Hi all, Last Tuesday 14th March, I did receive a letter from the law firm so-called Jackson Lewis saying they represent Chaincode Labs about the subject of "improper communications". Being a long-time Bitcoin developer and knowing well of Chaincode Labs, I've been and I'm still very confused about this letter's authenticity.
The letter is available here under MIT license: https://github.com/ariard/chaincode-improper-communications The sentences inside are quite unclear to me, especially not being an English native. They say that I have to halt "all improper and inappropriate communications with certain Chaincode employees". In the past, I did find bugs and other issues in Bitcoin Core Github PRs of some Chaincode folks, so I don't know if saying the code might be broken under "inappropriate communications". They add "You agreed to do so" without presenting old-school paperwork signatures or cryptographic ones or OTS proofs of archived content, so it's a bit hard to know what to answer on. Beyond that, they say I would have sent "unsolicited emails" to Chaincode employees in February 2023. For sure, I've sent mails on the usual mailing lists to which a lot of folks are contributing to. And some of those mails were pointing to bitcoin technical shortcomings that might piss off people, as always. Then, they say my "conduct was improper '' without pointing to a precise FOSS code of conduct. The thing is we don't have a code of conduct in Bitcoin Core as there are a lot of legal uncertainties (from the recent inquiry of Chaincode Labs itself iirc). The restraint on communications tells nothing if it's scoping the confidential report of security flaws to selected parties (among them potentially Chaincode folks), in order to mitigate upcoming jeopardy of Bitcoin funds. Finally, the "any and all legal actions" doesn't say if those actions can target open-source communities and projects I might be involved with (like we're seeing Tari Labs doing "legal actions" against LL and therefore impacting the wider non-LL Taro community). There are 2 more troubling issues. One, the title of the letter "Chaincode Labs - Cease & Desist Letter to Antione Riard". I really received it like this and checked the typo multiple times. I think my name is Antoine Riard, I've to verify but I think so. So I don't know if the letter is legally valid. Second, the lawyer issuing the letter sounds to be one specialist in labor law, not really cryptocurrencies and FOSS software. In the lack of sound legal advice on my side, I would say the default would be to reach out to the Bitcoin Legal Defense Fund, which from my understanding sounds to have a mission to provide guidance to developers receiving legal intimidations in the pursuit of their open-source activities. The thing is the Bitcoin Legal Defense Fund is run by Chaincode Labs among others, so I wouldn't know if I could ask them for advice on an issue at first sight involving them. Sounds a weird catch 22. By advance my apologies to Chaincode Labs if I'm sharing a forgery or non-authenticated document assigned to their organization. I believe in the cases involving Tulip Trading Lawsuit there has been doubt on the quality of the document produced, so a fool sending forgeries to developers to throw confusion among the community is not to exclude. In anycase, I believe it's better to seek community feedback on what to do about this letter (and as such ccing all the lists!). Cheers, Antoine
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