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Comment by wrs | Hacker News Reader

Normally I’d agree, but in fact this post is not just criticism, it’s a demand for self-censorship. That is, stop talking about this, and don’t ever talk about it again.

>The only solution is to bury the Common Clause project. Kill the website and GitHub repository, and we can try to forget this ever happened.

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Having made a similar comment myself, I feel pretty confident in saying that that is mostly just intentional hyperbole, used to emphasize the seriousness of the issue. Although the OP of the bit you quoted there may choose to disagree.

Personally I'm not advocating any kind of "censorship", self or otherwise, in any literal sense. But I do want everyone to understand the extent to which I think this "clause" is an abomination and a threat to the entire Open Source movement.

I don't think it's about censorship so much as it's thinking ahead and realizing how huge of a threat this clause could be towards free software. The author is (IMO, rightly) concerned about this and wants to limit how much damage is caused by it.

That's pretty much the driving force behind all censorship - thinking ahead and realizing how huge of a threat the information in question is.

That still isn't censorship, or even anything approaching censorship, because the author has no power to actually do those things. It's still just a suggestion, albeit a pretty strongly worded one

That's why I said "self-censorship". Basically, not just criticizing (that's more speech), but to tell the person who disagrees that they need to stop talking.

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