[HN Gopher] Mastodon: AGPLv3 FOSS social network server
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Mastodon: AGPLv3 FOSS social network server
Author : jeroenheijmans
Score : 102 points
Date : 2021-10-21 20:55 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (github.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
| makeworld wrote:
| Title needs a correction. It is AGPLv3, not GPLv3.
|
| I suspect this was posted today because Trump's new social
| network was outed as using Mastodon, likely illegally.
|
| https://www.vice.com/en/article/5dgm5k/truth-social-is-masto...
| jeroenheijmans wrote:
| TIL about the AGPL license, thx for the tip.
| babelfish wrote:
| Discussion here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28945733
| russellbeattie wrote:
| I adore that the network is named "Pravda" and has a clause
| that says you can't criticize the service or its founders!
| Classic!
|
| One has to really give a shout out to Trump's Russian handlers.
| They apparently have a great sense of humor and/or irony. They
| also know conservative right wing Americans are too stupid to
| notice or care. It's almost artistic, really.
| wyager wrote:
| Interesting. Is it protocol-compatible with other mastodon
| instances? (I'm not very familiar with how these fediverse
| sites work.)
| jeroenhd wrote:
| I'd think it'll just disable the federation API.
|
| Mastodon already has blacklists to prevent abuse from certain
| servers, and given Trump's target audience, the block would
| probably be mutual.
| karmanyaahm wrote:
| It is compatible since it's using the exact same codebase,
| but practically everyone on the mainstream fediverse has
| blocked them, and I suspect they probably will turn off
| federation.
| indig0g0 wrote:
| Right after read an article on WAPO about Truth Social likely
| violating Mastodon's license, I hop on HN and find this as the
| first post.
| PaybackTony wrote:
| Admission: I've been building a growing commercial social
| network. There are things about what I want to do that made that
| the better option for what my target market is.
|
| With that said, I really like what Mastodon has done and as far
| as federated and open social networks go (ActivityPub!). It's in
| a class of its own IMO.
| nrclark wrote:
| Please tell me you're not building Truth.
|
| If you are, you should stop right now and consider the effects
| that your actions will have. No amount of money is worth your
| soul.
| [deleted]
| loeg wrote:
| No, it seems to be "Slyde."[1]
|
| [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25267854
| LeoPanthera wrote:
| Even if you are unconcerned about your soul, morals, or
| ethics, tech workers at TMTG are surely ending their careers.
| Who would employ them after that?
| colesantiago wrote:
| Probably Gab, did well for someone who used to work at
| Facebook.
|
| [0] https://www.vice.com/en/article/k7abex/gabs-new-cto-is-
| a-for...
| JasonFruit wrote:
| Not everyone in tech blacklists people based on their
| politics.
| rlt wrote:
| The not-insignificant portion of the population that either
| doesn't care about or sympathizes with such an employee's
| politics?
|
| Maybe not in SFBA though.
| colesantiago wrote:
| What makes you think he is building Truth?
| trutannus wrote:
| Found that odd too. Jumping to conclusions, and moralizing
| based on that. Not sure what the purpose was. It lead to
| other users digging into the other commenter, which is
| somewhat creepy.
| pkulak wrote:
| Well, Truth isn't so much growing as it's collapsing.
| john_moscow wrote:
| Hold your horses, it hasn't been launched yet.
| indig0g0 wrote:
| But the SPAC associated with TMTG almost quadrupled today.
| karmanyaahm wrote:
| That's just a stolen and license-violating Mastodon, not much
| building involved
| hd4 wrote:
| I try and avoid any news about that person so I don't know
| much about Truth other than it exists, how is it violating
| any license?
| LeoPanthera wrote:
| Presumably because they are using modified AGPL licensed
| code without releasing their modifications.
| squarefoot wrote:
| So the real question now is: can the FSF sue?
| [deleted]
| mathnmusic wrote:
| How do things stand on account portability? If I sign up at a
| mastodon server, build an audience and network there, but later
| if the server admin changes its policies in understands
| directions, can I migrate to a new server with all my contacts
| and reputation intact - even without the old admin's cooperation?
| mmoya wrote:
| Post migration is tracked in
| https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/issues/12423.
| commoner wrote:
| Mastodon has a "profile move" feature that moves all of your
| followers (on instances that support the protocol) to your new
| account. However, it will not move your toots (posts).
|
| All of your account data can be exported, and everything except
| for toots (and media) can be imported.
|
| https://docs.joinmastodon.org/user/moving/
| gargron wrote:
| Hi, yes, you can move your followers to another account, and
| export/import other contacts. Perhaps not entirely without the
| old admin's cooperation though.
| Zababa wrote:
| There are lots of files at the root level, which means I have to
| do 5/6 complete scrolls to get at the beginning of the readme. I
| see this pattern a lof with Go project. I've always wondered if
| it has an impact on the popularity of the project. If anybody
| from Github is reading this, that could be a blog post idea.
| Something like an invisible pixel at the top of the readme, and
| the number of top level files + directories, and see if there's
| any correlation.
| crate_barre wrote:
| Trump's upcoming social network app is using Mastadon.
|
| https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-accused-ripping-code-s...
|
| Not trying to get political, but this site is obviously going to
| be the biggest Mastadon showcase.
| riffic wrote:
| Anil Dash made a great point earlier today in this tweet
| thread:
|
| https://twitter.com/anildash/status/1451209739141066756
|
| "My wish is that media gives proportionate attention to the
| many thriving, interesting, well-moderated, non-fascist
| Mastodon servers that are enabling healthy communities across
| the web before focusing on one doddering fascist's vaporware
| social network.
|
| Given that this is unlikely to be a request that media honors,
| at the very least make sure your story gives equal emphasis to
| the violent fascist agenda, and countless deaths, that the
| person behind the new social network enabled, before delving
| into its photo sharing features.
|
| And by contrast, the wonderful @tinysubversions has, for years,
| been leading a movement to create healthy, supportive, pro-
| human, independent social networks with efforts like
| https://runyourown.social that are home to thousands of
| thriving communities. Each deserves coverage."
| Angostura wrote:
| It's not really clear that it will be a showcase if it hides
| its Mastadon roots and doesn't connect to the Fediverse.
| lalaland1125 wrote:
| A large segment of the Fediverse has already blocked Trump's
| domain due to incompliance with the license.
| commoner wrote:
| Gab already forked Mastodon, and it's not clear whether Truth
| Social would surpass Gab in popularity.
|
| Unlike Truth Social, Gab actually complies with Mastodon's
| AGPLv3 license by publishing its source code, though in an
| obnoxious way (password-protected archive file):
|
| https://code.gab.com/gab/gab-open-source
| colesantiago wrote:
| So basically Truth Social can do the same thing and be
| compliant?
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| commoner wrote:
| Yes. The other major requirement is that Truth Social must
| also be licensed under AGPLv3.
|
| > 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.
|
| https://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.html
| [deleted]
| jordigh wrote:
| Nothing obvious about it. It's only "obvious" if you get
| political.
|
| Trump has started a couple of other alt megaphones for himself
| since he got booted off Twitter and they failed. He's tried
| email and he's tried blogs and he doesn't get enough attention
| on them, so he quits. This one has already started ridiculed
| and with poor security and moderation practices before it's
| even gotten off the ground. I am not sure how Parler, which
| caters to the same audience, is faring nowadays, but I don't
| get the impression it's really the alt social media juggernaut
| its proponents have hoped for. Gab also is for the maga crowd
| and it hasn't been a large crowd. The fediverse at large isn't
| that large either, for that matter.
|
| So, let's see how Trump does this time.
| riffic wrote:
| I'm one of the moderators of the /r/Mastodon subreddit, and folks
| are more than welcome to stop by and share their experiences
| using and operating this software.
| commoner wrote:
| Mastodon recently hit 1 million active users. It has about 2.89
| million total users among 3,400+ servers.
|
| https://fediverse.party/en/mastodon
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(page generated 2021-10-21 23:00 UTC)