42 ms·

Truth Social broke software rules, says copyleft group

82 points by coloneltcb 5y ago

tonfreed 5y ago
It's not even available yet, is it? If he's not even providing it as a service it's a bit difficult to say he's violating the license until he takes it live. Besides, we all know the first people to sign up will be those pathetic betas that'd sit there refreshing their feed over and over to be the first one commenting on Trump's Twitter feed.
iammisc 5y ago
[flagged]
- commandlinefan 5y ago
  > This is just harrassment against a right-wing media site It's... really mind blowing that they're not even pretending to be objective about this stuff any more. Even if you think it's justified, you ought to be able to see that normalizing this sort of behavior can and will backfire.
  - iammisc 5y ago
    Right. It seems to me no one's even asked the company to provide the source and received a negative answer. They just insist that since it's not on github or publicly available that they're violating the law. The license says the code must be available to users, not the general public. Have they tried contacting the company? Surely there's a reasonable amount of time in which the company has to respond. No where is there a requirement the source is immediately available. If they've written to the company and the company insists they are not using mastodon or don't need to provide the source.. that's one thing. But that doesn't seem to have happened. Instead, since it's not a downloadable link already (which again, there is no requirement it be), they're getting all mad.
    - woodruffw 5y ago
      > Instead, since it's not a downloadable link already (which again, there is no requirement it be), they're getting all mad. This is false. The AGPL explicitly requires that the source be accessible through a network server.
      - iammisc 5y ago
        https://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.en.html https://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.en.html START QUOTE 6. Conveying Non-Source Forms. You may convey a covered work in object code form under the terms of sections 4 and 5, provided that you also convey the machine-readable Corresponding Source under the terms of this License, in one of these ways: a) Convey the object code in, or embodied in, a physical product (including a physical distribution medium), accompanied by the Corresponding Source fixed on a durable physical medium customarily used for software interchange. b) Convey the object code in, or embodied in, a physical product (including a physical distribution medium), accompanied by a written offer, valid for at least three years and valid for as long as you offer spare parts or customer support for that product model, to give anyone who possesses the object code either (1) a copy of the Corresponding Source for all the software in the product that is covered by this License, on a durable physical medium customarily used for software interchange, for a price no more than your reasonable cost of physically performing this conveying of source, or (2) access to copy the Corresponding Source from a network server at no charge. c) Convey individual copies of the object code with a copy of the written offer to provide the Corresponding Source. This alternative is allowed only occasionally and noncommercially, and only if you received the object code with such an offer, in accord with subsection 6b. d) Convey the object code by offering access from a designated place (gratis or for a charge), and offer equivalent access to the Corresponding Source in the same way through the same place at no further charge. You need not require recipients to copy the Corresponding Source along with the object code. If the place to copy the object code is a network server, the Corresponding Source may be on a different server (operated by you or a third party) that supports equivalent copying facilities, provided you maintain clear directions next to the object code saying where to find the Corresponding Source. Regardless of what server hosts the Corresponding Source, you remain obligated to ensure that it is available for as long as needed to satisfy these requirements. e) Convey the object code using peer-to-peer transmission, provided you inform other peers where the object code and Corresponding Source of the work are being offered to the general public at no charge under subsection 6d. END QUOTE So it seems to me that one can be compliant without it available on a network server. HOnestly, I'm not a lawyer. I just know the old GNU software could be requested using mail, before github.
  - TwiceCubed 5y ago
    Welcome to Dang's Fascist Fan Club. Enjoy your stay. The decor is nice, but the visitors are mostly terrible fucking people and the management are corrupt.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
- anunnymouse 5y ago
  You say it is just harassment but also that ripping off (A)GPL source code shouldn't be excused. What is the appropriate level of response?
  - iammisc 5y ago
    Well, first, they need to contact the company and ask for the source code, after they themselves have signed up, since the AGPL demands the code be available to users. If the company responds in the negative (i.e., denying they're using mastodon or outright refusing to provide the source) or if the company fails to respond in a certain amount of time (like a week at least, since this is a new company), then you can start legal action. It seems to me that because this organization could not find a link or a github making the source code public (which AGPL does not require), they decided to sue. They made no attempt to contact the company and ask, and they're not making any allegation the organization has outright refused. Instead, they've presumed such based on lack of a public download.
    - qkqk 5y ago
      > making the source code public (which AGPL does not require) That is completely false. If you read the article or the license before commenting you will understand why. https://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.en.html#section13 https://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.en.html#section13
- woodruffw 5y ago
  > From what I understand, while the source has to be available, there is no specification that it be downloadable or easily available. IIRC, for the original GNU software, the source code was provided by writing to GNU via snail mail. This isn't "original GNU software." It's an AGPL licensed project, and here is the verbatim language of the license[1]: > The GNU Affero General Public License is designed specifically to ensure that, in such cases, the modified source code becomes available to the community. It requires the operator of a network server to provide the source code of the modified version running there to the users of that server. Therefore, public use of a modified version, on a publicly accessible server, gives the public access to the source code of the modified version. > Notwithstanding any other provision of this License, if you modify the Program, your modified version must prominently offer all users interacting with it remotely through a computer network (if your version supports such interaction) an opportunity to receive the Corresponding Source of your version by providing access to the Corresponding Source from a network server at no charge, through some standard or customary means of facilitating copying of software. > If your software can interact with users remotely through a computer network, you should also make sure that it provides a way for users to get its source. For example, if your program is a web application, its interface could display a "Source" link that leads users to an archive of the code. There are many ways you could offer source, and different solutions will be better for different programs; see section 13 for the specific requirements. Apple, to the best of my knowledge, avoids both AGPL and GPLv3 like the plague. They've stuck to GPLv2 for any GNU software they happen to distribute, and they're making a concerted effort to remove even that. [1]: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.en.html https://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.en.html
- rsynnott 5y ago
  > IIRC, for the original GNU software, the source code was provided by writing to GNU via snail mail. True, but irrelevant. Different license. > Lots of companies do this kind of thing with (A)GPL Examples of companies misusing the AGPL? Misuse of the GPL is somewhat common, though they generally release the source code when prodded, _mostly_ complying with the letter of the license if not the spirit (strictly speaking, they often fail to make the offer, which is a breach). AGPL's requirements are rather stricter, though. > IIRC, Apple didn't release it's OS X source code until well after OS X was first available. True, but irrelevant. Different licenses; they didn't have to release Darwin at all.
- qkqk 5y ago
  > This is just harrassment [sic] against a right-wing media site Is Tesla a right-wing media site too? Vizio? Or did you just construct a narrative without knowing history? https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2019/oct/30/calling-all-tesla-owners/ https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2019/oct/30/calling-all-tesla...
ChuckMcM 5y ago
Can't say I'm surprised. There are way too many efforts that forego actually developing software.
- crate_barre 5y ago
  I’d much prefer someone forego writing a line of code than cobbling together their own scaleable social network.
  - ChuckMcM 5y ago
    I don't disagree with that sentiment. I was looking at perhaps a different scenario, one that might have unfolded like this: Person A: "I have been tasked with putting together a social network." Person B: "Well we could base it on Mastadon, it's open source, that is what Gab did. That would save us some time." Person A: "Great let's do that." Person B: "We will need to comply with the licensing restrictions for Mastadon though it means giving our changes back to the community." Person A: "Oh, I don't like that at all, what's our alternative?" Person B: "Well we could write a new system from scratch but it will take us at least 6 months to get to where these existing systems are." Person A: "Hmm, that doesn't fit our timeline, how about this, we use the Mastadon code, tell everyone it is our own code, and get rid of any references to Mastadon in the code. Then nobody comes after us and we can be up and running before the 2022 elections season starts in earnest." Person B: "But that would be dishonest and wrong." Person A: "Is that what your replacement will say?" Person B: <grumble><grumble> Person A: "Okay, since we have agreement let's get to it."
woodruffw 5y ago
Ripping off (A)GPL software is nothing particularly new, but this is a remarkably haphazard and visible attempt to do so.
- ctvo 5y ago
  Unsure if it's the incompetence of the the cover up or the actual violation that's more bothersome for me.
  - Barrin92 5y ago
    >the incompetence i mean let's be real who is ever going to work for this thing, the amount of qualified engineers who are going to sign up for Trump's Mastodon media clone you can probably count on one hand. Which might arguably be the biggest problem all of these companies are going to have, how are these people ever going to find actual developers
    - dymk 5y ago
      I guarantee you there are plenty of smart, capable, clever engineers willing (and likely motivated by sincerer personal belief) to work on Trump's Mastodon media clone. I'm not one of them, but I also put active effort into not letting my social spheres from taint my view of "the other"'s ability too much.
      - hairofadog 5y ago
        I'm certain you're right that there are a lot of talented engineers with political philosophies all over the spectrum, many of whom I would whole-heartedly disagree with. However, Trump and the folks in his immediate circle seem to drive away competence through a special combination of malice, selfishness, pettiness, projection, and short-sightedness that boggles the mind. Set aside ideology for a minute; it seems like not paying the bills is standard procedure for their organization, and I don't know who would stand for it regardless of their ideology.
kfprt 5y ago
Is the service even public yet? The license says that users of the service are entitled to the code but if the service isn't open to users I fail to see the violation.
- aaron695 5y ago
  Correct. They also are not entitled to the code unless it's been modified. But this is the license and reality, not what HN makes up in their heads, two very different things. (It is entirely possible they have modified the code and are allowing uses to access this code, but I haven't seen it shown)
- humanistbot 5y ago
  From TFA: Truth Social hasn’t officially launched. But users could access a test version of the platform, where many of them created prank accounts that flooded the service with false company announcements and even fake Donald Trump posts. (The platform has since been replaced by a waitlist.) The SFC demands that TMTG offer all these users access to the Truth Social source code. “If they fail to do this within 30 days, their rights and permissions in the software are automatically and permanently terminated,” Kuhn says.
- Xylakant 5y ago
  According to the article, a beta version was available and the claim is that users that had access to the beta are entitled to the source.
  - kfprt 5y ago
    It didn't say that the beta was public. If you run AGPL code on a home server for personal use and someone hacks in I don't think you should owe them code.
    - humanistbot 5y ago
      If you deploy a "test" version of an app to a public server/domain and send an invite to a closed mailing list for users to beta test it, then that still triggers the AGPL.
GaryTang 5y ago
The SPAC is up almost 1000% in less than 48 hours. I suspect the courts & media will find some way to tear it down.
- politician 5y ago
  The same thing that happened with Parlor. I think the Moderate Left needs to come to grips with the fact that the Authoritarian Left's insistence on silencing and cancelling the unfaithful is most directly responsible for the inevitable loss of political power of the Democrat Party by continuously feeding the Right easily marketable messaging.
  - azinman2 5y ago
    What does this have to do with violating AGPL?
    - JohnTHaller 5y ago
      [flagged]
      - politician 5y ago
        "Whataboutism" is a thought-cancelling phrase. Truth Social is going to be silenced with one or more set of tools (AGPL or something else) just like Parlor was silenced.
        azinman2 5y ago
        Regardless of your perspective of the world and a presumption of people's motivations, that doesn't take away from the fact that the Software Freedom Conservancy is alleging they violated AGPL, which is entirely what the article is about. And violations, especially high profile ones, should absolutely be challenged regardless of political orientation.
        5y ago
betwixthewires 5y ago
To me what I see here is that the software to run a social media site is available to everyone, but some people don't want social media sites just to reach people, they want to build little empires. Why would you try to build a proprietary application when one already exists if your stated goal is free expression? Why would you attempt to obscurely and illegally re license software that already serves it's purpose? It's honestly a sign of what is slowly happening in social media, things like this and what gab did are the death throes of proprietary interactive media.
- kayodelycaon 5y ago
  > Why would you try to build a proprietary application when one already exists if your stated goal is free expression? If I could hazard a guess... because that goal is a smoke screen to hide the real intent, exploiting the people on that network. (See any large "free" social network for examples.)
  - betwixthewires 5y ago
    That's basically my implication, or more generally, that the true goals deviate from the stated goals.
trakq 5y ago
This site is likely to leak user data just like many before it. If the Republicans are for free anonymous speech, why don't they host Tor servers, write a simple web site instead of a hack and tell all users to use Tor?
- bink 5y ago
  Imagine teaching your grandpa how to use Tor.
  - 5560675260 5y ago
    Do you really have to? It could be as simple as using a different browser (and waiting for a minute or two after startup).
- iammisc 5y ago
  [flagged]
  - KittenInABox 5y ago
    Do churches not have zoom meetings and email lists? Genuinely asking, as I'm not religious but my understanding is that remote worship is a pretty well-solved problem in abrahamic religion- radio, tv, mailing lists, zoom, etc.
    - iammisc 5y ago
      Well as a Catholic, no. Mass is not valid via virtual 'remote' anything. Mailing lists? Sure. But mailing lists are run by google or other companies. Most people just text or call or tell people stuff using their mouths and ears
      - KittenInABox 5y ago
        I mean given the poster I was responding to was talking about facebook groups I figure that "this is run by a company" is already done with. > Well as a Catholic, no. Mass is not valid via virtual 'remote' anything. I'm not Catholic, but when I google "Catholic mass zoom" I see a ton of stuff. Is there like a religious leadership/doctrine these are against or something?
motohagiography 5y ago
I haven't done a close reading of the license text, but is there a specific point in time or condition after which someone is obligated to share their forked source code? Can you only clone the source via git into another public repository, or is there some other condition that causes your changes to become publicly available? This could signal an interesting future, as it's probably a trivial change for this company to comply with the license terms, but a scenario where an organization like the SFC becomes the new RIAA/MPAA of selective enforcement is something worth considering. Sure, the rules are the same for everyone, but their enforcement, well...
- woodruffw 5y ago
  > I haven't done a close reading of the license text, but is there a specific point in time or condition after which someone is obligated to share their forked source code? Can you only clone the source via git into another public repository, or is there some other condition that causes your changes to become publicly available? For the AGPL, you're required to share your changes as soon as you begin serving those changes to users. That includes running a quasi-open beta with your server software, as "TRUTH" appears to have done.
  - motohagiography 5y ago
    Now I'm trying to parse the legal language. Section 5 appears to relate to this, but it's about "conveying," which in the license definitions, excludes providing access to a service that uses it. > To "convey" a work means any kind of propagation that enables other parties to make or receive copies. Mere interaction with a user through a computer network, with no transfer of a copy, is not conveying. I'm sure the Mastadon author has constructed their view based on a more strategic logical parsing of the license, and for now they have succeeded in making the brand story about how it's just another example in a long line of frauds and thefts as was what seemed to be the straightforward intent. However, litigating software licenses as part of partisan lawfare can have knock-on effects for everyone else. I'm imagining what developing new products will be like in a world with something like the SCO patent litigation but by people with tumblr accounts and backed by superpacs.
makecheck 5y ago
I mean…if it was anyone else I’d say it’s good that they’re suing, they should be able to easily prove this, etc. But this man has made a lifetime out of screwing people over and ignoring rules. There have already been literally thousands of lawsuits against his companies. Therefore, I strongly suspect this will be yet another instance of him using the law to delay, delay, delay, and by the time anything happens he’ll still have gained something. Heck he’ll probably counter-sue on some ridiculous basis. We live in an age where things move very fast and we desperately need something better/faster than law courts to sort these things out.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- iszomer 5y ago
  > We live in an age where things move very fast and we desperately need something better/faster than law courts to sort these things out. "I hereby declare all cilantro lovers as heretics and therefore automagically sent to the gulags for re-education." Umm, no.
  - qorrect 5y ago
    What does re-education look like ?
    - lapetitejort 5y ago
      In this case, calmly, yet firmly explaining that cilantro tastes like soap to a small percentage of the population [0]. [0]: https://www.britannica.com/story/why-does-cilantro-taste-like-soap-to-some-people https://www.britannica.com/story/why-does-cilantro-taste-lik...
  - dillondoyle 5y ago
    I think there is a reasonable point though. Courts are backed up, the Senate is always slow at confirming (and some presidents slow at nominating) judges. And there's not enough Judges or courts to handle our population/amount of suits? One negative consequence of this is the amount of plea deals and the pressures that puts on the accused. Pandemic seemed to have made it worse. Another thought would be building out more official specialization to speed things up. I can't find it but there was a HN article a few weeks ago talking about a I think a Texas judge who handled the vast majority of some type of specific litigation. It might have been patents I can't seem to remember. Said because that judicial district has a larger volume of case 'law' and well-defined regulations which is also an odd quirk to me as a non-lawyer - that regions can be different. article was about court shopping too, where corporations use their power to get moved into his court because they get better outcomes. https://www.uscourts.gov/judges-judgeships/judicial-vacancies/current-judicial-vacancies https://www.uscourts.gov/judges-judgeships/judicial-vacancie...
syspec 5y ago
Screenshot of HTML from Truth Social which still contains Mastadon CSS classes: https://twitter.com/RealGlenMerlin/status/1451068464232157184 https://twitter.com/RealGlenMerlin/status/145106846423215718...
andrewclunn 5y ago
If Trump is sincere about wanting to have a space for free speech, then he should comply with the GPL. If his goal is to grift off appearing to champion free speech, then attempting to steal from the free software movement is clear way to prove himself as such. Then again, I guess there is always option three: rewrite a proprietary one, saying he had no knowledge that the engineer(s) were stealing code (not an outrageous claim honestly). I gladly await the hate for not taking a particularly partisan view of this issue.
kazinator 5y ago
> The Trump Media and Technology Group (TMTG) has 30 days to comply with the terms of the license before its access is terminated — forcing it to rebuild the platform or face legal action. Is that true? Wouldn't the actual copyright holder of the software have to assert this? Are the SFC making this specific demand, and are they the copyright holders? Moreover, before the copyright proprietor takes action, wouldn't there have to be a legitimate complaint from a user of the site, who wanted the source code but had been denied? Otherwise it's a one-handed clap. I'm looking at a Mastodon repo on github. Is this the right thing? https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/ https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/ This has serious issues. There is a LICENSE file in the root directory, but this doesn't mention any authors; it's just a copy of the AGPL. There is a copyright notice in it naming the Free Software Foundation, but that pertains to that file itself, not to Mastodon. The presence of this file tells us that someone has put Mastodon under the AGPL, as a big umbrella license for everything in this tree. However, individual source files lack copyright headers. For instance, no copyright header in this randomly picked file: https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/blob/main/app/mailers/admin_mailer.rb https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/blob/main/app/mailers/a... I see the AUTHORS file, but this is just a list of poorly identified github accounts and such. It's not clear who wrote what (unless we go digging through git history, I suppose). Anyway, these people don't seem to have assigned their copyright to the project, so the copyright proprietorship (who wrote what) boils down to looking at the git blame of every file to get the set of authors who touched any line. In summary, this project appears to be a bit of a gong-show, in terms of licensing. If I deployed this, and some copyleft group started harassing me, I'd ask them to write me another e-mail, this time from one of the accounts listed in the Mastodon AUTHORS file, and specifying a list of the files of which that account is an author, substantiated by git blame analysis. If I had not modified any of those files, I'd reply "have a nice day".
stevenicr 5y ago
So to truly custom mod mastadon or similar agpl things that could hide some of the secret added sauce.. you could modify the core project to call another code chunk / like a wordpress plugin.. then you'd be required to release copies of your modified source which would just have a new line of code calling for 'other thing'.. it wouldn't have to include the whole 'other thing' like if you added a line bringing in recaptcha so essentially you could create right in mastadon, or similar project, but you could also break out separate things, like wordpress themes, wordpress plugins, third party addins.. Is this all right? I'm trying to remember some of the debate back in the day with licensing and WP themes and plugins and such, although I'm thinking that was a different license. It certainly seems to me like this is going to end up being a situation where there is a publicly available github thing that has nothing of interest other than a few lines calling for a few extra js calls or something for spam / moderation and not the actual code that is hidden in those addins. If this is not the case with this type of licensing I'd like to know - I've been itching to deploy a mastadon for a while now and would like to know more about restrictions. abuse vectors, all that.
- GoblinSlayer 5y ago
  How recaptcha isn't covered by agpl? It's such a huge blob!

82 points by coloneltcb 5y ago

It's not even available yet, is it? If he's not even providing it as a service it's a bit difficult to say he's violating the license until he takes it live. Besides, we all know the first people to sign up will be those pathetic betas that'd sit there refreshing their feed over and over to be the first one commenting on Trump's Twitter feed.

iammisc 5y ago

[flagged]

commandlinefan 5y ago
> This is just harrassment against a right-wing media site It's... really mind blowing that they're not even pretending to be objective about this stuff any more. Even if you think it's justified, you ought to be able to see that normalizing this sort of behavior can and will backfire.
- iammisc 5y ago
  Right. It seems to me no one's even asked the company to provide the source and received a negative answer. They just insist that since it's not on github or publicly available that they're violating the law. The license says the code must be available to users, not the general public. Have they tried contacting the company? Surely there's a reasonable amount of time in which the company has to respond. No where is there a requirement the source is immediately available. If they've written to the company and the company insists they are not using mastodon or don't need to provide the source.. that's one thing. But that doesn't seem to have happened. Instead, since it's not a downloadable link already (which again, there is no requirement it be), they're getting all mad.
  - woodruffw 5y ago
    > Instead, since it's not a downloadable link already (which again, there is no requirement it be), they're getting all mad. This is false. The AGPL explicitly requires that the source be accessible through a network server.
    - iammisc 5y ago
      https://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.en.html https://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.en.html START QUOTE 6. Conveying Non-Source Forms. You may convey a covered work in object code form under the terms of sections 4 and 5, provided that you also convey the machine-readable Corresponding Source under the terms of this License, in one of these ways: a) Convey the object code in, or embodied in, a physical product (including a physical distribution medium), accompanied by the Corresponding Source fixed on a durable physical medium customarily used for software interchange. b) Convey the object code in, or embodied in, a physical product (including a physical distribution medium), accompanied by a written offer, valid for at least three years and valid for as long as you offer spare parts or customer support for that product model, to give anyone who possesses the object code either (1) a copy of the Corresponding Source for all the software in the product that is covered by this License, on a durable physical medium customarily used for software interchange, for a price no more than your reasonable cost of physically performing this conveying of source, or (2) access to copy the Corresponding Source from a network server at no charge. c) Convey individual copies of the object code with a copy of the written offer to provide the Corresponding Source. This alternative is allowed only occasionally and noncommercially, and only if you received the object code with such an offer, in accord with subsection 6b. d) Convey the object code by offering access from a designated place (gratis or for a charge), and offer equivalent access to the Corresponding Source in the same way through the same place at no further charge. You need not require recipients to copy the Corresponding Source along with the object code. If the place to copy the object code is a network server, the Corresponding Source may be on a different server (operated by you or a third party) that supports equivalent copying facilities, provided you maintain clear directions next to the object code saying where to find the Corresponding Source. Regardless of what server hosts the Corresponding Source, you remain obligated to ensure that it is available for as long as needed to satisfy these requirements. e) Convey the object code using peer-to-peer transmission, provided you inform other peers where the object code and Corresponding Source of the work are being offered to the general public at no charge under subsection 6d. END QUOTE So it seems to me that one can be compliant without it available on a network server. HOnestly, I'm not a lawyer. I just know the old GNU software could be requested using mail, before github.
- TwiceCubed 5y ago
  Welcome to Dang's Fascist Fan Club. Enjoy your stay. The decor is nice, but the visitors are mostly terrible fucking people and the management are corrupt.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
anunnymouse 5y ago
You say it is just harassment but also that ripping off (A)GPL source code shouldn't be excused. What is the appropriate level of response?
- iammisc 5y ago
  Well, first, they need to contact the company and ask for the source code, after they themselves have signed up, since the AGPL demands the code be available to users. If the company responds in the negative (i.e., denying they're using mastodon or outright refusing to provide the source) or if the company fails to respond in a certain amount of time (like a week at least, since this is a new company), then you can start legal action. It seems to me that because this organization could not find a link or a github making the source code public (which AGPL does not require), they decided to sue. They made no attempt to contact the company and ask, and they're not making any allegation the organization has outright refused. Instead, they've presumed such based on lack of a public download.
  - qkqk 5y ago
    > making the source code public (which AGPL does not require) That is completely false. If you read the article or the license before commenting you will understand why. https://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.en.html#section13 https://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.en.html#section13
woodruffw 5y ago
> From what I understand, while the source has to be available, there is no specification that it be downloadable or easily available. IIRC, for the original GNU software, the source code was provided by writing to GNU via snail mail. This isn't "original GNU software." It's an AGPL licensed project, and here is the verbatim language of the license[1]: > The GNU Affero General Public License is designed specifically to ensure that, in such cases, the modified source code becomes available to the community. It requires the operator of a network server to provide the source code of the modified version running there to the users of that server. Therefore, public use of a modified version, on a publicly accessible server, gives the public access to the source code of the modified version. > Notwithstanding any other provision of this License, if you modify the Program, your modified version must prominently offer all users interacting with it remotely through a computer network (if your version supports such interaction) an opportunity to receive the Corresponding Source of your version by providing access to the Corresponding Source from a network server at no charge, through some standard or customary means of facilitating copying of software. > If your software can interact with users remotely through a computer network, you should also make sure that it provides a way for users to get its source. For example, if your program is a web application, its interface could display a "Source" link that leads users to an archive of the code. There are many ways you could offer source, and different solutions will be better for different programs; see section 13 for the specific requirements. Apple, to the best of my knowledge, avoids both AGPL and GPLv3 like the plague. They've stuck to GPLv2 for any GNU software they happen to distribute, and they're making a concerted effort to remove even that. [1]: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.en.html https://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.en.html
rsynnott 5y ago
> IIRC, for the original GNU software, the source code was provided by writing to GNU via snail mail. True, but irrelevant. Different license. > Lots of companies do this kind of thing with (A)GPL Examples of companies misusing the AGPL? Misuse of the GPL is somewhat common, though they generally release the source code when prodded, _mostly_ complying with the letter of the license if not the spirit (strictly speaking, they often fail to make the offer, which is a breach). AGPL's requirements are rather stricter, though. > IIRC, Apple didn't release it's OS X source code until well after OS X was first available. True, but irrelevant. Different licenses; they didn't have to release Darwin at all.
qkqk 5y ago
> This is just harrassment [sic] against a right-wing media site Is Tesla a right-wing media site too? Vizio? Or did you just construct a narrative without knowing history? https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2019/oct/30/calling-all-tesla-owners/ https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2019/oct/30/calling-all-tesla...

ChuckMcM 5y ago

Can't say I'm surprised. There are way too many efforts that forego actually developing software.

crate_barre 5y ago
I’d much prefer someone forego writing a line of code than cobbling together their own scaleable social network.
- ChuckMcM 5y ago
  I don't disagree with that sentiment. I was looking at perhaps a different scenario, one that might have unfolded like this: Person A: "I have been tasked with putting together a social network." Person B: "Well we could base it on Mastadon, it's open source, that is what Gab did. That would save us some time." Person A: "Great let's do that." Person B: "We will need to comply with the licensing restrictions for Mastadon though it means giving our changes back to the community." Person A: "Oh, I don't like that at all, what's our alternative?" Person B: "Well we could write a new system from scratch but it will take us at least 6 months to get to where these existing systems are." Person A: "Hmm, that doesn't fit our timeline, how about this, we use the Mastadon code, tell everyone it is our own code, and get rid of any references to Mastadon in the code. Then nobody comes after us and we can be up and running before the 2022 elections season starts in earnest." Person B: "But that would be dishonest and wrong." Person A: "Is that what your replacement will say?" Person B: <grumble><grumble> Person A: "Okay, since we have agreement let's get to it."

woodruffw 5y ago

Ripping off (A)GPL software is nothing particularly new, but this is a remarkably haphazard and visible attempt to do so.

ctvo 5y ago
Unsure if it's the incompetence of the the cover up or the actual violation that's more bothersome for me.
- Barrin92 5y ago
  >the incompetence i mean let's be real who is ever going to work for this thing, the amount of qualified engineers who are going to sign up for Trump's Mastodon media clone you can probably count on one hand. Which might arguably be the biggest problem all of these companies are going to have, how are these people ever going to find actual developers
  - dymk 5y ago
    I guarantee you there are plenty of smart, capable, clever engineers willing (and likely motivated by sincerer personal belief) to work on Trump's Mastodon media clone. I'm not one of them, but I also put active effort into not letting my social spheres from taint my view of "the other"'s ability too much.
    - hairofadog 5y ago
      I'm certain you're right that there are a lot of talented engineers with political philosophies all over the spectrum, many of whom I would whole-heartedly disagree with. However, Trump and the folks in his immediate circle seem to drive away competence through a special combination of malice, selfishness, pettiness, projection, and short-sightedness that boggles the mind. Set aside ideology for a minute; it seems like not paying the bills is standard procedure for their organization, and I don't know who would stand for it regardless of their ideology.

kfprt 5y ago

Is the service even public yet? The license says that users of the service are entitled to the code but if the service isn't open to users I fail to see the violation.

aaron695 5y ago
Correct. They also are not entitled to the code unless it's been modified. But this is the license and reality, not what HN makes up in their heads, two very different things. (It is entirely possible they have modified the code and are allowing uses to access this code, but I haven't seen it shown)
humanistbot 5y ago
From TFA: Truth Social hasn’t officially launched. But users could access a test version of the platform, where many of them created prank accounts that flooded the service with false company announcements and even fake Donald Trump posts. (The platform has since been replaced by a waitlist.) The SFC demands that TMTG offer all these users access to the Truth Social source code. “If they fail to do this within 30 days, their rights and permissions in the software are automatically and permanently terminated,” Kuhn says.
Xylakant 5y ago
According to the article, a beta version was available and the claim is that users that had access to the beta are entitled to the source.
- kfprt 5y ago
  It didn't say that the beta was public. If you run AGPL code on a home server for personal use and someone hacks in I don't think you should owe them code.
  - humanistbot 5y ago
    If you deploy a "test" version of an app to a public server/domain and send an invite to a closed mailing list for users to beta test it, then that still triggers the AGPL.

GaryTang 5y ago

The SPAC is up almost 1000% in less than 48 hours. I suspect the courts & media will find some way to tear it down.

politician 5y ago
The same thing that happened with Parlor. I think the Moderate Left needs to come to grips with the fact that the Authoritarian Left's insistence on silencing and cancelling the unfaithful is most directly responsible for the inevitable loss of political power of the Democrat Party by continuously feeding the Right easily marketable messaging.
- azinman2 5y ago
  What does this have to do with violating AGPL?
  - JohnTHaller 5y ago
    [flagged]
    - politician 5y ago
      "Whataboutism" is a thought-cancelling phrase. Truth Social is going to be silenced with one or more set of tools (AGPL or something else) just like Parlor was silenced.
      - azinman2 5y ago
        Regardless of your perspective of the world and a presumption of people's motivations, that doesn't take away from the fact that the Software Freedom Conservancy is alleging they violated AGPL, which is entirely what the article is about. And violations, especially high profile ones, should absolutely be challenged regardless of political orientation.
        5y ago

betwixthewires 5y ago

To me what I see here is that the software to run a social media site is available to everyone, but some people don't want social media sites just to reach people, they want to build little empires. Why would you try to build a proprietary application when one already exists if your stated goal is free expression? Why would you attempt to obscurely and illegally re license software that already serves it's purpose? It's honestly a sign of what is slowly happening in social media, things like this and what gab did are the death throes of proprietary interactive media.

kayodelycaon 5y ago
> Why would you try to build a proprietary application when one already exists if your stated goal is free expression? If I could hazard a guess... because that goal is a smoke screen to hide the real intent, exploiting the people on that network. (See any large "free" social network for examples.)
- betwixthewires 5y ago
  That's basically my implication, or more generally, that the true goals deviate from the stated goals.

trakq 5y ago

This site is likely to leak user data just like many before it. If the Republicans are for free anonymous speech, why don't they host Tor servers, write a simple web site instead of a hack and tell all users to use Tor?

bink 5y ago
Imagine teaching your grandpa how to use Tor.
- 5560675260 5y ago
  Do you really have to? It could be as simple as using a different browser (and waiting for a minute or two after startup).
iammisc 5y ago
[flagged]
- KittenInABox 5y ago
  Do churches not have zoom meetings and email lists? Genuinely asking, as I'm not religious but my understanding is that remote worship is a pretty well-solved problem in abrahamic religion- radio, tv, mailing lists, zoom, etc.
  - iammisc 5y ago
    Well as a Catholic, no. Mass is not valid via virtual 'remote' anything. Mailing lists? Sure. But mailing lists are run by google or other companies. Most people just text or call or tell people stuff using their mouths and ears
    - KittenInABox 5y ago
      I mean given the poster I was responding to was talking about facebook groups I figure that "this is run by a company" is already done with. > Well as a Catholic, no. Mass is not valid via virtual 'remote' anything. I'm not Catholic, but when I google "Catholic mass zoom" I see a ton of stuff. Is there like a religious leadership/doctrine these are against or something?

motohagiography 5y ago

I haven't done a close reading of the license text, but is there a specific point in time or condition after which someone is obligated to share their forked source code? Can you only clone the source via git into another public repository, or is there some other condition that causes your changes to become publicly available? This could signal an interesting future, as it's probably a trivial change for this company to comply with the license terms, but a scenario where an organization like the SFC becomes the new RIAA/MPAA of selective enforcement is something worth considering. Sure, the rules are the same for everyone, but their enforcement, well...

woodruffw 5y ago
> I haven't done a close reading of the license text, but is there a specific point in time or condition after which someone is obligated to share their forked source code? Can you only clone the source via git into another public repository, or is there some other condition that causes your changes to become publicly available? For the AGPL, you're required to share your changes as soon as you begin serving those changes to users. That includes running a quasi-open beta with your server software, as "TRUTH" appears to have done.
- motohagiography 5y ago
  Now I'm trying to parse the legal language. Section 5 appears to relate to this, but it's about "conveying," which in the license definitions, excludes providing access to a service that uses it. > To "convey" a work means any kind of propagation that enables other parties to make or receive copies. Mere interaction with a user through a computer network, with no transfer of a copy, is not conveying. I'm sure the Mastadon author has constructed their view based on a more strategic logical parsing of the license, and for now they have succeeded in making the brand story about how it's just another example in a long line of frauds and thefts as was what seemed to be the straightforward intent. However, litigating software licenses as part of partisan lawfare can have knock-on effects for everyone else. I'm imagining what developing new products will be like in a world with something like the SCO patent litigation but by people with tumblr accounts and backed by superpacs.

makecheck 5y ago

I mean…if it was anyone else I’d say it’s good that they’re suing, they should be able to easily prove this, etc. But this man has made a lifetime out of screwing people over and ignoring rules. There have already been literally thousands of lawsuits against his companies. Therefore, I strongly suspect this will be yet another instance of him using the law to delay, delay, delay, and by the time anything happens he’ll still have gained something. Heck he’ll probably counter-sue on some ridiculous basis. We live in an age where things move very fast and we desperately need something better/faster than law courts to sort these things out.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
iszomer 5y ago
> We live in an age where things move very fast and we desperately need something better/faster than law courts to sort these things out. "I hereby declare all cilantro lovers as heretics and therefore automagically sent to the gulags for re-education." Umm, no.
- qorrect 5y ago
  What does re-education look like ?
  - lapetitejort 5y ago
    In this case, calmly, yet firmly explaining that cilantro tastes like soap to a small percentage of the population [0]. [0]: https://www.britannica.com/story/why-does-cilantro-taste-like-soap-to-some-people https://www.britannica.com/story/why-does-cilantro-taste-lik...
- dillondoyle 5y ago
  I think there is a reasonable point though. Courts are backed up, the Senate is always slow at confirming (and some presidents slow at nominating) judges. And there's not enough Judges or courts to handle our population/amount of suits? One negative consequence of this is the amount of plea deals and the pressures that puts on the accused. Pandemic seemed to have made it worse. Another thought would be building out more official specialization to speed things up. I can't find it but there was a HN article a few weeks ago talking about a I think a Texas judge who handled the vast majority of some type of specific litigation. It might have been patents I can't seem to remember. Said because that judicial district has a larger volume of case 'law' and well-defined regulations which is also an odd quirk to me as a non-lawyer - that regions can be different. article was about court shopping too, where corporations use their power to get moved into his court because they get better outcomes. https://www.uscourts.gov/judges-judgeships/judicial-vacancies/current-judicial-vacancies https://www.uscourts.gov/judges-judgeships/judicial-vacancie...

syspec 5y ago

Screenshot of HTML from Truth Social which still contains Mastadon CSS classes: https://twitter.com/RealGlenMerlin/status/1451068464232157184 https://twitter.com/RealGlenMerlin/status/145106846423215718...

andrewclunn 5y ago

If Trump is sincere about wanting to have a space for free speech, then he should comply with the GPL. If his goal is to grift off appearing to champion free speech, then attempting to steal from the free software movement is clear way to prove himself as such. Then again, I guess there is always option three: rewrite a proprietary one, saying he had no knowledge that the engineer(s) were stealing code (not an outrageous claim honestly). I gladly await the hate for not taking a particularly partisan view of this issue.

kazinator 5y ago

> The Trump Media and Technology Group (TMTG) has 30 days to comply with the terms of the license before its access is terminated — forcing it to rebuild the platform or face legal action. Is that true? Wouldn't the actual copyright holder of the software have to assert this? Are the SFC making this specific demand, and are they the copyright holders? Moreover, before the copyright proprietor takes action, wouldn't there have to be a legitimate complaint from a user of the site, who wanted the source code but had been denied? Otherwise it's a one-handed clap. I'm looking at a Mastodon repo on github. Is this the right thing? https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/ https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/ This has serious issues. There is a LICENSE file in the root directory, but this doesn't mention any authors; it's just a copy of the AGPL. There is a copyright notice in it naming the Free Software Foundation, but that pertains to that file itself, not to Mastodon. The presence of this file tells us that someone has put Mastodon under the AGPL, as a big umbrella license for everything in this tree. However, individual source files lack copyright headers. For instance, no copyright header in this randomly picked file: https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/blob/main/app/mailers/admin_mailer.rb https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/blob/main/app/mailers/a... I see the AUTHORS file, but this is just a list of poorly identified github accounts and such. It's not clear who wrote what (unless we go digging through git history, I suppose). Anyway, these people don't seem to have assigned their copyright to the project, so the copyright proprietorship (who wrote what) boils down to looking at the git blame of every file to get the set of authors who touched any line. In summary, this project appears to be a bit of a gong-show, in terms of licensing. If I deployed this, and some copyleft group started harassing me, I'd ask them to write me another e-mail, this time from one of the accounts listed in the Mastodon AUTHORS file, and specifying a list of the files of which that account is an author, substantiated by git blame analysis. If I had not modified any of those files, I'd reply "have a nice day".

stevenicr 5y ago

So to truly custom mod mastadon or similar agpl things that could hide some of the secret added sauce.. you could modify the core project to call another code chunk / like a wordpress plugin.. then you'd be required to release copies of your modified source which would just have a new line of code calling for 'other thing'.. it wouldn't have to include the whole 'other thing' like if you added a line bringing in recaptcha so essentially you could create right in mastadon, or similar project, but you could also break out separate things, like wordpress themes, wordpress plugins, third party addins.. Is this all right? I'm trying to remember some of the debate back in the day with licensing and WP themes and plugins and such, although I'm thinking that was a different license. It certainly seems to me like this is going to end up being a situation where there is a publicly available github thing that has nothing of interest other than a few lines calling for a few extra js calls or something for spam / moderation and not the actual code that is hidden in those addins. If this is not the case with this type of licensing I'd like to know - I've been itching to deploy a mastadon for a while now and would like to know more about restrictions. abuse vectors, all that.

GoblinSlayer 5y ago
How recaptcha isn't covered by agpl? It's such a huge blob!