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Trump’s new social media platform found using Mastodon code

512 points by nanna 5y ago

quotemstr 5y ago
> They bound their open-source license to a Code of Conduct That's called a proprietary software license. Usage restrictions disqualify software as free software or open source. This kind of restriction makes me cringe, and I wish someone would just defy these guys and dare them to actually take the issue to court. I don't think they would.
h2odragon 5y ago
This (possible but technically not yet a) license violation has gotten more press for OSS licenses and enforcement than anything before, I think. Certainly more press than the Vizio thing, which will actually impact a lot more people if anything comes of it.
- CalChris 5y ago
  TiVo Linksys Most of Oracle's business model.
- EdwardDiego 5y ago
  Vizio?
  - h2odragon 5y ago
    TV maker Vizio sued for GPL infringement https://www.theregister.com/2021/10/20/vizio_gpl_lawsuit/ https://www.theregister.com/2021/10/20/vizio_gpl_lawsuit/
    - EdwardDiego 5y ago
      Ohhh, I was thinking Visio, the drawing thing. Duh, thanks.
- JohnWhigham 5y ago
  Amazon violating open source agreements to host their own version of the product and squeeze the life out of the original company? Not a peep. People whose political opinions differ from my own use the software? This must be stopped at once.
  - Jotra7 5y ago
    [dead]
  - boredumb 5y ago
    The reaction of people towards political campaigns using facebook data to campaign for US president in 2012 vs 2016 is similarly amusing and migraine inducing.
    - long_time_gone 5y ago
      False equivalencies give me migraines too!!
  - lghh 5y ago
    I think calling open fascism something as simple as a "differing political opinion" a bit reductive. Additionally, a former president (and future presidential hopeful) taking advantage of someone in this manor is more newsworthy than a multinational corporation. Though, I agree with what I assume is also your opinion that that Amazon situation matters more.
    - ed25519FUUU 5y ago
      Is it possible I live in an insulated worldview largely detached from the political, economical, and societal issues faced by non-urban dwelling, non-millennials? No, definitely not. They’re just actual fascists.
      - lghh 5y ago
        Seeing as I don't live in an urban area and am in the most "red" state in the nation, I doubt I'm that removed from what you think I'm removed from.
havkd 5y ago
Antithetical to your values why, because it’s supposedly going to be a free speech website (I’ll believe it when I see it), as opposed to the tightly moderated fediverse instances? Or is it just the guy? Or something else? Anyway, it hasn’t launched yet, so why can’t this post wait until then?
- JumpCrisscross 5y ago
  > why can’t this post wait until then? The group announcing signing a merger agreement with a now-two-billion-dollar SPAC [1] is the likely spark. It's an announcement of a change in economic magnitude. That can make previously-ignorable mistakes meaningful to pursue. [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/21/trump-linked-spac-shares-soar-more-than-40percent-on-news-of-social-media-deal.html https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/21/trump-linked-spac-shares-soa...
  - havkd 5y ago
    I understand. But can this be fought in court as long as the website doesn’t even exist? There is no indication that the website will infringe on this licence yet… it hasn’t launched yet!
    - JumpCrisscross 5y ago
      > can this be fought in court as long as the website doesn’t even exist? The website did exist. Users created accounts and demanded a copy of the source. They were refused, and so the license was infringed. Mastodon isn't threatening legal action. They're asking for that refusal to be reversed, thereby curing the infringement.
      - margalabargala 5y ago
        I had the same question- "Does taking down the website cure the violation?" Here's the relevant clause in GPLv3: > You may not propagate or modify a covered work except as expressly provided under this License. Any attempt otherwise to propagate or modify it is void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License (including any patent licenses granted under the third paragraph of section 11). > However, if you cease all violation of this License, then your license from a particular copyright holder is reinstated (a) provisionally, unless and until the copyright holder explicitly and finally terminates your license, and (b) permanently, if the copyright holder fails to notify you of the violation by some reasonable means prior to 60 days after the cessation. > Moreover, your license from a particular copyright holder is reinstated permanently if the copyright holder notifies you of the violation by some reasonable means, this is the first time you have received notice of violation of this License (for any work) from that copyright holder, and you cure the violation prior to 30 days after your receipt of the notice. Basically- the website WAS in violation, and Mastodon is within their rights to permanently withdraw the license following their 30-day notice. I think the key here is the difference between "cease violation", with truth.social has done by taking down the site, and "cure the violation", which refers to correcting the earlier violation by distributing the source as it existed at that time. Without "curing" the previous violation, then truth.social cannot launch again with any modified version of Mastodon, as their license will be permanently revoked. That said, there's leeway involved due to truth.social not being intentionally public. On one hand, "people were able to access it and make accounts", on the other hand, gaining access to some company's internal GPL tool because they misconfigured a VPN does not entitle you to source for that tool (and you violated the CFAA). It's a question for the courts, but it probably doesn't really matter because one of three things will happen: 1) truth.social will re-launch with no Mastodon code, and doesn't care if their Mastodon license is revoked. 2) truth.social will re-launch with Mastodon code, will provide their sources, and the whole thing goes away. 3) truth.social will re-launch with Mastodon code, will NOT provide the sources, and Mastodon has a much stronger legal leg to stand on.
roenxi 5y ago
One of Trump's biggest advantages is his enemies drastically over-react to things and end up looking stupid. GPL violations are a serious business and Mastodon is well within their rights to ask for the code to be released. But the business hasn't even opened yet and they're already waving permanent revocation around. This sort of aggression in enforcing the GPL may actually be unprecedented.
- martimarkov 5y ago
  But it is correct. I would love for all violations to be policed like this. I didn’t take time away from my family and life for someone else to profit. I did it ONLY because I’d knew what GPL would enforce. The business opening or not does not matter here. GPL is enforced on the moment you publish underneath that license.
  - kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago
    What exactly are you hoping for or missing? No actual harm has been done to anybody. If "Truth Social" was online for real it would be different, but now? The beta users presumably didn't mind that they didn't have the source code. I think the Mastodon people are merely hoping they can stop Trump, they are not really concerned about getting the source code.
    - martimarkov 5y ago
      GPL does not differentiate between beta and not. You use GPL code - you release anything build on top of it. Simple as that. Anyone can request a copy of their source and should get it. Doesn’t matter if it’s in beta or not as long as it’s licensed under GPL. Even if it’s internal software. Don’t like it - go build from scratch and use some other software but don’t break the license agreement just because you are lazy and can’t be bothered to write your own code.
      - kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago
        I don't think that's correct. Unless you publish it, you don't have to release anything. Otherwise it would be madness. Also my question was more about why that specific concern about the license - why did you pick AGPL instead of GPL and why do you care so much about that specific case?
truthwhisperer 5y ago
Violation is violation but It feels that you are applying double standards. If trump then boohoo boohoo if #BLM I suspect that you would have proudly present it on your website because otherwise racist.
tamaharbor 5y ago
Just more Trump bashing. The swamp does not want to be drained.
- EdwardDiego 5y ago
  If you genuinely believed what you just posted, wow, I'm impressed at your commitment to cognitive dissonance.
shp0ngle 5y ago
Is this actually true? The network was available just for a short time and now is not anymore.
- Proven 5y ago
  Nope, fake news (as usual). It was in preview.
- fdschoeneman 5y ago
  Yeah I thought the same thing. Someone pointed out that even creating test accounts probably qualifies as "over the networks." But it seems silly. And unless mastodon is enforcing this clause against every other instance operator, I'm guessing this is just posturing. Having said that, I'd like them to continue posturing and getting their concept of federated social media more traction.
  - knowfilter 5y ago
    Good point, because similar cases have been brought against Vizio and Tesla, among other, this clearly isn't just posturing.
    - fdschoeneman 5y ago
      Brought by mastodon and against Vizio and Tesla? Or by some other entity with a similar license?
      - knowfilter 5y ago
        Mastodon has not sued anyone. Vizio and Tesla have both run afoul of similar GPL licensing and been called out by the same organization (SFC) that's calling out Truth Social. So like you said, this is clearly not just posturing, Truth Social is legitimately in violation of their license agreement.
ddaalluu1 5y ago
I wondered how he could've developed a social network in such a short time frame. I wouldn't be surprised if that was true, given his track record l.
- wizzwizz4 5y ago
  It's not that hard to develop a “social network”; it's basically just a web front-end to a database. The hard part is making it good, but if you have enough humans working behind the scenes, that can come later.
  - ddaalluu2 5y ago
    Obviously developing a social network that is production ready and scales isn't done in 3 months. So what's your point?
    - wizzwizz4 5y ago
      I could develop a social network that “scales” in way less than three months, just working alone. A few days for the web front-end (with a few days of tweaking a bit later, and then a week of actually making it work). A couple of weeks for the ActivityPub implementation. Five minutes… perhaps 15, if I want to double-check my work, for the SQLite database. Then another week of making sure everything fit together nicely; might be able to do it in two months, actually. It wouldn't be pretty, and it wouldn't cache images locally (which is a problem from a privacy point of view), but it would work, and it would scale just as well as the rest of the Fediverse.
usui 5y ago
Does a history of enforcement help in cases like this? The article itself says that Truth Social is "antithetical" to Mastodon's values, but that there's nothing they can do about the usage of their software other than license violations. It sounds like they have a bias to enforce their license in this case. If Mastodon has a weak history of enforcing their license to other organizations, does it weaken the case? I'm wondering if selective enforcement in the software-licensing world hurts the authority or credibility of a license, in the eyes of the law. My wondering was somewhat inspired by the way Nintendo aggressively polices the appearance of its video game trademarks on places like YouTube and basically the rest of the internet. I hear an argument is that if they don't aggressively enforce their trademark policing, their legal position wouldn't be as strong if they want to pursue a big violation in the future.
- deepsun 5y ago
  If they had noted a legal enforcement, it would have sounded like threatening. They did the right thing and just noted the problem for now. Maybe the other party will fix the infringement and close the issue.
- FemmeAndroid 5y ago
  No, unlike trademark law, copyright law does not require consistent enforcement to maintain. (Copyright law is the basis of the license.) Also, stating a bias does not imply selective enforcement. I don’t think there are many examples of mastodon instances breaching the terms of the license, and certainly not at this scale.
- cedilla 5y ago
  In general, you don't have any obligation to enforce your rights. There is the well-known exception of trademark law, but that's in the nature of the matter. If PepsiCo sells Coca-Cola and the Coca-Cola company doesn't react, then the trade mark obviously doesn't allow customers to identify genuine Coca-Cola.
  - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
    You don't have an obligation and in theory (and only in theory) it doesn't matter but a history of doing it anyway sure as shit helps in court.
chrismeller 5y ago
Seems like the terms they quoted are boilerplate. I wouldn’t attribute this to malice.
- FemmeAndroid 5y ago
  Despite them being boilerplate, they come along with the removal of the existing license text. Still, I’ll reserve final judgement until 30 days pass or this letter is acknowledged.
- op00to 5y ago
  I would. It’s table stakes to follow the licenses of your software or else you may end up in court.
- anoonmoose 5y ago
  It'll be fair not to attribute it to malice once they start following the terms of the license...until then, all we know is what we can see
  - hartator 5y ago
    The site is not officially up though.
    - rsynnott 5y ago
      I mean, it's _theoretically_ possible that they modified it to remove the link to the source, accidentally put it live, always intending to revert the modification before deliberately going live... but that's not winning any prizes for plausibility. In any case 'officially up' is likely irrelevant here.
      - margalabargala 5y ago
        > In any case 'officially up' is likely irrelevant here. That's not true, especially considering they took down the site as soon as it was noticed it was publicly facing. If a company misconfigures a VPN and you're able to access an internal tool that would not be otherwise available to the public, but uses GPL code, that would not entitle you to the sources. Especially if the company immediately fixed the issue of the public having access to said internal tool, any reasonable court would side with them. If the site re-launches without fixing the issue, though, that is a very different story.
treme 5y ago
Ethereum classic moment for mastodon
NDizzle 5y ago
Petty.
- invalidusernam3 5y ago
  Calling a company out for breaking copyright law is not "petty". I suspect you only view it that way because of who is involved
  - dafoex 5y ago
    I suspect Mastodon is laying on the "big bad Trump" a little thick, here, but yes. I'm on the side of the GPL, not Trump or Mastodon, so all I want is Free Software licences to be respected.
rdxm 5y ago
Happy to throw some dollars at a Trump beat-down if it comes to that. Just make sure to post a link to gofundme or whatever...
rogual 5y ago
Do we really have to give this guy the #1 Hacker News story? He was fading into the background so nicely.
- pibechorro 5y ago
  You mean the person who was the sitting president of the united states, who got deplatformed in unison by big tech social media, and is now fighting against censorship by using tech? Yeah, that is not relevant at all to hackernews /s
  - parrellel 5y ago
    That is an interestingly context free take. What did he do? What could he possibly have done, to get that to happen? It's like I wasn't sitting a mile from the capitol watching the WTOP national mall guy hiding behind a banister while the mob from his rally battered down the doors.
  - krapp 5y ago
    I like how everyone always says "sitting President of the united states" when they mention Trump's deplatforming, as if to imply that being a sitting President gives Trump greater legal right to a social media account, or that deplatforming Trump was in some way an coup or overthrow of Trump's position as President, thus reinforcing the narrative of social media being an organized supranational conspiracy that poses a threat to national sovereignty itself. It's these consistent, subtle details that make the Trumpist propaganda so effective. The other side needs to start taking notes.
    - jimktrains2 5y ago
      As much as I dislike Trump, deplatforming is much more notable while he was in office than if it had happened afterwards. I agree, though, that it does sometimes sound like it's being hinted that something more nefarious was happening when people talk about it like this.
      - 5y ago
detaro 5y ago
some previous threads: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28961528 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28961528 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29054451 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29054451 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29044477 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29044477 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29001573 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29001573 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28959468 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28959468
jrootabega 5y ago
> As far as personal feelings are concerned, of course we would prefer if people so antithetical to our values did not use and benefit from our labour And sensible people would prefer that license violations would be published and pursued fairly, and personal feelings kept personal, rather than creating a soft list of people and perspectives whose online/computing freedom is less important than others.
- rp1 5y ago
  That sounds like a personal feeling.
  - jrootabega 5y ago
    It's a personal feeling about the purpose of the license, not about the people who are using the license.
    - CTDOCodebases 5y ago
      I read it as being personal at first but on second read interpreted the “antithetical” comment to reference the issue that they were breaking the license and limiting the users freedom.
      - jrootabega 5y ago
        I meant that my comment was a personal feeling about the license, and not about any particular users or violators of the license. The post says "we would prefer if people so antithetical to our values did not use and benefit from our labour", and that is clearly not a criticism of just the nature of the license violation, but the people who are violating it.
        caf 5y ago
        And? It's their website, they can criticise whoever they like on it.
        5y ago
d_theorist 5y ago
Are the quoted terms actually incorrect or in violation of the license? >all source code ... are owned or controlled by us or licensed to us, and are protected by copyright and trademark laws That's correct isn't it? The mastodon code would be licensed to them under the AGPL. So I am not sure this should be a source of "worry" in and of itself. The potential issue appears to be that they have modified the mastodon code without publishing their modifications, which I believe might be a violation of the licensing terms (although I am certainly not an expert).
- dmm 5y ago
  Even if you don't modify the sources you have to provide them to anyone who uses the service.
  - the-dude 5y ago
    There is no service.
    - nathanappere 5y ago
      "Not publicly available" is not the same as "there is no service".
    - dmm 5y ago
      People were able to access the service and create accounts. Those people are entitled to the sources. This would immediately go away if they just posted a tarball of the almost certainly unmodified sources. I guess nobody running this understands what's going on?
      - roenxi 5y ago
        > This would immediately go away... This platform is going to be under continuous attack from all angles. The company has to be ready to be boycotted, licenses revoked, regulation enacted, smear campaigns run, deplatformed by infrastructure providers, etc. Their lawyers are going to be the more combative type, when they signed up it was pretty clear the sort of wild-eyed hate that the Trump brand is going to attract from established actors in the social media sphere. My hope is they're just going to take 20 days to think about it then release the source code. But we'll see.
KingOfCoders 5y ago
"On Oct 26, we sent a formal letter to Truth Social’s chief legal officer, requesting the source code to be made publicly available in compliance with the license. According to AGPLv3, after being notified by the copyright holder, Truth Social has 30 days to comply or the license may be permanently revoked."
- zdkl 5y ago
  Wouldn't a semi-malicious actor be mostly in the clear if they provided the upstream code and a statement declaring they make no modifications to the provided source directly? If so, what would the recourse be? I can't imagine a court backing a demand to reveal <malicious actor>'s production systems based on what little external evidence one would have in these circumstances.
  - masklinn 5y ago
    > Wouldn't a semi-malicious actor be mostly in the clear if they provided the upstream code and a statement declaring they make no modifications to the provided source directly? Sure, but that seems to be belied on its face by them having actually stripped the present-by-default mentions & links: > neither the terms nor any other part of the website contained any references to Mastodon, nor any links to the source code, which are present in Mastodon’s user interface by default. That, then, would be extremely strong evidence that they're lying, and I would expect more than enough for a legal injunction.
    - wizzwizz4 5y ago
      They might be running a forwarding proxy with substitution rules. I don't think AGPL would have a problem with that, even though SSPL would. (Though, let's face it: they totally modified the source code.)
      - ncallaway 5y ago
        Yea, but you don’t have to prove your case to get into court. You have to be able to say, with a straight face, that you really believe that they did the thing you’re accusing them of. So just because it’s theoretically possible that there’s a path to the facts we see without violating the license, the fact that a license violation is a plausible explanation is enough to launch a court case. After all, the court case including the discovery process and the trial itself are all about determining the relevant facts.
nextlevelwizard 5y ago
Feel like title is click bait. At least I immediately thought that Mastodon had special clause that Ol' Trumpster was violating, but just not publishing source. Yeah this is license violation, but pretty minor, very common, and harmless (assuming they do release the source now that they are made aware of the licensing agreement)
- Miner49er 5y ago
  They violated every other clause of the license. a) The work must carry prominent notices stating that you modified it, and giving a relevant date. b) The work must carry prominent notices stating that it is released under this License and any conditions added under section 7. This requirement modifies the requirement in section 4 to "keep intact all notices". c) You must license the entire work, as a whole, under this License to anyone who comes into possession of a copy. This License will therefore apply, along with any applicable section 7 additional terms, to the whole of the work, and all its parts, regardless of how they are packaged. This License gives no permission to license the work in any other way, but it does not invalidate such permission if you have separately received it. d) If the work has interactive user interfaces, each must display Appropriate Legal Notices; however, if the Program has interactive interfaces that do not display Appropriate Legal Notices, your work need not make them do so. From my understanding, they didn't do any of these, and claimed the code as their own.
  - macinjosh 5y ago
    > From my understanding, they didn't do any of these, and claimed the code as their own. Where did they "claim the code" as their own? This project hasn't even launched yet. There is no published work for which they could do any of those things yet. I'll get my pitchfork if the service is launched and they still haven't done these things.
    - Miner49er 5y ago
      This is all in Mastodan's blog post. It hasn't officially launched, but was made public for a bit, people signed up. It was clearly just a Mastodan fork, and it had a terms of service with this in it: Unless otherwise indicated, the Site is our proprietary property and all source code, databases, functionality, software, website designs, audio, video, text, photographs, and graphics on the Site (collectively, the “Content”) and the trademarks, service marks, and logos contained therein (the “Marks”) are owned or controlled by us or licensed to us, and are protected by copyright and trademark laws and various other intellectual property rights and unfair competition laws of the United States, foreign jurisdictions, and international conventions.
im3w1l 5y ago
Truth social is, as far as I'm aware, not launched. Thus I'm curious whether the AGPL "if you run a modified program on a server and let other users communicate with it there" has really been triggered. Edit: This was based on the https://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-affero-gpl.html https://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-affero-gpl.html explanation of the AGPL but the quote is not present in the license itself.
- FemmeAndroid 5y ago
  They didn’t ‘officially launch’ but the platform was up and running. There isn’t a ‘you don’t need to comply if it’s an alpha test’ clause in the AGPL.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - rubyist5eva 5y ago
    If you don't legally have access to the platform, you have no claim on license enforcement. The platform wasn't officially launched, and the accounts were used by exploiting a misconfigured page. They are under no obligation to release the source code, yet.
    - vntok 5y ago
      Exactly. Truth Social could actually sue any one claiming they used the platform for abusing a security flaw to obtain and maintain access to a protected computer system. That would be hilarious.
      - rubyist5eva 5y ago
        There might even also be a case for libel.
    - Chris2048 5y ago
      > the accounts were used by exploiting a misconfigured page This is an important detail; is this absolutely proven?
throwaway420y 5y ago
I fail to see how a website that's not up yet is violating any licenses, can anyone tell me more about this ?
- CTDOCodebases 5y ago
  The article states it was made available to a small subset of people. I guess distribution is distribution even if it just handing a USB stick to a friend.
  - luke9112 5y ago
    I've read the AGPL, and it says that it must be able to be distributed to every user of the software. Every person that uses Truth Social must be able to find the source code.
    - _-david-_ 5y ago
      Has any beta tester actually requested the code? If not then I don't think there is a violation.
  - _-david-_ 5y ago
    Has any person who has access to the site actually requested the source code? If not then there is no license violation right?
    - CTDOCodebases 5y ago
      I don’t know. I’m not privy to the private communications of the users nor do I have the legal expertise to understand the validity of the terms and conditions of a license. Regardless I just see this announcement as a pre emptive move by the developers of Mastodon to compel the owners of Truth Social to comply with their license moving forward.
- spamizbad 5y ago
  The website was up, and claimed it was running proprietary software.
cblconfederate 5y ago
On the other hand Trump's network might be coopted to contribute to mastodon's development, since they have apparently billions in funding. And it would be very ironic if this ends up boosting the decentralized web.
- option_greek 5y ago
  That's the shortsightedness part of it. They should have tried to get them license compliant and may be even negotiated with them to keep it compatible with Mastodon network. It would have not only helped both parties but also introduced Mastodon to more non tech users. Instead, it appears to be the typical knee-jerk reaction for woke points. So now Mastodon is liberal, left leaning and want to control what people discuss? Get in queue folks. We already got twitter and facebook for that!
  - Miner49er 5y ago
    They are trying to get Truth Social to be compliant. That's the whole point.
  - monooso 5y ago
    > They should have tried to get them license compliant That's precisely what Mastodon is trying to do. In fact, that's _all_ they're trying to do, as the article made clear.
    - cblconfederate 5y ago
      > of course we would prefer if people so antithetical to our values did not use and benefit from our labour it is clear that they are not interested in coopting them
      - ncallaway 5y ago
        …and yet the only actions they’ve taken were to send a letter asking them to come into compliance with the AGPL within 30 days.
INTPenis 5y ago
The instance in question was taken down almost as soon as it was discovered. And still the headlines keep coming. That's how strong the Trump name is.
fareesh 5y ago
"We hate you and everything you stand for!!! You must put our logo on your website!"
paradite 5y ago
What if I deployed my own node and just changed some css styling? Do I also need to somehow open source the changes? Edit: And what if I wrap it with another service, say a CDN, that changed some behaviour and styling (proxying, path rewrite, etc)?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- mijoharas 5y ago
  1. yes. 2. I think no, but I believe this is a contentious point, and it depends on whether the "mastodon instance + CDN/proxy/whatever" constitutes a "derived work" or not.
foxhop 5y ago
We will create many Distributed Permacomputers which will be long lasting, durable, with the right to repair and a right to free speech without being deplatformed. Rusulting Code will be public domain and easy to setup. It was never about the code, it was always about the data. To learn more or help, Please visit: https://www.unturf.com https://www.unturf.com and https://youtu.be/BgBrSLUgLH4 https://youtu.be/BgBrSLUgLH4 We reject political deplatforming. We favor right-to-repair We refuse single-use plastics We belive in a platform by the people for the people. My idea is to smash together Remarkbox, MakePostSell, Bittorrent, and Cloudflares R2 to build a durable network owned by the masses. It was never about the code or the license, it was always about the data.
- gambiting 5y ago
  And....what exactly does this have to do with this situation? If your permacomputer hosts something that breaks the licence of the software used, I'd also hope it would be shut down, whatever it's hosting.
  - foxhop 5y ago
    Saying you will shut down a permacomputer is like saying you will shut down the Internet.
    - gambiting 5y ago
      A permacomputer exists only as long as there are people hosting it. Bittorent files are famously impossible to take down....only as long as there are any seeders remaining. You don't need to shut down the entire internet to stop a distributed system from working.
      - foxhop 5y ago
        How to stop Bittorrent without stopping the Internet?
        5y ago
s7r 5y ago
In terms of "antithetical values", the machine learning project ml5js.org actually did something about this. They bound their open-source license to a Code of Conduct¹, which forbids the use of their ML software for (1) discriminating against marginalized communities, (2) building tools that disingenuously manipulate public opinion, (3) building tools of mass surveillance and prediction to repress the rights of people, and (4) building tools that control weapons, including tools that automate the deployment, operation, and targeting of weapons. Reported violations of the Code of Conduct are sent to a Steering Committee, made up of members of the community, who determine if the reported project is in violation of the Code of Conduct. If so, the Committee takes steps to remedy the situation (e.g. realigning project with the Code of Conduct, or removing ml5.js from the project) — and if no resolution is found, the project falls out of compliance with the terms of the software license. It's an interesting experiment.² Software is a tool to help us solve problems and reach desired outcomes. Licenses are also a tool to help us solve problems and reach desired outcomes. When desired outcomes exclude certain things (e.g. discrimination of marginalized communities, manipulation of public opinion, autonomous weapons, values antithetical to that of a community), it seems a Code of Conduct can also be a worthwhile tool to solve problems and support the outcomes that the community is working towards. (Of course, wisdom and governance are crucial and not to be taken for granted. Shout out DKP servers³ for showing some light there.) ¹ ml5.js Code of Conduct: https://github.com/ml5js/Code-of-Conduct/ https://github.com/ml5js/Code-of-Conduct/ ² Analysis from KE Mitchell on ml5.js licensing: https://writing.kemitchell.com/2021/01/12/ml5js-Takes-a-Stand.html https://writing.kemitchell.com/2021/01/12/ml5js-Takes-a-Stan... ³ On Dragon Kill Points and governance systems in World of Warcraft: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=958945 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=958945
- veeti 5y ago
  The ultimate irony is that this project is apparently sponsored by Google [1], a known peddler of mass surveillance to repress the rights of people. [1] https://github.com/ml5js/Code-of-Conduct/issues/2 https://github.com/ml5js/Code-of-Conduct/issues/2
- roenxi 5y ago
  If all software was licensed that way, 5-15 years would pass then suddenly there'd be a whole bunch of "Wow, Stallman was right again! We should have been using free software licenses!" style articles. Restricting software use to only people approved by the creators is a terrible idea. Society has to operate with some level of trust that even people we disagree with, using methods we don't approve of, have the potential to improve the world. Otherwise the situation will get worse.
Brosper 5y ago
This is good for Mastodon who will be more recognisable after this event
- aksss 5y ago
  any publicity is good I guess, but reading their spiel left me with a bad impression of their style. But whatever.. kind of hate all social media (in the fb, twitter, Parler, TS) sense of the term anyway, so probably predisposed to think little of a posturing platform company anyway.
api 5y ago
Con man who made his money (when he made it) stiffing contractors, running a fake university, and abusing bankruptcy laws stiffs software authors. Big surprise.
andrew_ 5y ago
What's the over/under on how many times this will be pushed to the front page? Was going to post some prior discussion links, but there are over two pages of Google results for unique HN links on the topic: https://www.google.com/search?q=news.ycombinator.com+trump+mastadon&oq=news.ycombinator.com+trump+mastadon https://www.google.com/search?q=news.ycombinator.com+trump+m...
- kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago
  Until "Truth Social" has been stopped, presumably...
  - margalabargala 5y ago
    Or just their license violations.
    - kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago
      Violation. And at the moment, nothing seems to be happening? Are they due to a punishment, or, according to the claims, they would just not be allowed to use the software anymore? Since they are not using it at the moment, there is nothing to see?
      - margalabargala 5y ago
        True, violation. As I understand it, there's a few different possible paths here: Currently, they are not due a punishment- they need either to publish the source code (whole thing goes away), or if they do not, then their license to use Mastodon is permanently revoked. If the use the code after that, then they might be subject to damages. That said, it's likely that they would be able to successfully argue in court that the 30-day timer that has ostensibly started, is invalid. This would be because of the (IMO quite reasonable) point that the site was not intended for public access, and access that occurred was due to misconfiguration. Frankly, it's annoying to me that this happened as it did, because the early access created this grey area of "does this count as a violation or is it just accidental", allowing people's personal politics to color how strictly this should be enforced. If the site had launched for real with the violation (or with the source code), everything would be much more clear-cut.
woodpanel 5y ago
"but the reality of working on free software is that you give up the possibility of choosing who can and cannot use it from the get-go" I always wonder why wokeism hasn't reached software licenses yet? Just imagine the anger when it would come to a FOSS dev team's attention that <insert-evil-group> is using their product, successfully even... "of course we would prefer if people so antithetical to our values did not use" I mean just the effort involved by a lot of people in the dev community to dig something up: "findings that various people have presented to us," While the stated proprietary licensing text could be easily just a beta version, or totally fine anyways (I'm not a lawyer), but definitely something other projects would get a pass for. You know, a nicely written e-mail not making any fuzz. In a way this fuzz mastodon makes out of it, is exactly the PR a Trump would want, no?
- maeln 5y ago
  > Just imagine the anger when it would come to a FOSS dev team's attention that <insert-evil-group> is using their product, successfully even... Err, this is something a lot of FOSS dev' have been complaining about actually. There has been complain in the past directed toward Microsoft, Apple, Google, Amazon and many top-100 company for using free software without contributing anything back (code or financial support), or again, because they are disliked by the original FOSS team. This "woke" word has been thrown around left and right at this point and is completely nonsensical, like SJW before that.
- justin66 5y ago
  > I always wonder why wokeism hasn't reached software licenses yet? The license you’re waiting for was JSLint. It was brilliant and the effect it had on users was a hilarious thing to behold: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5138866 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5138866 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4762035 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4762035 Nothing involving Trump’s projects will provoke the same sort of hilarity. A desire to avoid litigation on the part of the user, combined with at least a minimal, superficial concern over good and evil, are necessary for the gag to work.
sydthrowaway 5y ago
Trump will win 2024.
haunter 5y ago
Kinda off and I have no horses in the race but how come Mastodon has so many gambling sites and casinos as sponsors? Never knew that, feels a bit odd. Also personally not a big fan of this... https://joinmastodon.org/sponsors https://joinmastodon.org/sponsors
- vanattab 5y ago
  Lol. Another sponsor is Mark Mitchell from https://www.bestblowjobmachines.com/ https://www.bestblowjobmachines.com/
- nsxwolf 5y ago
  Probably the same reason the WNBA sponsors are all hard liquor. You take what you can get.
- Ardren 5y ago
  I assume they're just being used as ads? The page does say you get a logo and a non-follow link for donating. Then again, I checked a random company, Fire Stick Tricks, and they donate to a bunch[1] of open-source projects. So maybe they're just companies that have extra money to give back? 1: https://opencollective.com/fire-stick-tricks https://opencollective.com/fire-stick-tricks
- david_allison 5y ago
  There's a large number of e-gaming companies sponsoring OSS as a means of CSR and advertising. For smaller OSS, it is the majority of corporate donations as other types of companies don't bother. It's not likely that Mastodon encouraged those donations, but other companies aren't likely to reach out. Doing further research, Mastodon's sold out on those tiers of sponsors[0], so they're likely in the lucky position that they could pick and choose. [0] https://sponsor.joinmastodon.org/ https://sponsor.joinmastodon.org/
- 300bps 5y ago
  ESG Investing is one of the hottest trends in investment management that aims to eliminate investments in companies that don't adhere to Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance standards. Most investment management firms are scrambling to come up with product offerings to meet the substantial demand. So you're not alone in your feelings. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental,_social_and_corporate_governance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental,_social_and_corp...
lettergram 5y ago
Mastodon has also banned Gab and others from the network that they disagree with. The whole point of a federated system is free speech... yet they have spent a lot of time trying to kick out people who disagree with them. Frankly, it’s disheartening I want to know what the communists, fascists, republicans, democrats, racists, religious, technocrats, etc want to say. It’s so frustrating having everyone in bubbles and getting banned for speaking about topics. The most calls for hate and violence I’ve seen are on Twitter and not from the right lol...
- EdwardDiego 5y ago
  Welcome to humanity and our inherent tribalism.
- h2odragon 5y ago
  I also found it deeply amusing that the "fediverse" proclaimed its diversity with "look at all the banned nodes!" I peeked at the Mastodon code and it gave me a headache before I got through the "required for installation" section. Makes me want to go set up an RBBS node again.
  - cyber_kinetist 5y ago
    The fediverse was not about diversity in the first place, its main purpose is to decentralize power from one platform owner to various instances with their own rules. Since each instance can have their own whitelists/blacklists for other instances, there can be less diversity of what people you meet, but people have their own preferences. If you want a platform where people from all political sides come together (and fight via quote tweets and ratios), then Twitter is your best bet. But not everyone wants to have that experience, and I’ve seen people move to Mastodon to escape from that and have a more curated, closely-knit experience.
- kypro 5y ago
  It really never ceases to amaze me how few people actually seem to value freedom of speech. Almost everyone claims to until someone says something they disagree with. I guess I'm not sure the problem is technological any more. If public sentiment towards freedom of speech doesn't change it doesn't really matter if a truly free platform exists or not. If 99% of people don't want freedom of speech then these platforms will inevitably become radicalised cesspools only used by the 1% who have opinions which they can't express elsewhere. Subsequently if these platforms become popular enough they'll inevitably be censored in one way or another by the 99% who disapprove. I'm with you, I like to know what the radicals are saying. I actually find a lot of the mainstream arguments against radical belief systems to be very poor and this actually re-enforces the beliefs these communities hold. I personally believe if we tried to understand some of the grievances these people have and then tried to actually provide solutions to their problems we wouldn't see half as much radicalisation. Instead we try to silence and shame these individuals then dismiss their grievances with stupid arguments which only demonstrate to them that we have no understanding or interest in their problems. It's really no surprise that radical online communities seem to be growing with censorship. No one changes their beliefs because someone censors and shames them.
qwerty456127 5y ago
LOL lawyers are so lawyers, always trying to claim everything to be their "proprietary property" with everything reasonably and unreasonably relevant altogether. Next they will probably sue somebody for merely looking in their code so they could even discover it has something to do with Mastodon and try to convince the judge there is no evidence which was obtained a legal way and can be taken in account this way :-]
ghostoftiber 5y ago
Mastadon: "Trump is using our software!" Also Mastadon: "Lol Trumps social media site got hacked!" Also Also Mastadon: "Changes to the look and feel of the site violate our license!" OK that's not encouraging anyone to use their software. I have a feeling this is much more a knee jerk reaction to who is using their software rather than a well thought out complaint. I think the most important part of this debacle is that the site itself wasn't supposed to be launched. This is the equivalent of someone leaking footage of (lets say) a baseball being thrown at a truck window, and the window breaking, and everyone going "oh well that's obviously rubbish" in Jeremy Clarkson's voice. Nevermind that the truck was obviously a mock-up.
nikkinana 5y ago
Just fork it. Problem solved.
pketh 5y ago
What happens if a software license is revoked? E.g. what are the teeth behind OSS licenses?
- helen___keller 5y ago
  At surface level, a violated license becomes a standard copyright issue, same as you might expect if you acquired AWS source code and tried to sell your own Copyzon Web Services using their code. (disclaimer: not your lawyer, not law advice)
macinjosh 5y ago
Open-but-only-if-we-like-you-Source
- helen___keller 5y ago
  There are licenses like this, but AGPL is not one of them.
Smithalicious 5y ago
Okay, fair enough, I expected worse from the title. The "antithetical to our values" thing is silly political posturing, but the case itself seems like a pretty clear cut AGPL violation. Hope it gets worked out alright, and that across the aisle we can all agree to respect free software licenses.
- fdschoeneman 5y ago
  I think this is about right, as long as mastodon is enforcing the requirement across all instances. I suspect that if it was enforcing this in other instances it would have said so.
- lorabe 5y ago
  To be clear, there is nothing wrong with having political ideas behind what you do, at the end of the day Mastodon was created for political reasons, first, to support free software, second, to create a web alternative to the shitshow that twitter tends to be. Having that said, enforcing the AGPL rules is an activity that should be done regardless of your political ideas, if someone is violating the AGPL3 the projects have every right to ask them to comply, especially when the offenders belong to powerfull corporate groups that do have the money and the resources. Mastodon saying "we don't like them" is an expression of honesty IMO, but not the only reason to why they want to seek legal counseling.
fdschoeneman 5y ago
If I understand correctly, a) the license requires people who use mastodon "over the network" to meet certain requirements and b) the site is not yet live or being used "over the network." If my understanding is correct, the whole story and the commentary linked are a waste of time and I have to question the motives of anyone pushing either. What am I missing?
throwawaymast 5y ago
It is very likely Robert Colbert is behind this. Gab uses Mastadon as well. He worked on several projects for Trump and other conservatives. He appears to be very nationalistic.
ospzfmbbzr 5y ago
Trump MADE twitter. I have a 3 letter twitter account from 05 or 06 when it was beta. Until Trump was on Twitter in 15 I considered it a big yawn that made no money -- gossip for total retards. Hate him or love him, and with Trump there doesn't seem to be any middle ground, this would have MADE mastodon into SOMETHING instead it is STILL an irrelevant pet project. Maybe they are afraid of losing too many arguments? Only reason to ban those who disagree with you. The license is just being used as an excuse. The rights holders don't even believe their own arguments they are just trying to stake out a plausible position. Phonies.
dtoznayxvf 5y ago
Trump MADE twitter. I have a 3 letter twitter account from 05 or 06 when it was beta. Until Trump was on Twitter in 15 I considered it a big yawn that made no money -- gossip for total retards. Hate him or love him, and with Trump there doesn't seem to be any middle ground, this would have MADE mastodon into SOMETHING instead it is STILL an irrelevant pet project. Maybe they are afraid of losing too many arguments? Only reason to ban those who disagree with you. The license is just being used as an excuse. The rights holders don't even believe their own arguments they are just trying to stake out a plausible position. Phonies.
nixroot 5y ago
This is incorrect. Currently Truth is still internal software not available to the public, AGPL requires distribution of source code alongside the distribution of the program or service. Because Truth is only made available internally, the modified source code only has to be made available to their own company. This would change once the service does go public. AGPL can also not be "permanently revoked". It's not individually licensed to each user like proprietary software often is, it's one license addressed to anyone. Furthermore the AGPL is explicitly irrevocable. They can change the license to a proprietary one but this does not affect existing copies under AGPL. Last I'd like to touch on "antithetical values". If Mastodon were to discriminate against persons, groups or fields of endeavor in their license they would no longer meet the definition of open source, but rather become a source available proprietary product.
- cyber_kinetist 5y ago
  People seem to have found an undisclosed internal address and made accounts there. Would this be an instance of “distribution of the service” in lawyer terms?
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- mumblemumble 5y ago
  See section 8, "Termination": https://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.en.html https://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.en.html Revoke may not be the legally correct word to use, but it's an informal blog post and not a legal document, and what they intended to say is clear enough. I think that your understanding of how the licensure works is a bit off. Open source software is still individually licensed to everyone. The copyright holder retains copyright, and can terminate an individual's rights under the license as long as the license includes a termination clause. Which the AGPL does.
  - nixroot 5y ago
    Interesting, I was not aware of that. I did not take termination into account in the second paragraph. I was referring to AGPL being addressed to anyone instead of a specific party. This means that a full revocation of the license would revoke it from everyone, even though that's not possible with AGPL. This does not apply to terminating licensees as you mentioned which appears to be what they mean and is possible under condition. But because of the lack of a violation a permanent termination in 30 days would still be invalid.
ThinkBeat 5y ago
Getting into any form of discussion regarding T is unwise. Yet I wanted to point out something Mastodon mission has always been to provide users freedom from and alternatives to the giant faceless autocratic exploitative social media. Or at least that is what I gleam from a search of Mastodon prior to when T ran for president. To now state for the record that T is not supposed to use the software seems like a politically biased flip. I also think that it is prudent to wait until launch to critique their compliance. Usually marketing / legal comes up with copy and its get cut and pasted in. It -may- change, it probably wont. We will have to wait and see. I know I have replaced content for similar things right before someone hits the button and right aftwards. I hope the organization does the right thing with attribution. I have not visited yet, and I dont know much about Mastodons code. If they have configured and setup an instance of Mastodon with their own graphics / content / resources. Is just that required to be published to be in compliance? I presume people much smarter than me know they have added features and improvements to the code I certainly hope they share it. I am 100% sure that there is a giant hoard of high profile lawyers who wants this case now and plenty of millionaires and billionairs who want to fund it. Mastodon will not have to finance the trials that might come. Lastly the more T is seen as a martyr being kicked out everywhere the more devoted his cult followers become.
- randyrand 5y ago
  what is T?
  - DeathMetal3000 5y ago
    The former so called president of the US.
    - calvinmorrison 5y ago
      the "actual" former president. Donald J. Trump
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
ElijahLynn 5y ago
AGPLv3 for the F _ _ _ _ _ G WIN!!!! Nice job Mastodon! > Notably, neither the terms nor any other part of the website contained any references to Mastodon, nor any links to the source code, which are present in Mastodon’s user interface by default. Mastodon is free software published under the AGPLv3 license, which requires any over-the-network service using it to make its source code and any modifications to it publicly accessible. > On Oct 26, we sent a formal letter to Truth Social’s chief legal officer, requesting the source code to be made publicly available in compliance with the license. According to AGPLv3, after being notified by the copyright holder, Truth Social has 30 days to comply or the license may be permanently revoked.

512 points by nanna 5y ago

> They bound their open-source license to a Code of Conduct That's called a proprietary software license. Usage restrictions disqualify software as free software or open source. This kind of restriction makes me cringe, and I wish someone would just defy these guys and dare them to actually take the issue to court. I don't think they would.

h2odragon 5y ago

This (possible but technically not yet a) license violation has gotten more press for OSS licenses and enforcement than anything before, I think. Certainly more press than the Vizio thing, which will actually impact a lot more people if anything comes of it.

CalChris 5y ago
TiVo Linksys Most of Oracle's business model.
EdwardDiego 5y ago
Vizio?
- h2odragon 5y ago
  TV maker Vizio sued for GPL infringement https://www.theregister.com/2021/10/20/vizio_gpl_lawsuit/ https://www.theregister.com/2021/10/20/vizio_gpl_lawsuit/
  - EdwardDiego 5y ago
    Ohhh, I was thinking Visio, the drawing thing. Duh, thanks.
JohnWhigham 5y ago
Amazon violating open source agreements to host their own version of the product and squeeze the life out of the original company? Not a peep. People whose political opinions differ from my own use the software? This must be stopped at once.
- Jotra7 5y ago
  [dead]
- boredumb 5y ago
  The reaction of people towards political campaigns using facebook data to campaign for US president in 2012 vs 2016 is similarly amusing and migraine inducing.
  - long_time_gone 5y ago
    False equivalencies give me migraines too!!
- lghh 5y ago
  I think calling open fascism something as simple as a "differing political opinion" a bit reductive. Additionally, a former president (and future presidential hopeful) taking advantage of someone in this manor is more newsworthy than a multinational corporation. Though, I agree with what I assume is also your opinion that that Amazon situation matters more.
  - ed25519FUUU 5y ago
    Is it possible I live in an insulated worldview largely detached from the political, economical, and societal issues faced by non-urban dwelling, non-millennials? No, definitely not. They’re just actual fascists.
    - lghh 5y ago
      Seeing as I don't live in an urban area and am in the most "red" state in the nation, I doubt I'm that removed from what you think I'm removed from.

havkd 5y ago

Antithetical to your values why, because it’s supposedly going to be a free speech website (I’ll believe it when I see it), as opposed to the tightly moderated fediverse instances? Or is it just the guy? Or something else? Anyway, it hasn’t launched yet, so why can’t this post wait until then?

JumpCrisscross 5y ago
> why can’t this post wait until then? The group announcing signing a merger agreement with a now-two-billion-dollar SPAC [1] is the likely spark. It's an announcement of a change in economic magnitude. That can make previously-ignorable mistakes meaningful to pursue. [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/21/trump-linked-spac-shares-soar-more-than-40percent-on-news-of-social-media-deal.html https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/21/trump-linked-spac-shares-soa...
- havkd 5y ago
  I understand. But can this be fought in court as long as the website doesn’t even exist? There is no indication that the website will infringe on this licence yet… it hasn’t launched yet!
  - JumpCrisscross 5y ago
    > can this be fought in court as long as the website doesn’t even exist? The website did exist. Users created accounts and demanded a copy of the source. They were refused, and so the license was infringed. Mastodon isn't threatening legal action. They're asking for that refusal to be reversed, thereby curing the infringement.
    - margalabargala 5y ago
      I had the same question- "Does taking down the website cure the violation?" Here's the relevant clause in GPLv3: > You may not propagate or modify a covered work except as expressly provided under this License. Any attempt otherwise to propagate or modify it is void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License (including any patent licenses granted under the third paragraph of section 11). > However, if you cease all violation of this License, then your license from a particular copyright holder is reinstated (a) provisionally, unless and until the copyright holder explicitly and finally terminates your license, and (b) permanently, if the copyright holder fails to notify you of the violation by some reasonable means prior to 60 days after the cessation. > Moreover, your license from a particular copyright holder is reinstated permanently if the copyright holder notifies you of the violation by some reasonable means, this is the first time you have received notice of violation of this License (for any work) from that copyright holder, and you cure the violation prior to 30 days after your receipt of the notice. Basically- the website WAS in violation, and Mastodon is within their rights to permanently withdraw the license following their 30-day notice. I think the key here is the difference between "cease violation", with truth.social has done by taking down the site, and "cure the violation", which refers to correcting the earlier violation by distributing the source as it existed at that time. Without "curing" the previous violation, then truth.social cannot launch again with any modified version of Mastodon, as their license will be permanently revoked. That said, there's leeway involved due to truth.social not being intentionally public. On one hand, "people were able to access it and make accounts", on the other hand, gaining access to some company's internal GPL tool because they misconfigured a VPN does not entitle you to source for that tool (and you violated the CFAA). It's a question for the courts, but it probably doesn't really matter because one of three things will happen: 1) truth.social will re-launch with no Mastodon code, and doesn't care if their Mastodon license is revoked. 2) truth.social will re-launch with Mastodon code, will provide their sources, and the whole thing goes away. 3) truth.social will re-launch with Mastodon code, will NOT provide the sources, and Mastodon has a much stronger legal leg to stand on.

roenxi 5y ago

One of Trump's biggest advantages is his enemies drastically over-react to things and end up looking stupid. GPL violations are a serious business and Mastodon is well within their rights to ask for the code to be released. But the business hasn't even opened yet and they're already waving permanent revocation around. This sort of aggression in enforcing the GPL may actually be unprecedented.

martimarkov 5y ago
But it is correct. I would love for all violations to be policed like this. I didn’t take time away from my family and life for someone else to profit. I did it ONLY because I’d knew what GPL would enforce. The business opening or not does not matter here. GPL is enforced on the moment you publish underneath that license.
- kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago
  What exactly are you hoping for or missing? No actual harm has been done to anybody. If "Truth Social" was online for real it would be different, but now? The beta users presumably didn't mind that they didn't have the source code. I think the Mastodon people are merely hoping they can stop Trump, they are not really concerned about getting the source code.
  - martimarkov 5y ago
    GPL does not differentiate between beta and not. You use GPL code - you release anything build on top of it. Simple as that. Anyone can request a copy of their source and should get it. Doesn’t matter if it’s in beta or not as long as it’s licensed under GPL. Even if it’s internal software. Don’t like it - go build from scratch and use some other software but don’t break the license agreement just because you are lazy and can’t be bothered to write your own code.
    - kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago
      I don't think that's correct. Unless you publish it, you don't have to release anything. Otherwise it would be madness. Also my question was more about why that specific concern about the license - why did you pick AGPL instead of GPL and why do you care so much about that specific case?

truthwhisperer 5y ago

Violation is violation but It feels that you are applying double standards. If trump then boohoo boohoo if #BLM I suspect that you would have proudly present it on your website because otherwise racist.

tamaharbor 5y ago

Just more Trump bashing. The swamp does not want to be drained.

EdwardDiego 5y ago
If you genuinely believed what you just posted, wow, I'm impressed at your commitment to cognitive dissonance.

shp0ngle 5y ago

Is this actually true? The network was available just for a short time and now is not anymore.

Proven 5y ago
Nope, fake news (as usual). It was in preview.
fdschoeneman 5y ago
Yeah I thought the same thing. Someone pointed out that even creating test accounts probably qualifies as "over the networks." But it seems silly. And unless mastodon is enforcing this clause against every other instance operator, I'm guessing this is just posturing. Having said that, I'd like them to continue posturing and getting their concept of federated social media more traction.
- knowfilter 5y ago
  Good point, because similar cases have been brought against Vizio and Tesla, among other, this clearly isn't just posturing.
  - fdschoeneman 5y ago
    Brought by mastodon and against Vizio and Tesla? Or by some other entity with a similar license?
    - knowfilter 5y ago
      Mastodon has not sued anyone. Vizio and Tesla have both run afoul of similar GPL licensing and been called out by the same organization (SFC) that's calling out Truth Social. So like you said, this is clearly not just posturing, Truth Social is legitimately in violation of their license agreement.

ddaalluu1 5y ago

I wondered how he could've developed a social network in such a short time frame. I wouldn't be surprised if that was true, given his track record l.

wizzwizz4 5y ago
It's not that hard to develop a “social network”; it's basically just a web front-end to a database. The hard part is making it good, but if you have enough humans working behind the scenes, that can come later.
- ddaalluu2 5y ago
  Obviously developing a social network that is production ready and scales isn't done in 3 months. So what's your point?
  - wizzwizz4 5y ago
    I could develop a social network that “scales” in way less than three months, just working alone. A few days for the web front-end (with a few days of tweaking a bit later, and then a week of actually making it work). A couple of weeks for the ActivityPub implementation. Five minutes… perhaps 15, if I want to double-check my work, for the SQLite database. Then another week of making sure everything fit together nicely; might be able to do it in two months, actually. It wouldn't be pretty, and it wouldn't cache images locally (which is a problem from a privacy point of view), but it would work, and it would scale just as well as the rest of the Fediverse.

usui 5y ago

Does a history of enforcement help in cases like this? The article itself says that Truth Social is "antithetical" to Mastodon's values, but that there's nothing they can do about the usage of their software other than license violations. It sounds like they have a bias to enforce their license in this case. If Mastodon has a weak history of enforcing their license to other organizations, does it weaken the case? I'm wondering if selective enforcement in the software-licensing world hurts the authority or credibility of a license, in the eyes of the law. My wondering was somewhat inspired by the way Nintendo aggressively polices the appearance of its video game trademarks on places like YouTube and basically the rest of the internet. I hear an argument is that if they don't aggressively enforce their trademark policing, their legal position wouldn't be as strong if they want to pursue a big violation in the future.

deepsun 5y ago
If they had noted a legal enforcement, it would have sounded like threatening. They did the right thing and just noted the problem for now. Maybe the other party will fix the infringement and close the issue.
FemmeAndroid 5y ago
No, unlike trademark law, copyright law does not require consistent enforcement to maintain. (Copyright law is the basis of the license.) Also, stating a bias does not imply selective enforcement. I don’t think there are many examples of mastodon instances breaching the terms of the license, and certainly not at this scale.
cedilla 5y ago
In general, you don't have any obligation to enforce your rights. There is the well-known exception of trademark law, but that's in the nature of the matter. If PepsiCo sells Coca-Cola and the Coca-Cola company doesn't react, then the trade mark obviously doesn't allow customers to identify genuine Coca-Cola.
- throwaway0a5e 5y ago
  You don't have an obligation and in theory (and only in theory) it doesn't matter but a history of doing it anyway sure as shit helps in court.

chrismeller 5y ago

Seems like the terms they quoted are boilerplate. I wouldn’t attribute this to malice.

FemmeAndroid 5y ago
Despite them being boilerplate, they come along with the removal of the existing license text. Still, I’ll reserve final judgement until 30 days pass or this letter is acknowledged.
op00to 5y ago
I would. It’s table stakes to follow the licenses of your software or else you may end up in court.
anoonmoose 5y ago
It'll be fair not to attribute it to malice once they start following the terms of the license...until then, all we know is what we can see
- hartator 5y ago
  The site is not officially up though.
  - rsynnott 5y ago
    I mean, it's _theoretically_ possible that they modified it to remove the link to the source, accidentally put it live, always intending to revert the modification before deliberately going live... but that's not winning any prizes for plausibility. In any case 'officially up' is likely irrelevant here.
    - margalabargala 5y ago
      > In any case 'officially up' is likely irrelevant here. That's not true, especially considering they took down the site as soon as it was noticed it was publicly facing. If a company misconfigures a VPN and you're able to access an internal tool that would not be otherwise available to the public, but uses GPL code, that would not entitle you to the sources. Especially if the company immediately fixed the issue of the public having access to said internal tool, any reasonable court would side with them. If the site re-launches without fixing the issue, though, that is a very different story.

treme 5y ago

Ethereum classic moment for mastodon

NDizzle 5y ago

Petty.

invalidusernam3 5y ago
Calling a company out for breaking copyright law is not "petty". I suspect you only view it that way because of who is involved
- dafoex 5y ago
  I suspect Mastodon is laying on the "big bad Trump" a little thick, here, but yes. I'm on the side of the GPL, not Trump or Mastodon, so all I want is Free Software licences to be respected.

rdxm 5y ago

Happy to throw some dollars at a Trump beat-down if it comes to that. Just make sure to post a link to gofundme or whatever...

rogual 5y ago

Do we really have to give this guy the #1 Hacker News story? He was fading into the background so nicely.

pibechorro 5y ago
You mean the person who was the sitting president of the united states, who got deplatformed in unison by big tech social media, and is now fighting against censorship by using tech? Yeah, that is not relevant at all to hackernews /s
- parrellel 5y ago
  That is an interestingly context free take. What did he do? What could he possibly have done, to get that to happen? It's like I wasn't sitting a mile from the capitol watching the WTOP national mall guy hiding behind a banister while the mob from his rally battered down the doors.
- krapp 5y ago
  I like how everyone always says "sitting President of the united states" when they mention Trump's deplatforming, as if to imply that being a sitting President gives Trump greater legal right to a social media account, or that deplatforming Trump was in some way an coup or overthrow of Trump's position as President, thus reinforcing the narrative of social media being an organized supranational conspiracy that poses a threat to national sovereignty itself. It's these consistent, subtle details that make the Trumpist propaganda so effective. The other side needs to start taking notes.
  - jimktrains2 5y ago
    As much as I dislike Trump, deplatforming is much more notable while he was in office than if it had happened afterwards. I agree, though, that it does sometimes sound like it's being hinted that something more nefarious was happening when people talk about it like this.
    - 5y ago

detaro 5y ago

some previous threads: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28961528 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28961528 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29054451 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29054451 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29044477 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29044477 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29001573 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29001573 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28959468 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28959468

jrootabega 5y ago

> As far as personal feelings are concerned, of course we would prefer if people so antithetical to our values did not use and benefit from our labour And sensible people would prefer that license violations would be published and pursued fairly, and personal feelings kept personal, rather than creating a soft list of people and perspectives whose online/computing freedom is less important than others.

rp1 5y ago
That sounds like a personal feeling.
- jrootabega 5y ago
  It's a personal feeling about the purpose of the license, not about the people who are using the license.
  - CTDOCodebases 5y ago
    I read it as being personal at first but on second read interpreted the “antithetical” comment to reference the issue that they were breaking the license and limiting the users freedom.
    - jrootabega 5y ago
      I meant that my comment was a personal feeling about the license, and not about any particular users or violators of the license. The post says "we would prefer if people so antithetical to our values did not use and benefit from our labour", and that is clearly not a criticism of just the nature of the license violation, but the people who are violating it.
      - caf 5y ago
        And? It's their website, they can criticise whoever they like on it.
      - 5y ago

d_theorist 5y ago

Are the quoted terms actually incorrect or in violation of the license? >all source code ... are owned or controlled by us or licensed to us, and are protected by copyright and trademark laws That's correct isn't it? The mastodon code would be licensed to them under the AGPL. So I am not sure this should be a source of "worry" in and of itself. The potential issue appears to be that they have modified the mastodon code without publishing their modifications, which I believe might be a violation of the licensing terms (although I am certainly not an expert).

dmm 5y ago
Even if you don't modify the sources you have to provide them to anyone who uses the service.
- the-dude 5y ago
  There is no service.
  - nathanappere 5y ago
    "Not publicly available" is not the same as "there is no service".
  - dmm 5y ago
    People were able to access the service and create accounts. Those people are entitled to the sources. This would immediately go away if they just posted a tarball of the almost certainly unmodified sources. I guess nobody running this understands what's going on?
    - roenxi 5y ago
      > This would immediately go away... This platform is going to be under continuous attack from all angles. The company has to be ready to be boycotted, licenses revoked, regulation enacted, smear campaigns run, deplatformed by infrastructure providers, etc. Their lawyers are going to be the more combative type, when they signed up it was pretty clear the sort of wild-eyed hate that the Trump brand is going to attract from established actors in the social media sphere. My hope is they're just going to take 20 days to think about it then release the source code. But we'll see.

KingOfCoders 5y ago

"On Oct 26, we sent a formal letter to Truth Social’s chief legal officer, requesting the source code to be made publicly available in compliance with the license. According to AGPLv3, after being notified by the copyright holder, Truth Social has 30 days to comply or the license may be permanently revoked."

zdkl 5y ago
Wouldn't a semi-malicious actor be mostly in the clear if they provided the upstream code and a statement declaring they make no modifications to the provided source directly? If so, what would the recourse be? I can't imagine a court backing a demand to reveal <malicious actor>'s production systems based on what little external evidence one would have in these circumstances.
- masklinn 5y ago
  > Wouldn't a semi-malicious actor be mostly in the clear if they provided the upstream code and a statement declaring they make no modifications to the provided source directly? Sure, but that seems to be belied on its face by them having actually stripped the present-by-default mentions & links: > neither the terms nor any other part of the website contained any references to Mastodon, nor any links to the source code, which are present in Mastodon’s user interface by default. That, then, would be extremely strong evidence that they're lying, and I would expect more than enough for a legal injunction.
  - wizzwizz4 5y ago
    They might be running a forwarding proxy with substitution rules. I don't think AGPL would have a problem with that, even though SSPL would. (Though, let's face it: they totally modified the source code.)
    - ncallaway 5y ago
      Yea, but you don’t have to prove your case to get into court. You have to be able to say, with a straight face, that you really believe that they did the thing you’re accusing them of. So just because it’s theoretically possible that there’s a path to the facts we see without violating the license, the fact that a license violation is a plausible explanation is enough to launch a court case. After all, the court case including the discovery process and the trial itself are all about determining the relevant facts.

nextlevelwizard 5y ago

Feel like title is click bait. At least I immediately thought that Mastodon had special clause that Ol' Trumpster was violating, but just not publishing source. Yeah this is license violation, but pretty minor, very common, and harmless (assuming they do release the source now that they are made aware of the licensing agreement)

Miner49er 5y ago
They violated every other clause of the license. a) The work must carry prominent notices stating that you modified it, and giving a relevant date. b) The work must carry prominent notices stating that it is released under this License and any conditions added under section 7. This requirement modifies the requirement in section 4 to "keep intact all notices". c) You must license the entire work, as a whole, under this License to anyone who comes into possession of a copy. This License will therefore apply, along with any applicable section 7 additional terms, to the whole of the work, and all its parts, regardless of how they are packaged. This License gives no permission to license the work in any other way, but it does not invalidate such permission if you have separately received it. d) If the work has interactive user interfaces, each must display Appropriate Legal Notices; however, if the Program has interactive interfaces that do not display Appropriate Legal Notices, your work need not make them do so. From my understanding, they didn't do any of these, and claimed the code as their own.
- macinjosh 5y ago
  > From my understanding, they didn't do any of these, and claimed the code as their own. Where did they "claim the code" as their own? This project hasn't even launched yet. There is no published work for which they could do any of those things yet. I'll get my pitchfork if the service is launched and they still haven't done these things.
  - Miner49er 5y ago
    This is all in Mastodan's blog post. It hasn't officially launched, but was made public for a bit, people signed up. It was clearly just a Mastodan fork, and it had a terms of service with this in it: Unless otherwise indicated, the Site is our proprietary property and all source code, databases, functionality, software, website designs, audio, video, text, photographs, and graphics on the Site (collectively, the “Content”) and the trademarks, service marks, and logos contained therein (the “Marks”) are owned or controlled by us or licensed to us, and are protected by copyright and trademark laws and various other intellectual property rights and unfair competition laws of the United States, foreign jurisdictions, and international conventions.

im3w1l 5y ago

Truth social is, as far as I'm aware, not launched. Thus I'm curious whether the AGPL "if you run a modified program on a server and let other users communicate with it there" has really been triggered. Edit: This was based on the https://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-affero-gpl.html https://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-affero-gpl.html explanation of the AGPL but the quote is not present in the license itself.

FemmeAndroid 5y ago
They didn’t ‘officially launch’ but the platform was up and running. There isn’t a ‘you don’t need to comply if it’s an alpha test’ clause in the AGPL.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- rubyist5eva 5y ago
  If you don't legally have access to the platform, you have no claim on license enforcement. The platform wasn't officially launched, and the accounts were used by exploiting a misconfigured page. They are under no obligation to release the source code, yet.
  - vntok 5y ago
    Exactly. Truth Social could actually sue any one claiming they used the platform for abusing a security flaw to obtain and maintain access to a protected computer system. That would be hilarious.
    - rubyist5eva 5y ago
      There might even also be a case for libel.
  - Chris2048 5y ago
    > the accounts were used by exploiting a misconfigured page This is an important detail; is this absolutely proven?

throwaway420y 5y ago

I fail to see how a website that's not up yet is violating any licenses, can anyone tell me more about this ?

CTDOCodebases 5y ago
The article states it was made available to a small subset of people. I guess distribution is distribution even if it just handing a USB stick to a friend.
- luke9112 5y ago
  I've read the AGPL, and it says that it must be able to be distributed to every user of the software. Every person that uses Truth Social must be able to find the source code.
  - _-david-_ 5y ago
    Has any beta tester actually requested the code? If not then I don't think there is a violation.
- _-david-_ 5y ago
  Has any person who has access to the site actually requested the source code? If not then there is no license violation right?
  - CTDOCodebases 5y ago
    I don’t know. I’m not privy to the private communications of the users nor do I have the legal expertise to understand the validity of the terms and conditions of a license. Regardless I just see this announcement as a pre emptive move by the developers of Mastodon to compel the owners of Truth Social to comply with their license moving forward.
spamizbad 5y ago
The website was up, and claimed it was running proprietary software.

cblconfederate 5y ago

On the other hand Trump's network might be coopted to contribute to mastodon's development, since they have apparently billions in funding. And it would be very ironic if this ends up boosting the decentralized web.

option_greek 5y ago
That's the shortsightedness part of it. They should have tried to get them license compliant and may be even negotiated with them to keep it compatible with Mastodon network. It would have not only helped both parties but also introduced Mastodon to more non tech users. Instead, it appears to be the typical knee-jerk reaction for woke points. So now Mastodon is liberal, left leaning and want to control what people discuss? Get in queue folks. We already got twitter and facebook for that!
- Miner49er 5y ago
  They are trying to get Truth Social to be compliant. That's the whole point.
- monooso 5y ago
  > They should have tried to get them license compliant That's precisely what Mastodon is trying to do. In fact, that's _all_ they're trying to do, as the article made clear.
  - cblconfederate 5y ago
    > of course we would prefer if people so antithetical to our values did not use and benefit from our labour it is clear that they are not interested in coopting them
    - ncallaway 5y ago
      …and yet the only actions they’ve taken were to send a letter asking them to come into compliance with the AGPL within 30 days.

INTPenis 5y ago

The instance in question was taken down almost as soon as it was discovered. And still the headlines keep coming. That's how strong the Trump name is.

fareesh 5y ago

"We hate you and everything you stand for!!! You must put our logo on your website!"

paradite 5y ago

What if I deployed my own node and just changed some css styling? Do I also need to somehow open source the changes? Edit: And what if I wrap it with another service, say a CDN, that changed some behaviour and styling (proxying, path rewrite, etc)?

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
mijoharas 5y ago
1. yes. 2. I think no, but I believe this is a contentious point, and it depends on whether the "mastodon instance + CDN/proxy/whatever" constitutes a "derived work" or not.

foxhop 5y ago

We will create many Distributed Permacomputers which will be long lasting, durable, with the right to repair and a right to free speech without being deplatformed. Rusulting Code will be public domain and easy to setup. It was never about the code, it was always about the data. To learn more or help, Please visit: https://www.unturf.com https://www.unturf.com and https://youtu.be/BgBrSLUgLH4 https://youtu.be/BgBrSLUgLH4 We reject political deplatforming. We favor right-to-repair We refuse single-use plastics We belive in a platform by the people for the people. My idea is to smash together Remarkbox, MakePostSell, Bittorrent, and Cloudflares R2 to build a durable network owned by the masses. It was never about the code or the license, it was always about the data.

gambiting 5y ago
And....what exactly does this have to do with this situation? If your permacomputer hosts something that breaks the licence of the software used, I'd also hope it would be shut down, whatever it's hosting.
- foxhop 5y ago
  Saying you will shut down a permacomputer is like saying you will shut down the Internet.
  - gambiting 5y ago
    A permacomputer exists only as long as there are people hosting it. Bittorent files are famously impossible to take down....only as long as there are any seeders remaining. You don't need to shut down the entire internet to stop a distributed system from working.
    - foxhop 5y ago
      How to stop Bittorrent without stopping the Internet?
      - 5y ago

s7r 5y ago

In terms of "antithetical values", the machine learning project ml5js.org actually did something about this. They bound their open-source license to a Code of Conduct¹, which forbids the use of their ML software for (1) discriminating against marginalized communities, (2) building tools that disingenuously manipulate public opinion, (3) building tools of mass surveillance and prediction to repress the rights of people, and (4) building tools that control weapons, including tools that automate the deployment, operation, and targeting of weapons. Reported violations of the Code of Conduct are sent to a Steering Committee, made up of members of the community, who determine if the reported project is in violation of the Code of Conduct. If so, the Committee takes steps to remedy the situation (e.g. realigning project with the Code of Conduct, or removing ml5.js from the project) — and if no resolution is found, the project falls out of compliance with the terms of the software license. It's an interesting experiment.² Software is a tool to help us solve problems and reach desired outcomes. Licenses are also a tool to help us solve problems and reach desired outcomes. When desired outcomes exclude certain things (e.g. discrimination of marginalized communities, manipulation of public opinion, autonomous weapons, values antithetical to that of a community), it seems a Code of Conduct can also be a worthwhile tool to solve problems and support the outcomes that the community is working towards. (Of course, wisdom and governance are crucial and not to be taken for granted. Shout out DKP servers³ for showing some light there.) ¹ ml5.js Code of Conduct: https://github.com/ml5js/Code-of-Conduct/ https://github.com/ml5js/Code-of-Conduct/ ² Analysis from KE Mitchell on ml5.js licensing: https://writing.kemitchell.com/2021/01/12/ml5js-Takes-a-Stand.html https://writing.kemitchell.com/2021/01/12/ml5js-Takes-a-Stan... ³ On Dragon Kill Points and governance systems in World of Warcraft: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=958945 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=958945

veeti 5y ago
The ultimate irony is that this project is apparently sponsored by Google [1], a known peddler of mass surveillance to repress the rights of people. [1] https://github.com/ml5js/Code-of-Conduct/issues/2 https://github.com/ml5js/Code-of-Conduct/issues/2
roenxi 5y ago
If all software was licensed that way, 5-15 years would pass then suddenly there'd be a whole bunch of "Wow, Stallman was right again! We should have been using free software licenses!" style articles. Restricting software use to only people approved by the creators is a terrible idea. Society has to operate with some level of trust that even people we disagree with, using methods we don't approve of, have the potential to improve the world. Otherwise the situation will get worse.

Brosper 5y ago

This is good for Mastodon who will be more recognisable after this event

aksss 5y ago
any publicity is good I guess, but reading their spiel left me with a bad impression of their style. But whatever.. kind of hate all social media (in the fb, twitter, Parler, TS) sense of the term anyway, so probably predisposed to think little of a posturing platform company anyway.

api 5y ago

Con man who made his money (when he made it) stiffing contractors, running a fake university, and abusing bankruptcy laws stiffs software authors. Big surprise.

andrew_ 5y ago

What's the over/under on how many times this will be pushed to the front page? Was going to post some prior discussion links, but there are over two pages of Google results for unique HN links on the topic: https://www.google.com/search?q=news.ycombinator.com+trump+mastadon&oq=news.ycombinator.com+trump+mastadon https://www.google.com/search?q=news.ycombinator.com+trump+m...

kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago
Until "Truth Social" has been stopped, presumably...
- margalabargala 5y ago
  Or just their license violations.
  - kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago
    Violation. And at the moment, nothing seems to be happening? Are they due to a punishment, or, according to the claims, they would just not be allowed to use the software anymore? Since they are not using it at the moment, there is nothing to see?
    - margalabargala 5y ago
      True, violation. As I understand it, there's a few different possible paths here: Currently, they are not due a punishment- they need either to publish the source code (whole thing goes away), or if they do not, then their license to use Mastodon is permanently revoked. If the use the code after that, then they might be subject to damages. That said, it's likely that they would be able to successfully argue in court that the 30-day timer that has ostensibly started, is invalid. This would be because of the (IMO quite reasonable) point that the site was not intended for public access, and access that occurred was due to misconfiguration. Frankly, it's annoying to me that this happened as it did, because the early access created this grey area of "does this count as a violation or is it just accidental", allowing people's personal politics to color how strictly this should be enforced. If the site had launched for real with the violation (or with the source code), everything would be much more clear-cut.

woodpanel 5y ago

"but the reality of working on free software is that you give up the possibility of choosing who can and cannot use it from the get-go" I always wonder why wokeism hasn't reached software licenses yet? Just imagine the anger when it would come to a FOSS dev team's attention that <insert-evil-group> is using their product, successfully even... "of course we would prefer if people so antithetical to our values did not use" I mean just the effort involved by a lot of people in the dev community to dig something up: "findings that various people have presented to us," While the stated proprietary licensing text could be easily just a beta version, or totally fine anyways (I'm not a lawyer), but definitely something other projects would get a pass for. You know, a nicely written e-mail not making any fuzz. In a way this fuzz mastodon makes out of it, is exactly the PR a Trump would want, no?

maeln 5y ago
> Just imagine the anger when it would come to a FOSS dev team's attention that <insert-evil-group> is using their product, successfully even... Err, this is something a lot of FOSS dev' have been complaining about actually. There has been complain in the past directed toward Microsoft, Apple, Google, Amazon and many top-100 company for using free software without contributing anything back (code or financial support), or again, because they are disliked by the original FOSS team. This "woke" word has been thrown around left and right at this point and is completely nonsensical, like SJW before that.
justin66 5y ago
> I always wonder why wokeism hasn't reached software licenses yet? The license you’re waiting for was JSLint. It was brilliant and the effect it had on users was a hilarious thing to behold: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5138866 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5138866 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4762035 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4762035 Nothing involving Trump’s projects will provoke the same sort of hilarity. A desire to avoid litigation on the part of the user, combined with at least a minimal, superficial concern over good and evil, are necessary for the gag to work.

sydthrowaway 5y ago

Trump will win 2024.

haunter 5y ago

Kinda off and I have no horses in the race but how come Mastodon has so many gambling sites and casinos as sponsors? Never knew that, feels a bit odd. Also personally not a big fan of this... https://joinmastodon.org/sponsors https://joinmastodon.org/sponsors

vanattab 5y ago
Lol. Another sponsor is Mark Mitchell from https://www.bestblowjobmachines.com/ https://www.bestblowjobmachines.com/
nsxwolf 5y ago
Probably the same reason the WNBA sponsors are all hard liquor. You take what you can get.
Ardren 5y ago
I assume they're just being used as ads? The page does say you get a logo and a non-follow link for donating. Then again, I checked a random company, Fire Stick Tricks, and they donate to a bunch[1] of open-source projects. So maybe they're just companies that have extra money to give back? 1: https://opencollective.com/fire-stick-tricks https://opencollective.com/fire-stick-tricks
david_allison 5y ago
There's a large number of e-gaming companies sponsoring OSS as a means of CSR and advertising. For smaller OSS, it is the majority of corporate donations as other types of companies don't bother. It's not likely that Mastodon encouraged those donations, but other companies aren't likely to reach out. Doing further research, Mastodon's sold out on those tiers of sponsors[0], so they're likely in the lucky position that they could pick and choose. [0] https://sponsor.joinmastodon.org/ https://sponsor.joinmastodon.org/
300bps 5y ago
ESG Investing is one of the hottest trends in investment management that aims to eliminate investments in companies that don't adhere to Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance standards. Most investment management firms are scrambling to come up with product offerings to meet the substantial demand. So you're not alone in your feelings. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental,_social_and_corporate_governance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental,_social_and_corp...

lettergram 5y ago

Mastodon has also banned Gab and others from the network that they disagree with. The whole point of a federated system is free speech... yet they have spent a lot of time trying to kick out people who disagree with them. Frankly, it’s disheartening I want to know what the communists, fascists, republicans, democrats, racists, religious, technocrats, etc want to say. It’s so frustrating having everyone in bubbles and getting banned for speaking about topics. The most calls for hate and violence I’ve seen are on Twitter and not from the right lol...

EdwardDiego 5y ago
Welcome to humanity and our inherent tribalism.
h2odragon 5y ago
I also found it deeply amusing that the "fediverse" proclaimed its diversity with "look at all the banned nodes!" I peeked at the Mastodon code and it gave me a headache before I got through the "required for installation" section. Makes me want to go set up an RBBS node again.
- cyber_kinetist 5y ago
  The fediverse was not about diversity in the first place, its main purpose is to decentralize power from one platform owner to various instances with their own rules. Since each instance can have their own whitelists/blacklists for other instances, there can be less diversity of what people you meet, but people have their own preferences. If you want a platform where people from all political sides come together (and fight via quote tweets and ratios), then Twitter is your best bet. But not everyone wants to have that experience, and I’ve seen people move to Mastodon to escape from that and have a more curated, closely-knit experience.
kypro 5y ago
It really never ceases to amaze me how few people actually seem to value freedom of speech. Almost everyone claims to until someone says something they disagree with. I guess I'm not sure the problem is technological any more. If public sentiment towards freedom of speech doesn't change it doesn't really matter if a truly free platform exists or not. If 99% of people don't want freedom of speech then these platforms will inevitably become radicalised cesspools only used by the 1% who have opinions which they can't express elsewhere. Subsequently if these platforms become popular enough they'll inevitably be censored in one way or another by the 99% who disapprove. I'm with you, I like to know what the radicals are saying. I actually find a lot of the mainstream arguments against radical belief systems to be very poor and this actually re-enforces the beliefs these communities hold. I personally believe if we tried to understand some of the grievances these people have and then tried to actually provide solutions to their problems we wouldn't see half as much radicalisation. Instead we try to silence and shame these individuals then dismiss their grievances with stupid arguments which only demonstrate to them that we have no understanding or interest in their problems. It's really no surprise that radical online communities seem to be growing with censorship. No one changes their beliefs because someone censors and shames them.

qwerty456127 5y ago

LOL lawyers are so lawyers, always trying to claim everything to be their "proprietary property" with everything reasonably and unreasonably relevant altogether. Next they will probably sue somebody for merely looking in their code so they could even discover it has something to do with Mastodon and try to convince the judge there is no evidence which was obtained a legal way and can be taken in account this way :-]

ghostoftiber 5y ago

Mastadon: "Trump is using our software!" Also Mastadon: "Lol Trumps social media site got hacked!" Also Also Mastadon: "Changes to the look and feel of the site violate our license!" OK that's not encouraging anyone to use their software. I have a feeling this is much more a knee jerk reaction to who is using their software rather than a well thought out complaint. I think the most important part of this debacle is that the site itself wasn't supposed to be launched. This is the equivalent of someone leaking footage of (lets say) a baseball being thrown at a truck window, and the window breaking, and everyone going "oh well that's obviously rubbish" in Jeremy Clarkson's voice. Nevermind that the truck was obviously a mock-up.

nikkinana 5y ago

Just fork it. Problem solved.

pketh 5y ago

What happens if a software license is revoked? E.g. what are the teeth behind OSS licenses?

helen___keller 5y ago
At surface level, a violated license becomes a standard copyright issue, same as you might expect if you acquired AWS source code and tried to sell your own Copyzon Web Services using their code. (disclaimer: not your lawyer, not law advice)

macinjosh 5y ago

Open-but-only-if-we-like-you-Source

helen___keller 5y ago
There are licenses like this, but AGPL is not one of them.

Smithalicious 5y ago

Okay, fair enough, I expected worse from the title. The "antithetical to our values" thing is silly political posturing, but the case itself seems like a pretty clear cut AGPL violation. Hope it gets worked out alright, and that across the aisle we can all agree to respect free software licenses.

fdschoeneman 5y ago
I think this is about right, as long as mastodon is enforcing the requirement across all instances. I suspect that if it was enforcing this in other instances it would have said so.
lorabe 5y ago
To be clear, there is nothing wrong with having political ideas behind what you do, at the end of the day Mastodon was created for political reasons, first, to support free software, second, to create a web alternative to the shitshow that twitter tends to be. Having that said, enforcing the AGPL rules is an activity that should be done regardless of your political ideas, if someone is violating the AGPL3 the projects have every right to ask them to comply, especially when the offenders belong to powerfull corporate groups that do have the money and the resources. Mastodon saying "we don't like them" is an expression of honesty IMO, but not the only reason to why they want to seek legal counseling.

fdschoeneman 5y ago

If I understand correctly, a) the license requires people who use mastodon "over the network" to meet certain requirements and b) the site is not yet live or being used "over the network." If my understanding is correct, the whole story and the commentary linked are a waste of time and I have to question the motives of anyone pushing either. What am I missing?

throwawaymast 5y ago

It is very likely Robert Colbert is behind this. Gab uses Mastadon as well. He worked on several projects for Trump and other conservatives. He appears to be very nationalistic.

ospzfmbbzr 5y ago

Trump MADE twitter. I have a 3 letter twitter account from 05 or 06 when it was beta. Until Trump was on Twitter in 15 I considered it a big yawn that made no money -- gossip for total retards. Hate him or love him, and with Trump there doesn't seem to be any middle ground, this would have MADE mastodon into SOMETHING instead it is STILL an irrelevant pet project. Maybe they are afraid of losing too many arguments? Only reason to ban those who disagree with you. The license is just being used as an excuse. The rights holders don't even believe their own arguments they are just trying to stake out a plausible position. Phonies.

dtoznayxvf 5y ago

nixroot 5y ago

This is incorrect. Currently Truth is still internal software not available to the public, AGPL requires distribution of source code alongside the distribution of the program or service. Because Truth is only made available internally, the modified source code only has to be made available to their own company. This would change once the service does go public. AGPL can also not be "permanently revoked". It's not individually licensed to each user like proprietary software often is, it's one license addressed to anyone. Furthermore the AGPL is explicitly irrevocable. They can change the license to a proprietary one but this does not affect existing copies under AGPL. Last I'd like to touch on "antithetical values". If Mastodon were to discriminate against persons, groups or fields of endeavor in their license they would no longer meet the definition of open source, but rather become a source available proprietary product.

cyber_kinetist 5y ago
People seem to have found an undisclosed internal address and made accounts there. Would this be an instance of “distribution of the service” in lawyer terms?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
mumblemumble 5y ago
See section 8, "Termination": https://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.en.html https://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.en.html Revoke may not be the legally correct word to use, but it's an informal blog post and not a legal document, and what they intended to say is clear enough. I think that your understanding of how the licensure works is a bit off. Open source software is still individually licensed to everyone. The copyright holder retains copyright, and can terminate an individual's rights under the license as long as the license includes a termination clause. Which the AGPL does.
- nixroot 5y ago
  Interesting, I was not aware of that. I did not take termination into account in the second paragraph. I was referring to AGPL being addressed to anyone instead of a specific party. This means that a full revocation of the license would revoke it from everyone, even though that's not possible with AGPL. This does not apply to terminating licensees as you mentioned which appears to be what they mean and is possible under condition. But because of the lack of a violation a permanent termination in 30 days would still be invalid.

ThinkBeat 5y ago

Getting into any form of discussion regarding T is unwise. Yet I wanted to point out something Mastodon mission has always been to provide users freedom from and alternatives to the giant faceless autocratic exploitative social media. Or at least that is what I gleam from a search of Mastodon prior to when T ran for president. To now state for the record that T is not supposed to use the software seems like a politically biased flip. I also think that it is prudent to wait until launch to critique their compliance. Usually marketing / legal comes up with copy and its get cut and pasted in. It -may- change, it probably wont. We will have to wait and see. I know I have replaced content for similar things right before someone hits the button and right aftwards. I hope the organization does the right thing with attribution. I have not visited yet, and I dont know much about Mastodons code. If they have configured and setup an instance of Mastodon with their own graphics / content / resources. Is just that required to be published to be in compliance? I presume people much smarter than me know they have added features and improvements to the code I certainly hope they share it. I am 100% sure that there is a giant hoard of high profile lawyers who wants this case now and plenty of millionaires and billionairs who want to fund it. Mastodon will not have to finance the trials that might come. Lastly the more T is seen as a martyr being kicked out everywhere the more devoted his cult followers become.

randyrand 5y ago
what is T?
- DeathMetal3000 5y ago
  The former so called president of the US.
  - calvinmorrison 5y ago
    the "actual" former president. Donald J. Trump
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]

ElijahLynn 5y ago

AGPLv3 for the F _ _ _ _ _ G WIN!!!! Nice job Mastodon! > Notably, neither the terms nor any other part of the website contained any references to Mastodon, nor any links to the source code, which are present in Mastodon’s user interface by default. Mastodon is free software published under the AGPLv3 license, which requires any over-the-network service using it to make its source code and any modifications to it publicly accessible. > On Oct 26, we sent a formal letter to Truth Social’s chief legal officer, requesting the source code to be made publicly available in compliance with the license. According to AGPLv3, after being notified by the copyright holder, Truth Social has 30 days to comply or the license may be permanently revoked.