Truth Social Violated Mastodon’s License; Entire Platform Might Now Be DOA
thebulwark.com
thebulwark.com
So far so good.
> A lot of open-source software is made available under what is known as a “copyleft” license. The terms are simple: ... if you fork it, you must put the new version of the software—including the parts you developed—in the public domain and make the source code freely available.
Wrong and wrong. The author is an appellate lawyer, and yet he seems unsure about the meaning of "public domain", or just hasn't read the licence (which is ironic, given that he is criticising people for exactly that failing).
Also he hasn't understood the more nuanced point that "copyleft" licences don't necessarily require that you share the source code with people who only interact with the running code via a network service. That extra requirement is a feature of the AGPL beyond being a copyleft licence.
Meanwhile it just looks really bad for open source in general:
This project is free but if you use it people will sue you for not complying with obtuse regulations. With this other software the rules are clear and the vendor isn’t going to sue you, you just have to pay a few thousand dollars.
Now let’s all act all surprised companies are hesitant to use open source software.
I see this restated as fact, when the public has no access to its closed beta.
Where is the proof?
The host doesn't have to share the code unless they changed it.
Is AGPL that hard to understand?
I get HN is not very technical but the license is written in pretty plain English.