6 ms·

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 tarb

by 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.
- wizzwizz4 5y ago
  I doubt there'll be much boycotting; the people who might boycott won't want to use it in the first place. Certainly no regulation will be enacted. I doubt a smear campaign, either; if it's anything like Twitter, a simple screenshot of the homepage will be enough. So the only things are: • licenses revoked – except with free software, this can only happen if you violate the license • deplatformed by infrastructure providers – which is part of the reason we need not to have centralisation in the first place. As much as I dislike this former president, I expect his social media site might actually have better moderation than his Twitter followers had; for PR reasons, if nothing else. I'd rather it wasn't around, but I don't think it's worth taking it down. (Enforcing the AGPL, however? That's worth something.)
  - rbanffy 5y ago
    > I expect his social media site might actually have better moderation than his Twitter followers had They more or less already stated that any unflattering opinions will be deleted and the used banned from the platform.
  - rsynnott 5y ago
    > licenses revoked – except with free software, this can only happen if you violate the license Eh, there _are_ commercial licenses which would have a "don't bring us into disrepute" clause, but you'd imagine they'll probably avoid those. Mind you you'd also imagine they'd avoid violating the AGPL, and yet here we are.
    - wizzwizz4 5y ago
      Sorry, I was grammatically ambiguous. Free software is the one where this can only happen if you violate the license, and it's an exception to “traditional” (proprietary) software licensing. Please read the “except” as a fancy “but”. (How dare you not pick up on my intonation‽ It was obvious in the timing of my keypresses!)
  - ansible 5y ago
    > I expect his social media site might actually have better moderation than his Twitter followers had; for PR reasons... I expect that any and all voices that don't lavish heaps on praise upon The Former Guy to be removed without any further justification. If that's what you mean by "moderation".
    - wizzwizz4 5y ago
      I think that certain classes of massive blatant bigotry will be forbidden. Perhaps not as well as Twitter, thinking about it, but still probably better than some of the other sites out there that are tailored to this demographic. The ulterior motive of this website is simple: the immediate interests of this guy. The ulterior motives of some other websites are harder to see.
- rsynnott 5y ago
  _Any_ large social network which was violating the AGPL should expect trouble. > Their lawyers are going to be the more combative type But probably not the more competent type, based on the prior adventures of Donald Trump. I mean, this is coming from the same people who brought you Four Seasons Total Landscaping.
colejohnson66 5y ago
If you have no right to a computer service, you have no right to the AGPL code it runs. For example, a company is allowed to make internal GPL-based tools and not have to release their code. If I hack into their service and download the binary, I’m not entitled to the source code. If the closed beta was meant for a select few, but was found by someone else, that someone else doesn’t have a right to the code just because they managed to get access. Only the select few would be allowed. The fact that it’s a public web server (with no access controls) does throw a wrench into things, but it’s not as simple as many here make it seem.
- rbanffy 5y ago
  > If the closed beta was meant for a select few, but was found by someone else The license makes no such distinction. The website had no warning that it was a private test, was hosted on the presumed official domain and looked like it went live. I never received an explicit authorisation by YC to use Hacker News and here I am. I wouldn’t call my access unauthorised even though it was never authorised.
  - colejohnson66 5y ago
    > The license makes no such distinction. The website had no warning that it was a private test, was hosted on the presumed official domain and looked like it went live. That is true. I mention that in my last paragraph: > The fact that it’s a public web server (with no access controls) does throw a wrench into things, but it’s not as simple as many here make it seem. However, simply being accessible is not akin to authorization. If that company tool is accessible to the public through a misconfigured DNS, the courts probably won’t side with me asking for the source. The law is not black and white (despite what many here think). Judges are humans and will apply judgement as to whether Truth was meant to be accessible or not. There’s also the fact that the CFAA is a broadly worded law and could easily be wielded by Trump against the people accessing Truth prior to launch. Just say they weren’t authorized and were hacking. They’ll probably lose in court with that argument, but we won’t know until the ruling would come out
    - 5y ago
Spooky23 5y ago
They win either way. If mastodon pursues the copyright claim, they get a ton of press and probably more money from donations to fight the “woke Marxists”. It’s a propaganda platform, not social media.
meragrin_ 5y ago
> This would immediately go away if they just posted a tarball of the almost certainly unmodified sources. No it wouldn't. NOTHING short of shutting down would ever satisfy the people going after Trump.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- margalabargala 5y ago
  Sure, but those people and these people are different. Currently, the site is beset both by "people who are going after Trump" and "people who care about copyleft". Posting the tarball would satisfy that second group.
rsynnott 5y ago
They have been at least somewhat modified; the default distribution has a link to the source.

by dmm 5y ago

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.

wizzwizz4 5y ago
I doubt there'll be much boycotting; the people who might boycott won't want to use it in the first place. Certainly no regulation will be enacted. I doubt a smear campaign, either; if it's anything like Twitter, a simple screenshot of the homepage will be enough. So the only things are: • licenses revoked – except with free software, this can only happen if you violate the license • deplatformed by infrastructure providers – which is part of the reason we need not to have centralisation in the first place. As much as I dislike this former president, I expect his social media site might actually have better moderation than his Twitter followers had; for PR reasons, if nothing else. I'd rather it wasn't around, but I don't think it's worth taking it down. (Enforcing the AGPL, however? That's worth something.)
- rbanffy 5y ago
  > I expect his social media site might actually have better moderation than his Twitter followers had They more or less already stated that any unflattering opinions will be deleted and the used banned from the platform.
- rsynnott 5y ago
  > licenses revoked – except with free software, this can only happen if you violate the license Eh, there _are_ commercial licenses which would have a "don't bring us into disrepute" clause, but you'd imagine they'll probably avoid those. Mind you you'd also imagine they'd avoid violating the AGPL, and yet here we are.
  - wizzwizz4 5y ago
    Sorry, I was grammatically ambiguous. Free software is the one where this can only happen if you violate the license, and it's an exception to “traditional” (proprietary) software licensing. Please read the “except” as a fancy “but”. (How dare you not pick up on my intonation‽ It was obvious in the timing of my keypresses!)
- ansible 5y ago
  > I expect his social media site might actually have better moderation than his Twitter followers had; for PR reasons... I expect that any and all voices that don't lavish heaps on praise upon The Former Guy to be removed without any further justification. If that's what you mean by "moderation".
  - wizzwizz4 5y ago
    I think that certain classes of massive blatant bigotry will be forbidden. Perhaps not as well as Twitter, thinking about it, but still probably better than some of the other sites out there that are tailored to this demographic. The ulterior motive of this website is simple: the immediate interests of this guy. The ulterior motives of some other websites are harder to see.
rsynnott 5y ago
_Any_ large social network which was violating the AGPL should expect trouble. > Their lawyers are going to be the more combative type But probably not the more competent type, based on the prior adventures of Donald Trump. I mean, this is coming from the same people who brought you Four Seasons Total Landscaping.

colejohnson66 5y ago

If you have no right to a computer service, you have no right to the AGPL code it runs. For example, a company is allowed to make internal GPL-based tools and not have to release their code. If I hack into their service and download the binary, I’m not entitled to the source code. If the closed beta was meant for a select few, but was found by someone else, that someone else doesn’t have a right to the code just because they managed to get access. Only the select few would be allowed. The fact that it’s a public web server (with no access controls) does throw a wrench into things, but it’s not as simple as many here make it seem.

rbanffy 5y ago
> If the closed beta was meant for a select few, but was found by someone else The license makes no such distinction. The website had no warning that it was a private test, was hosted on the presumed official domain and looked like it went live. I never received an explicit authorisation by YC to use Hacker News and here I am. I wouldn’t call my access unauthorised even though it was never authorised.
- colejohnson66 5y ago
  > The license makes no such distinction. The website had no warning that it was a private test, was hosted on the presumed official domain and looked like it went live. That is true. I mention that in my last paragraph: > The fact that it’s a public web server (with no access controls) does throw a wrench into things, but it’s not as simple as many here make it seem. However, simply being accessible is not akin to authorization. If that company tool is accessible to the public through a misconfigured DNS, the courts probably won’t side with me asking for the source. The law is not black and white (despite what many here think). Judges are humans and will apply judgement as to whether Truth was meant to be accessible or not. There’s also the fact that the CFAA is a broadly worded law and could easily be wielded by Trump against the people accessing Truth prior to launch. Just say they weren’t authorized and were hacking. They’ll probably lose in court with that argument, but we won’t know until the ruling would come out
  - 5y ago

Spooky23 5y ago

They win either way. If mastodon pursues the copyright claim, they get a ton of press and probably more money from donations to fight the “woke Marxists”. It’s a propaganda platform, not social media.

meragrin_ 5y ago

> This would immediately go away if they just posted a tarball of the almost certainly unmodified sources. No it wouldn't. NOTHING short of shutting down would ever satisfy the people going after Trump.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
margalabargala 5y ago
Sure, but those people and these people are different. Currently, the site is beset both by "people who are going after Trump" and "people who care about copyleft". Posting the tarball would satisfy that second group.

rsynnott 5y ago

They have been at least somewhat modified; the default distribution has a link to the source.