From fontana at sharpeleven.org Sun Nov 8 02:01:12 2026 From: fontana at sharpeleven.org (Richard Fontana) Date: Sat, 7 Nov 2026 21:01:12 -0500 Subject: Revising HBR Message-ID: This message attempts in part to comply with the Hindering Backchannels Rule (https://git.copyleft.org/copyleft-next/hbr). I had a telephonic conversation with Bradley M. Kühn last week in which Bradley proposed that I take on the task of proposing revisions to HBR. Bradley made a few general suggestions which I agreed with. I do not yet have a substantive proposal but hope to have something soon. The general desirability of revising HBR is fairly clear. The original HBR (which was not thereafter modified significantly beyond the 2020 renaming) was a product of an earlier era, when the sociopolitical situation surrounding FLOSS legal stuff was rather different from what we have today. In particular, it seemed at one time that a distorted take on the Chatham House Rule might be generally embraced in FLOSS legal and policy circles, which never quite happened. You can also see in the original HBR a sort of sneering contempt for mainstream "normie" lawyer culture, which I guess was a bit immature in retrospect even if it reflected sincere feeling and was not entirely without justification. The "methodological" part of HBR proved to be impractical and, frankly, unfair. The part of HBR that remained most valid was the encouragement of transparency and, indeed, hindering backchannels. I think the new HBR should focus on a more practical version of that aspect. Richard