Re: Reboot: Strategic goals for GNOME

[Richard Stallman <rms gnu org>]

If GNOME is planning to operate servers, GNOME needs to consider
when it is good or bad to encourage people to use servers.

In the US, if you receive a subpoena to hand over data, you have the
opportunity to plead in court to quash or reduce the subpoena.
Success is not guaranteed; the court may insist on getting the
information.  But sometimes it agrees to reduce or cancel the
subpoena.

Around ten years ago, the FSF received a subpoena in the SCO lawsuit,
demanding a broad range of data that would have taken us a long time
to collect.  We went to court and successfully argued that it was
improper and unnecessary to demand all this from us.  The court
eliminated most of the subpoena (maybe all -- I don't recall).

If a server business receives the subpoena for your data, maybe it has
the same opportunity to go to court to quash it.  But the business may
not care enough to make the effort.  You might care to do it, but you
won't have the option, since the subpoena is not on you. 

In addition, if the legal criteria are weaker (IANAL but I think they
are), the business could be subpoena'd for your data in cases where
you wouldn't get a subpoena at all.

This is why I say that, even with the good will on the server
operator's part, you lose some of your rights by keeping the data on a
server.  And therefore, we should think twice before inviting people
to keep their data on a server, even if we run the server.