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  "publishedAt": "2026-04-08T08:19:32.000Z",
  "site": "http://forum.palemoon.org",
  "textContent": "My take on this is that I'm actually not that worried about the bill at the moment.\n\nThe courts usually soften the more unconstitutional edges of these laws. It's worth noting that in the US... laws are usually written to be as broad and aggressive as possible, with the intention that the more controversial stuff will be challenged in court. The reason is because politicians want to look tough, and also want to be able to blame the courts for their laws not going as far as they wanted, when they knew full well that the law as written wasn't going to stand. The people who opposed the law also like striking down a law this way, enjoying the thrill of a win in court and going through the effort of raising money and awareness through campaigns to \"stop the law.\" There's a lot of... how do I put it, grandstanding and drama when it comes to stuff like this in the US. It's one of those catch-22 situations a lot like tipping... on the one hand, if you don't tip, you're making someone's life harder and being unfair to that individual, and if you do tip, you're contributing to a morally questionable system of tipping and helping keep it alive. I think choosing whether to ignore or push back aggressively in an angry/paranoid way against these kind of overreaching laws that courts are relied on to reign in is the same sort of catch-22. Either you contribute to the problem by playing your expected role and being the \"outraged activist,\" or you risk actually letting things get out of hand because you weren't loud enough to make the judges think (and the legislators re-think about edge cases and affected constituencies). I will just put it this way, I think deep down there's just something in American culture that lends itself to courtroom dramas like Judge Judy and similar shows...\n\nNow, I'm not dismissing the possibility that the courts would just let these laws stand and not protect our constitutional rights. But I also feel like if that happens, we all have much bigger problems that go well beyond Pale Moon. If laws like this did start holding up in court, it would be the legal solidification of something that was already being hinted at by the way things like OAuth2 or Google's Developer Verification on Android were handled. And basically it would be an unambiguous declaration by courts and legislatures that small, indie projects are not allowed to exist in any meaningful way, programmers will be treated like other industries where you have to be licensed, bonded, maybe part of a union or at least a certified company to actually do work without liability headaches, and the entire concept of just being an independent developer working on something for free semi-anonymously, is just disallowed for all practical purposes.\n\nAs it stands, the expense of code signing certificates and the existence of things like OAuth2 are practical barriers that effectively keep small programmers out, but still allow them to exist in a fairly contained ecosystem of curious or desperate people who don't like what the majority like. If the laws go in this direction though, then sooner or later it effectively amounts to independent developers being regarded as little better than software pirates or hackers if they're not working for an established organization with a compliance team.\n\n* * *",
  "title": "Forum and website • Re: The site and an idiotic bill",
  "updatedAt": "2026-04-08T08:19:32.000Z"
}