This seems to be a very unpopular opinion here, but I think its good if Trump opens a Mastodon instance (assuming that it follows the license). Having different instances for different political views is one of the main features of the fediverse for me. And anyone who doesnt like an instance can simply block and ignore it. If that instance works, it would show to many people that an alternative to corporate social media is actually possible.
this post was submitted on 21 Oct 2021
78 points (98.8% liked)
Open Source
31118 readers
294 users here now
All about open source! Feel free to ask questions, and share news, and interesting stuff!
Useful Links
- Open Source Initiative
- Free Software Foundation
- Electronic Frontier Foundation
- Software Freedom Conservancy
- It's FOSS
- Android FOSS Apps Megathread
Rules
- Posts must be relevant to the open source ideology
- No NSFW content
- No hate speech, bigotry, etc
Related Communities
- !libre_culture@lemmy.ml
- !libre_software@lemmy.ml
- !libre_hardware@lemmy.ml
- !linux@lemmy.ml
- !technology@lemmy.ml
Community icon from opensource.org, but we are not affiliated with them.
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
You do have an interesting point on the political aspect, and I respect you for voicing it to the opposition even though I personally really hate Trump as a person and a public figure. As a side note though, Trump is absolutely not following the license. Their TOS says outright that they own all the code, which they don't.
Its terms also say that “all source code” of Truth Social is proprietary. That might run afoul of Mastodon’s own license.
“The main thing is that Mastodon is free software, released under the AGPLv3 license, so anyone can use it—provided they comply with the license. The main part of the license is making the source code and any modifications to it available to the public,” Rochko told Motherboard. With Truth Social saying that its code is proprietary “that would be a problem, as that would indicate a license violation,” Rochko added.
I think this is probably the biggest issue people on the open source community has with this.
load more comments
(11 replies)
Have you heard of KeyWiki? A far-right new-zealander many years ago started a wiki to compile data on anyone to the left of joseph McCarthy. Not only communists, but even mildly social democratic orgs. It has thousands of entries, I know people that have been listed on there.
It has since grown into the largest doxxing website of activists in history, listing every personal detail they can find, from connected orgs, locations, where they went to school, even who they're in a relationship with. Its impossible to know how many people have been targeted or attacked as a result of KeyWiki, but the site has been deemed legally protected by the NZ government.
Its example tells us that if we give the far-right any technology, even something as innocent as a wiki, they'll use it for nefarious purposes. Social media is likely even worse, since they can actively use these platforms to organize attacks, hate crimes, and target groups they hate. An anti-islam group could easily use a self-hosted fediverse service to organize an attack on a mosque for example.
I agree obvi that providing an alternative to corporate-controlled services is probably good in the long run ( since corporate power has more of an interest than anyone at spreading racism ), but its also extremely dangerous to give the far-right any platform to organize in the interim.
I havent heard of that, and I dont think its acceptable for anyone to do something like this. But I think the responsibility here is clearly with the New Zealand government. If they protect the site, then its necessary to put pressure on them. The only other way would be for all open source devs to make their software proprietary, but that would have a lot more negative effects than positive ones.
I'm also fine with that, and it makes sense to leverage existing platforms to minimize the duplication of effort to achieve a goal. And personally I prefer that they congregate in their own space, where it's easier to keep an eye on what's going on.
But the fact that they knowingly used Mastodon without respecting its license is already not a good first impression.
load more comments
(1 replies)
This could be a way to make the fediverse look bad. Mainstream media can promote the narrative that the fediverse consists primarily of racists, nationalists and hateful people in general. They will promote this in a similar way to how they fought against file sharing.
I'm worried about this too. Western media loves picking the most emotionally triggering narrative and running with it, doesn't matter if it's misleading or outright false.
Realistically, if MSM wants to start smearing the fediverse they can always find an excuse. I don't think Trump using open source to make stuff really changes anything. I imagine that their platform isn't actually going to federate with anyone either, it's just a way to leverage existing work.
Hopefully every major instance blacklists both them and anyone they federate with. Having it entirely non-federating would be better though.
That's basically what happened with Gab, and don't see why people would do anything different here.
Gab also made the news when it switched to Mastodon, but the fediverse as a whole still seems to be in good shape.
Yeah, all my mum ever hears about Telegram is criminals using it. I use it for talking to my colleagues. Unsurprisingly, you can use these platforms for talking to whomever you choose to, but that doesn't stop her from worrying that I'm deeply involved with the crime scene.
load more comments
(1 replies)
Mastodon is AGPLV3 so doesn't that mean the folks who own "Truth Social" are legally obliged to share their source code?
In another article Eugen said he "intend to seek legal counsel".
Not sure how well he'll be able to hold his own against Trump though, even though the Mastodon authors are absolutely in the right legally. The number of corrupt Trump supporting judges at all levels of the US legal system is honestly just sad.
I imagine this is something that GNU foundation would get involved with.
The Software Freedom Conservancy is currently trying to establish a precedent that "not just the copyright holders, but also the receivers of the licensed code who are entitled to rights" can also sue for FLOSS license violations. if this goes through, it will be huge! Since most FLOSS authors don't actually have the time or resources to sue on their own behalf.
Eugen is German, i dont think there is any reason for him to sue in some other country.
I wouldn't assume that judges being Trump appointees will have any influence on their rulings. When Trump was trying to screw with the election results, many of the judges that were ruling against him were Trump appointees. I'm no fan of the conservative legal movement in general, but they generally don't do political favors.
Correst. But it's Trump so don't expect them to play by the rules.
That would indeed be the case.
Somehow, I'm not surprised at all. That was already the case with Gab back then, that they took an open-source project and misused it for their purposes without any references to the original software.
The whole thing will go the same way with Trump as it did with Gab. At some point, no one will federate with them anymore and hardly a sound will reach the rest of the world. Many Mastodon administrators are already going crazy under #FediBlock and blocking the domains. 🤷
I don't understand the point of this either, most of the trump politicians are already on gab. Maybe trump just wants his own brand rather than joining gab. Either way it'll turn into a racist hellhole immediately.
Maybe trump just wants his own brand rather than joining gab.
Abso-fucking-lutely. Trump is a massive narcissist and loves putting his name on stuff, doesn't matter if he contributed to them or not.
I think he's avoiding gab because its a known Nazi hell hole. If puts off the moderate repubs
moderate repubs
I honestly doubt there are that many. Anyone "moderate" wouldn't want anything to do with that fascist cult.
Trump just wants his own sandbox where he sets the rules and have the megaphone to shout as loud as he wishes.
Truth Social will likely federate with Gab, as I don't really see any other major instances who wouldn't block them.
well, what do you expect from people who couldn't even stop registrations during an 'invite-only' phase?
Doesn't Mastodon have a single checkbox in the site dashboard to allow open signups or not? How did they screw that up?
view more: next ›