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Trump’s new social media platform found using Mastodon code

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Re: Trump’s new social media platform found using Mastodon code

#131

Post by gambiting »

foxhop wrote: post #124
gambiting wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Saying you will shut down a permacomputer is like saying you will shut down the Internet.

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.

Re: Trump’s new social media platform found using Mastodon code

#132

Post by h2odragon »

EdwardDiego wrote: post #71
h2odragon wrote: post #14

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.

Vizio?

TV maker Vizio sued for GPL infringement https://www.theregister.com/2021/10/20/vizio_gpl_lawsuit/

Re: Trump’s new social media platform found using Mastodon code

#133

Post by Miner49er »

nextlevelwizard wrote: post #39

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)

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.

Re: Trump’s new social media platform found using Mastodon code

#134

Post by roenxi »

s7r wrote: post #121

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 peopl…

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.

Re: Trump’s new social media platform found using Mastodon code

#135

Post by [deleted] »

FemmeAndroid wrote: post #72
im3w1l wrote: post #56

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.

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]

Re: Trump’s new social media platform found using Mastodon code

#136

Post by wizzwizz4 »

jokethrowaway wrote: post #119
gameswithgo wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I remember all those lectures about over reaction and we ended up with an insurrection and an entire half of our country convinced an election was stolen.

The previous election was also accused to be stolen. If you look at tweets, both parties had complete trust in election integrity when it fitted their narrative and it was a complete fraud when it was convenient. Do you remember the Russian hackers? Given how crappy USA election practices are (no voter IDs? mail ballot? workers counting ballots without witnesses?) I'm pretty sure there were instances of election frau…

It's a shame that the parties don't think ahead. When one party pushes for better election practices, the other should roll over, because next election it will benefit them and this election it won't matter.

Re: Trump’s new social media platform found using Mastodon code

#137

Post by huntermeyer »

nkozyra wrote: post #54
Consultant32452 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you. The following is my opinion of what happened, not an endorsement. Trump's role in our history was primarily a f-you to the established players in both parties. He won because he made all the right people mad. And the more his enemies drastically over-react the more powerful he becomes.

But for all that superficial posturing, he accomplished very little of his agenda and generally ended up trying to play ball anyway. The anti-establishment game lasted until he entered the white House. His primary accomplishment was building a base of angry people.

The First Step Act was a major push towards criminal justice reform - something all parties claim they'll do but don't deliver on.

Also his tax reform led to lower and middle class families paying significantly less federal income taxes while at the same time increasing treasury deposits.

Tax reform and criminal justice reform were part of his agenda and those were accomplishments.

Re: Trump’s new social media platform found using Mastodon code

#138

Post by foxhop »

gambiting wrote: post #131
foxhop wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Saying you will shut down a permacomputer is like saying you will shut down the Internet.

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.

How to stop Bittorrent without stopping the Internet?

Re: Trump’s new social media platform found using Mastodon code

#140

Post by _jal »

projektfu wrote: post #122
usui wrote: post #4

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…

It depends perhaps on whether it ends up in anti-SLAPP or something like that. But if, for example, you don't sue a hospital for showing your film to a group of children, but you do sue a school, the fact you didn't sue the hospital probably doesn't matter too much, even though your bias is against caretakers of healthy children as opposed to sick children. Not a legal opinion, of course.

SLAPP is a mechanism to short-circuit certain attacks on freedom of speech, it has nothing to do with intellectual property.
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