[_wolfie_]

Hm, I do not see any definition of "blockchain technologies" in the new ToS. Will that be added? My understanding of "blockchain" is that for example git could be described as a application of blockchain technology.

First question: Will there be further clarification regarding what is the precise definition?

Second question: If there will be some HW accelerator thingie or something for blockchain technologies or cryptocurrency, and the driver for that gets merged into upstream linux kernel, will that make linux kernel un-hostable on sourcehut? If not, why not?

[ddevault]

> Will there be further clarification regarding what is the precise definition?

It's intentionally subjective. A tounge-in-cheek analysis could conclude that git is a blockchain, but no one suggests this seriously. The terms establish a worldview and framework around the problems cryptocurrency and blockchain projects impose on society, and it's within this framework that projects will be evaluated -- not simply on the basis that the word "blockchain" appears in their README.

> If there will be some HW accelerator thingie or something for blockchain technologies or cryptocurrency, and the driver for that gets merged into upstream linux kernel, will that make linux kernel un-hostable on sourcehut? If not, why not?

That would likely be permitted on the basis of a subjective analysis of the situation. Linux is a project which is mostly used for use-cases other than cryptocurrency. After all, many blockchain tools already run on a Linux userspace, but that's no cause for dropping Linux.

The rules are not written in stone: they are guidelines that we enforce hand-in-hand with the cooperation of the community and within a space where all participants are encouraged to discuss the situation and argue for their views.

[_wolfie_]

While I'm still not happy about this change (well, I do not like more entries on the list now that I've actually read it), I'm happy to hear there will be a actual human in the loop you can talk to before having the repository deleted. At least that is my tl;dr understanding of the second part of your answer.

[p4bl0]

> for example git could be described as a application of blockchain technology

Git isn't a blockchain as it lacks a consensus mechanism. It can however be used as an append only immutable distributed ledger. If that's all you need, you don't need a blockchain.

That's precisely why consortium and private blockchains do not make any sense. Either they have a consensus mechanism that's useless and wasteful, or they're just not blockchains.

We can't call everything a blockchain otherwise it's not possible to talk about the technology in a meaningful manner. Blockchains were invented in 2008 in the Bitcoin paper. Merkle trees dates back from the 80s. It makes no sense to call a Merkle tree that happen to have the constraint of having a single child per node a "blockchain" except to ride the hype train.

Merkle trees have a lot of legitimate use cases. Blockchains only and single use case that make sense is making so-called "cryptocurrencies", which in turn has a single use case which is speculation, which is not something either useful to society or desirable for most people.

[_wolfie_]

> Git isn't a blockchain as it lacks a consensus mechanism.

Isn't for example for Linux technically Linus acting as the "consensus mechanism"? Or does it have to be automated?

[p4bl0]

That's not distributed consensus it's centralized consensus, it could be automated without the need for a blockchain.