in products or services as a non-profit, membership organization. There have not been any export restrictions on RISC-V in the US and we have complied with all US laws. The move does not circumvent any existing restrictions, but rather alleviates uncertainty going forward.

https://riscv.org/about/history/

> I really hope that a neutral jurisdiction will be chosen.

Countries by definition are not neutral. Switzerland is an odd special case, but even they're not truly neutral. European perspective may be different by I've always considered the US to be relatively neutral in legal senses. There's a strong backdrop of rule by law in the US.

Coordination with Swiss research organisations might provide benefits beyond any generic anti-US sentiment as well. Lots of excellent work happening there at the moment.

To add to that: Switzerland also has a long and stable tradition with Foundations as well.

Hopefully not in USA, will like it to be in Europe given its stance on software patents and privacy.

Yes, the US doesn't seem safe.

Doesn’t seem safe? Honestly, what do you think will happen to this organization if it were to be headquartered in the US?

Tongue in cheek - kind of? If a country can try banning the export of cryptography, why not try banning the export of programming languages to say China? After all US companies make lots of important ones!

Disclaimer: I'm American.

Our government has repeatedly made it policy to block access to software of domestic origin through export controls [0] [1]

Historically I'd argue most nations could trust the US government only to wield economic sanctions against our adversaries, but the current administration has made all nations our adversary.

I can see a real possibility of the current administration enacting export controls on the European Union for a perceived slight against the President, and Congress will not stop him. For example, if crates.io is an American-based software service, there is a real possibility that the US could ban the owners from allowing access from EU IPs.

Granted, the same is true of GitHub, npm, freaking google... but the tl;dr is that I don't think you can trust us today or tomorrow. I don't trust my government, why should you?

[0] https://techcrunch.com/2019/07/29/github-ban-sanctioned-coun...

[1] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/08/us-export-controls-and...

> Historically I'd argue most nations could trust the US government only to wield economic sanctions against our adversaries, but the current administration has made all nations our adversary.

https://www.dw.com/de/us-senatoren-drohen-sassnitz-zu-schade...

US senators are threatening sanctions against the German harbor town of Sassnitz https://www.dw.com/de/us-senatoren-drohen-sassnitz-zu-schade... to prevent the nord stream gas pipeline from being built. They’d prefer if germany bought liquefied gas from the US. (It’s a bit more complicated than that, but the threat is a new escalation)

Google translation of that link: https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=de&tl=en&u=https%3...

All the countries from the first link have EU sanctions as well, and as long as the projects are on GitHub it won’t really make a difference even if there weren’t.

I’m as appalled at our government’s foreign policy as the next person, but I would bet my bottom dollar on there not being a blanket government mandated EU IP ban in the next four years regardless of the election results. There’s a long way between tariffs and targeted export restrictions for the EU, and the lobbying to NOT cut off all US internet businesses from the EU would be insane.

You have far more faith than I do. If Trump wins a second term, they'll make a big show of negotiating a trade deal with Britain and the EU after Brexit is realized.

If those negotiations break down they may use economic sanctions to show they mean business.

> I can see a real possibility of the current administration enacting export controls on the European Union for a perceived slight against the President, and Congress will not stop him. For example, if crates.io is an American-based software service, there is a real possibility that the US could ban the owners from allowing access from EU IPs.

This seems incredibly far fetched. Paranoia is a healthy practice but there is a point when it goes too far.

I don't think it is. (disclaimer: I do live in the EU)

The current US administration is already trying today to force close allies to conform to their will using economical pressure. I can imagine a future where this might escalate, so in my opinion forcing US companies to block certain origin countries if not that far fetched.

There's nothing about privacy that's relevant to the creation of a Foundation here IMO.

On the software patents aspect Mozilla doesn't have any patents it would need to give to the Rust Foundation so I don't see this being relevant either.

It's interesting how many commenters are saying "not in the US". The US is very strong on rule by law with regards to corporate law and nothing has really changed here. The court systems are also quite good.

> The US is very strong on rule by law with regards to corporate law and nothing has really changed here.

That seems to depend on who's "rule of law", and the flavour of the day.

The US really doesn't seem stable in any kind of positive way, nor seem to be heading towards that improving.

Any chance you'll be at the (Rust) foundation as its historian? :)

I am very excited about Oxide and that will remain my primary interest and obligation for the foreseeable future :)

Can you help me with a description of what Oxide is, please?

Some googling spat out some chemistry shenanigans, which was interesting yet unhelpful :)

https://oxide.computer/

I wrote a blog post about it https://steveklabnik.com/writing/today-is-my-first-day-at-ox...

Wow, that looks super exciting. Hope you’re having fun!

Nitpick: The name of the Swiss entity appears to be “RISC-V International Association”, notably an association, not a foundation.

[1] https://riscv.org/about/history/#international

Only because Switzerland doesn't have the typical 'Foundation' structure as found in the US. For all intents, it's a nonprofit Foundation but since they're now domiciled in Switzerland they use the "Association" nomenclature.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_association

From their registration:

> The purpose of the association is the promotion and development of free or open source hardware and software technologies and applications for use on computer systems with a focus on the development and implementation of a free and open RISC-V instruction set architecture (Instruction Set Architecture, ISA). The association pursues a non-profit and not a financial, self-serving or commercial purpose. For this purpose, the association can, among other things, promote and finance research and development initiatives and other activities and participate in other companies or cooperations that are geared towards the main purpose.

https://www.zefix.ch/en/search/entity/list/firm/1429598

They used to be the "RISC-V Foundation", but changed name when they moved.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com