281–290 of 551 posts
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...
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…
No; it’s normal for copyright violation to be selectively enforced. There are a very few rights bodies who enforce for everything (notably, the movie industry tends to do this) but in general copyright holders only go after big offenders.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
They can, which doesn't mean they should. Also, I think a person has a mortal obligation to allow that their political position is at least partially flawed.
I don't get it. What does "allowing that one's politics is partially flawed" have to do with not wanting one's project used for surveillance, weapons control, etc?
(1) discriminating against marginalized communities
What does this mean? I bet I could get several different answers. Old people are marginalized by agism in tech, does this mean tech companies can't use this? How would they prove they don't marginalize old people?
(2) building tools that disingenuously manipulate public opinion
Ditto. To me this means no political party or marketing/advertising department can use this. Probably most news outlets as well.
(3) building tools of mass surveillance and prediction to repress the rights of people
Rights defined by whom? US Constitution? Right not to be offended? Rights granted by the Taliban or ISIS? Communist China?
(4) building tools that control weapons, including tools that automate the deployment, operation, and targeting of weapons.
I think most people can get on board with this one, unless we were attacked in earnest by a strong military foe.
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 th…
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.
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.
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 .
Many of us are pointing out Amazon's malpractices and ethical failures and there have been tons of articles from mainstream media talking about those as well.
Prominent example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23065782
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 potent…
Is it really a terrible idea to restrict your software from being used to control weaponry? To spread lies about science, like climate change denial or vaccine lies? To host child pornography sharing? These above scenarios amount to handing criminals and bad actors powerful technological tools which allow them to increase harms done to society. This is a software company's choice, there is no law that states a compan…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 potent…
Why? The creators created the software, they can put any conditions they please on how others might use it. They're under no moral or legal obligation to allow people to use the fruits of their labors, except as they permit.
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?
so far most (all?) attempts to create a “conservative” social network end up as sites with large nazi userbases either way, some people are already using the site and the license should apply - the source needs to be available to all of them
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
But he did violate their terms of service over and over while in office. You could argue that they should have booted him sooner, after a few warnings and repeated violations. And they can argue that they gave him, and other political figures, extra leeway due to their public positions and their newsworthiness. But at the end of the day he was repeatedly given special treatment that most of us would never get on any…
One of the primary issues is that Twitter has routinely granted privileged protected status to their favored political side, and refused to ban prominent people on the left that have behaved dramatically in violation of their policies [1][2]. There were a huge number of examples of it from the left during the unhinged Nick Sandermann cultural conflict for example (a wave of direct calls for violence by blue checkmarks against underage children).
Twitter has no qualms with unevenly applying their policies, so long as they're helping their political side. That has particularly been going on for four or five years non-stop at this point.
[1] https://www.theverge.com/2013/11/12/5094762/spike-lee-sued-f...
[2] https://apnews.com/article/north-america-donald-trump-ap-top...
What happens if a software license is revoked? E.g. what are the teeth behind OSS licenses?
(disclaimer: not your lawyer, not law advice)