> Calling stagex a "niche Linux OS" suggests that hardly anyone uses it.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/niche

In this case the market is "security critical operations."

Glad you're done at last.

I think my comment makes clear that I don't even know what district the guy lives in. It simply discusses what the law is in the sixth district.

"Don't give legal advice" != "never discuss the law."

We live in a democracy. Every citizen is ultimately responsible for deciding what the law should be. It follows that we should talk about what the law currently is.

The guidelines say what's on topic here is "anything that good hackers would find interesting," and the free speech protections of source code definitely qualify.

Going to the courts instead of the legislature is another strategy that often wins. This is how Bernstein ended export restrictions on cryptography, by suing the government on constitutional grounds rather than trying to persuade legislators.

Whether other companies do the same depends on what they consider the most profitable path, including legal fees and risk.

And the bar for compelling any particular speech is generally quite high. Apple could not be compelled to put a backdoor in an iPhone, even though the suspect was the San Bernardino shooter, and this did not result in Apple losing their ability to sell iPhones. The courts may well hold that you can't compel a Linux distro to implement a particular feature either.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junger_v._Daley

Prior to that, export controls prevented PGP source code from being exported from the US. Advocates printed it in books and exported those, which helped clarify the issue.

Bernstein was a math student who made his own encryption software. The government tried to make him register as an arms dealer, and he sued in 1996, with the backing of the EFF. The result was a landmark decision that established source code as free speech and basically destroyed export controls on cryptography.

In 2016, Apple cited the decision when the government tried to hack a suspect's phone, saying they couldn't be compelled to "speak" by writing code.

Corporations do whatever seems most profitable. We can't base our understanding of constitutional rights on whether Meta decides to defend them.

It's not actually that small though; the front wheels give it a width of 88 inches.

There are all sorts of situations where people go free despite the wistful desires of prosecutors, due to the details of what happened and what the law actually says.