Trump’s new social media platform found using Mastodon code(blog.joinmastodon.org)
blog.joinmastodon.org
Trump’s new social media platform found using Mastodon code
https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2021/10/trumps-new-social-media-platform-found-using-mastodon-code/
505 comments
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/
² Analysis from KE Mitchell on ml5.js licensing: 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
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/
² Analysis from KE Mitchell on ml5.js licensing: 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
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.
Certainly more press than the Vizio thing, which will actually impact a lot more people if anything comes of it.
> 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.
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.
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).
>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).
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.
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.
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
"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."
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+m...
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+m...
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.
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.
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.
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)?
Edit: And what if I wrap it with another service, say a CDN, that changed some behaviour and styling (proxying, path rewrite, etc)?
Seems like the terms they quoted are boilerplate. I wouldn’t attribute this to malice.
Do we really have to give this guy the #1 Hacker News story? He was fading into the background so nicely.
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.
> 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.
Is this actually true? The network was available just for a short time and now is not anymore.
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 :-]
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.
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.
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.
This is good for Mastodon who will be more recognisable after this event
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.
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 explanation of the AGPL but the quote is not present in the license itself.
Edit: This was based on the https://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-affero-gpl.html explanation of the AGPL but the quote is not present in the license itself.
I fail to see how a website that's not up yet is violating any licenses, can anyone tell me more about this ?
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...
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...
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?
Open-but-only-if-we-like-you-Source
> 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.
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.
What happens if a software license is revoked? E.g. what are the teeth behind OSS licenses?
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.
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.