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Open Source Social Networks The Internet

Mastodon Puts Trump's Social Network On Notice For Improperly Using Its Code (theverge.com) 134

Mastodon has sent former President Donald Trump's company a formal notification that it's breaking the rules by using Mastodon's open-source code to build its social network, named Truth. The Verge reports: This news comes from a blog post by Mastodon's founder Eugen Rochko, but others have previously pointed out that the organization behind Truth, the Trump Media and Technology Group (or TMTG), was violating Mastodon's software license by not providing the source code for the site built on top of it. Trump's group has 30 days from when the letter was sent to comply with the license or stop using the software, or it could lose the right to do so.

While Truth hasn't officially launched yet, internet users discovered that a test version basically had the same interface as Mastodon, and that some of the code for the site was unchanged from the other social network's code. By itself, that's actually the intended use of open-source software -- but as the Software Freedom Conservancy pointed out last week, apps or websites based on software that uses the AGPLv3 license have to in turn provide their own source code. According to the foundation that wrote AGPL, it's meant to make the community's software better: if you improve on something that someone else made, they should be able to benefit from your work like you did theirs.

As Mastodon and Rochko reiterated on Friday, though, TMTG hasn't done that -- it even went as far as to call its software "proprietary," and seemingly tried to hide the fact that it was based on Mastodon. Now that the Truth has been revealed, however, TMTG will either have to rebuild it without using Mastodon's code -- a tall order, as bootstrapping a social network site isn't particularly easy -- or release its source code and change the terms of service.

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Mastodon Puts Trump's Social Network On Notice For Improperly Using Its Code

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  • by drnb ( 2434720 )
    If the source is unmodified they don't have to do a damn thing other than have a URL to mastodon's repository.
    • by The MAZZTer ( 911996 ) <megazzt&gmail,com> on Friday October 29, 2021 @09:21PM (#61940603) Homepage
      If they were hiding the fact they were using it, that implies they removed or changed references in the UI. Source code changed.
      • by drnb ( 2434720 )

        If they were hiding the fact they were using it, that implies they removed or changed references in the UI. Source code changed.

        You are assuming their contractor informed them that they were saving time by using an open source library. Or that the spokesperson that replied even has a clue about such matters and conflated building a brand new site with brand new code, or confused "new code" with "different code" relative to the last social media attempt.

        • All of which is completely irrelevant. Ignorance of your licensing agreements is not a legal defense.

          • by drnb ( 2434720 )

            All of which is completely irrelevant. Ignorance of your licensing agreements is not a legal defense.

            It is relevant to whether there is a conspiracy or simply incompetence.

            • The only one even postulating one or the other is you. No one here cares if it was a conspiracy or incompetence. We're happy to shit on Trump regardless.

        • If I was dealing with a client that has a track history of stiffing his contractors, I, too, would have zero qualms doing whatever I can to get my money and bail.

        • If they were hiding the fact they were using it, that implies they removed or changed references in the UI. Source code changed.

          You are assuming their contractor informed them that they were saving time by using an open source library.

          And by "using" you mean "ripping off and passing as their own".

          Or that the spokesperson that replied even has a clue about such matters and conflated building a brand new site with brand new code, or confused "new code" with "different code" relative to the last social media attempt.

          Who cares what the spokesperson thought? Trump's company violated the license, Trump's company is gonna have to deal with it. It's not like it's the first time he's surrounded himself with the incompetently dishonest.

          Even Gab and Parler didn't manage to fall guilty of this particular sin, it's kinda hilarious that Trump's effort is amateur hour even compared to those two.

  • Social media is becoming a joke anyways
  • by drnb ( 2434720 ) on Friday October 29, 2021 @09:29PM (#61940617)
    A possible workaround? Put proprietary code in a separate library. Update the AGPL code to use this library (ie AGPL dynamically links to non-GPL). Release only the AGPL. Yes the FSF will say that the libs are interacting too closely but the one time a court ruled on the GPL the court said a "derivative work must incorporate a portion of the copyrighted work in some form". Galoob v. Nintendo.

    What do you internet lawyers think? ;-)
    • Derivative work wouldn't be issue. The issue would be you have no license to use the code at that point.

      Imagine you created some code. You tell me that I can use your code, that you'll license it to me, if I give you $5. That works, right, you can sell your software?

      Imagine you created some code. You tell me that I can use your code, that you'll license it to me, if I give you a hot dog That works, right? You can trade your code /. license for a hot dog.

      Imagine you created some code. You tell me that I ca

      • by drnb ( 2434720 )

        Derivative work wouldn't be issue. The issue would be you have no license to use the code at that point.

        Mastadon prohibits the use of a non-GPL library? I could not add some shim to Mastadon code to call a Win32 API function in a proprietary Microsoft DLL. The shim would GPL'd.

        • Mastadon prohibits the use of a non-GPL library? I could not add some shim to Mastadon code to call a Win32 API function in a proprietary Microsoft DLL. The shim would GPL'd.

          That's quite complex and like most law, motivation is often more important than action and the way you do thinks can be as important as what.

          If the API function is a standard operating system part and your shim also worked on other operating systems to provide the same function in different ways then you would be golden.

          If you were working for Microsoft and the API function, for example, transferred control of the internals of Mastodon to some communications user interface in Windows thus allowing you to su

      • Software is a literary work, and there is no such thing as a copyright license that can prevent you from reading a book.

        Substitute "license" for "farm" to figure out where your logic fails:

        "I'll sell you my farm for $5"
        "I'll sell you my farm for a hot dog"
        "I'll sell you my farm for you eating a hot dog"
        "I'll sell you my farm if you don't pull any shenanigans" — This fails, because once you're the new owner of the farm (or the license) you can do whatever you want with it.

        A copyright license is only ne

        • "I'll sell you my farm if you don't pull any shenanigans" — This fails, because once you're the new owner of the farm (or the license) you can do whatever you want with it.

          You do not own or buy a license.

          Your analogy does not make sense - it would be closer to (but still not the same as) renting the farm. If I rent your farm, there are conditions: I am for example not allowed to tear the farm down without your explicit permission.

          Likewise, using software is legally the same as reading a book (software is considered a literary work).

          Non sequitur.

          • You do not own or buy a license.

            Non sequitur.

            Yes, there's different kinds of copyrights. Mechanical, synchronization, etc.

            But when we're talking about books, literary works, etc, you actually own the book, and you cannot attach terms and conditions to its use. Once you own a book, you can't legally copy it, but you can read it as many times as you like and resell it to whoever you wish. Correct?

            In US copyright law, software is a kind of literary work.

            Surely you can put two and two together.

            This is why we find it so offensive when companies hide in the

        • When they downloaded Mastadon, they copied it to their server. They have made many copies of the software.

          • The server made the copy, not the recipient. You don't need a copyright license to receive a work that you requested. You certainly don't need a copyright license to receive a work from the copyright holder.

            • The server made the copy, not the recipient.

              If you ever go to court, I suggest not trying that argument. The judge might actually snicker.

              • Um, that's literally how it works. If you are a movie studio, and you find out that people are downloading your movie, you sue the person hosting it, not the people downloading it.

                • No lol. You can sue both.

                  • [Citation needed]

                    You were literally just telling me I would get laughed out of court if I sued the server operator. That's plainly false, and in any event, the conversation is about downloading a copy of software provided by the copyright holder. If you went to a judge and said "Well yes I provided him a copy of the book, he just doesn't have a license to read it", you most definitely would get laughed out.

                    The reason movie studios can sue P2P users is because every downloader is also an uploader. When a stu

                    • You argument is that it's entirely legal to download a copy, just not share it.

                      For that, you are ignorant and have done very little real research on the topic. That is why you would be laughed out of court.

                    • Look, when you make this claim, you're implicitly saying that every person who ever watched a movie (illegally uploaded) on YouTube is a criminal. Surely you've watched a video that was later DMCA'd, right?

                      I'll admit I'm wrong if you can at least least admit that's a terrible state of affairs.

                    • Look, when you make this claim, you're implicitly saying that every person who ever watched a movie (illegally uploaded) on YouTube is a criminal. Surely you've watched a video that was later DMCA'd, right?

                      No, not a criminal. Criminal copyright violations are different than civil copyright violations.

                    • You're not even trying, are you?

                    • I'm mocking you lol. You don't know what you're talking about.

    • The parts of your code that won't work without the library are a derivative work of the library. If that code is solely for interoperability, then it's fair use. For example, if you port your game from Nintendo to Sony, then Sony can't claim your game is a derivative work just because you are using their graphics libraries: you are using their graphics libraries for interoperability purposes.

      Modern copyright cases tend to use the Abstraction, filtration, comparison test [zerobugsan...faster.net]. In the past, people thought that thi

    • Workaround is to never use AGPL code in commercial products.
    • Why does there need to be a workaround? The "value" is the users and maybe copyrighted branding. Why would it be hard to acknowledge the opensource origins of the mastradon backend and publish any probably minor code changes?
    • Re:Workaround ? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by mjwx ( 966435 ) on Saturday October 30, 2021 @08:17AM (#61941437)

      A possible workaround? Put proprietary code in a separate library. Update the AGPL code to use this library (ie AGPL dynamically links to non-GPL). Release only the AGPL. Yes the FSF will say that the libs are interacting too closely but the one time a court ruled on the GPL the court said a "derivative work must incorporate a portion of the copyrighted work in some form". Galoob v. Nintendo.

      What do you internet lawyers think? ;-)

      The problem is, that they developed this site with the cheapest possible labour (almost certainly and ironically offshore... Please be Making India Needful Again) with no inclination to have any idea how it works. Zero thought given to security, let alone legal implications because the people behind the site think the law does not apply to them.

      Their plan is to draw this out in court, then try to destroy the evidence when the whole thing fails like the last two social networks he's tried.

    • by shess ( 31691 )

      A possible workaround? Put proprietary code in a separate library. Update the AGPL code to use this library (ie AGPL dynamically links to non-GPL). Release only the AGPL. Yes the FSF will say that the libs are interacting too closely but the one time a court ruled on the GPL the court said a "derivative work must incorporate a portion of the copyrighted work in some form". Galoob v. Nintendo.

      What do you internet lawyers think? ;-)

      I think that their demonstrated capabilities do not match the scope of your suggested solution. This kind of thing doesn't happen accidentally. One possibility is that it never occurred to them to consult an actual lawyer about licensing issues, in which case they are unlikely to have on staff a set of lawyers and engineers who can quickly craft a system which would split things up the way you suggest. Another possibility is that the lawyers they do have are so batshit that they don't recognize the actua

  • by Krishnoid ( 984597 ) on Friday October 29, 2021 @09:37PM (#61940639) Journal
    If the app uses copyrighted software, doesn't that mean Mastodon's authors can submit a Digital Mastodon Copyright Act request to have the app pulled from the standard app stores, and to the ISP to have any direct downloads pulled as well? Or wouldn't that apply here?
    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by denbesten ( 63853 )

      If the app uses copyrighted software, doesn't that mean Mastodon's authors can submit a Digital Mastodon Copyright Act request to have the app pulled from the standard app stores, and to the ISP to have any direct downloads pulled as well? Or wouldn't that apply here?

      I may be wrong, but I don't believe the "Digital Mastodon Copyright Act" ever was passed into law.

    • Wouldnâ(TM)t apply. This is just a media stunt by the Mastodon creators, the only people that have standing according to the AGPL are the actual users of the software. Since you can safely assume Rochko here is a never-Trumper, he probably wouldnâ(TM)t be caught dead on the platform.

      People have the assumption that because itâ(TM)s open source, you are required to give back to the community. But for GPL-style license, the agreement is between customers and the business that sells them the soft

  • I am expecting a lawsuit from the Turtles about confusing trademarked names. I mean both of them are in the vigilante justice games. The turtles the sewers of NY, the Trump the swamp of DC.
  • But I plan to wait for Man 'o War to weigh in.
  • A bit premature.. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by MADCOWbeserk ( 515545 ) on Friday October 29, 2021 @10:08PM (#61940719)
    While a bunch of people found a site, that could have been a proof of concept. Since the site and app have yet to be released there isn't an issue yet. But the day that it happens if they used Mastadon and modified the code without posting those changes or just using the code without accrediting than this letter should be sent. It seems obvious based on the Rochko is angry that his code is being used by Trump so he jumped the gun a little. My hope is that they do use his code and open source technologies properly (and abide by the license). as an additional social network built open source technology is a positive for the community. We personally use plenty of open source code at my workplace, but we don't do things like post source changes and attach licenses before we actually release.
    • by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Saturday October 30, 2021 @04:26AM (#61941175)

      but we don't do things like post source changes and attach licenses before we actually release.

      But do you do it before you go to a public preview? This site got far enough to allow people to register after sending invites out. Not only that, they got far enough that moderators had to step in and already ban accounts breaking the sites Terms of Service during the preview phase.

      You can't justifiably say we're already released enough that people outside our company must abide by the ToS of the product and then at the same time say your product isn't released enough to need to abide by licenses.

    • by Gravis Zero ( 934156 ) on Saturday October 30, 2021 @04:49AM (#61941205)

      Since the site and app have yet to be released there isn't an issue yet.

      Product release isn't the issue, it's being served on the internet that is the issue. If it's not being tested on an internal LAN (which is it not, it's an internet connected beta) then the AGPL stipulations apply.

    • While a bunch of people found a site ... Since the site and app have yet to be released

      These two statements are mutually contradictory. Whether they intended it or not, if the site is publicly accessible, which it is, it’s been released. You can argue that it hasn’t yet been launched, but a release only requires that people have access.

    • Re:A bit premature.. (Score:4, Informative)

      by quantaman ( 517394 ) on Saturday October 30, 2021 @02:35PM (#61942603)

      While a bunch of people found a site, that could have been a proof of concept.

      The site was supposed to go beta in November. You think they planned to write a Twitter clone from scratch in less than a month?

      Since the site and app have yet to be released there isn't an issue yet. But the day that it happens if they used Mastadon and modified the code without posting those changes or just using the code without accrediting than this letter should be sent.

      The AGPL doesn't say anything about proof of concept or beta since those are both meaningless legal terms (how many years was Gmail "beta"?).

      It seems obvious based on the Rochko is angry that his code is being used by Trump so he jumped the gun a little. My hope is that they do use his code and open source technologies properly (and abide by the license).

      Trump's team was also calling their code "proprietary" and trying to scrub all mentions of Mastadon. They were quite obviously trying to rip off Mastadon's code and call it their own. Rochko might have been more forgiving about the "proof of concept" stage if it was clear they hadn't gotten around to publishing the changes yet, but the thing they hadn't finished was covering up the evidence of their misdeeds.

      I think it's obvious anyone would be angry.

      We personally use plenty of open source code at my workplace, but we don't do things like post source changes and attach licenses before we actually release.

      Are you modifying that code and releasing it? In that case you are probably violating the licenses.

  • by Required Snark ( 1702878 ) on Saturday October 30, 2021 @01:04AM (#61940979)
    Pravda
  • by VeryFluffyBunny ( 5037285 ) on Saturday October 30, 2021 @03:45AM (#61941117)
    ...that someone like Jared Kushner is in charge of this project & that'll give you some idea of how this'll play out.
    • by sinij ( 911942 )

      ...that someone like Jared Kushner is in charge of this project & that'll give you some idea of how this'll play out.

      It will result in more middle east peace accords?

  • Or else the next e-mail will be slightly more strongly worded than the last.

    Either Mastedon goes in full blitzkrieg with a power team of lawyers, or they lose the battle. Scince they didn't chose the first case from the get go, this will likely end as the second. :-\

    • Even "a power team of lawyers" would have started with this. Legal practice isn't goddamn Mortal Kombat.
  • It is all but certain IMO that this so called "notice" will be all but completely ignored by Trump and his social media company. Since the site is offline at the moment, they are technically in compliance already. When the site comes back on, I'm sure they will happily let Mastadon try and sue them, as they have nothing to lose by going on their merry way like nothing has happened yet until a judge actually orders them to take it down, which they would appeal by alleging that they were not in violation of
  • Careful, we might do something : P

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