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Eugen Rochko

Fun fact about the license under which the Mastodon source code is published (AGPL) is that it requires any modifications to it to be published.

No secret sauce, no proprietary features possible. Which is why commercial companies hate this license.

Want to paywall "pro" features? You can, but anyone can take your code and run it on a different server for free.

Anyway, that's quite an interesting financial choice for Gab, a for-profit entity that sells "pro" features

Because Mastodon does not have a Copyright License Agreement (CLA) that contributors have to sign before submitting code, I am not the sole copyright holder of the Mastodon source code--rather, contributors keep rights to their parts. As such, violation of AGPLv3 is not just a violation of my own rights, but of all past contributors to Mastodon.

@Gargron Awesome! I've been wondering if anyone used the AGPL in practice. Good on you.

@geist @Gargron There are several popular real-world practical products distributed under the AGPLv3! Here are the most prominent examples:

* Mastodon (as you noticed)
* GNU Ghostscript, IIUC almost the first software to use the AGPLv1
* Friendica, PeerTube, GNU Social, Diaspora
* Berkeley DB
* NextCloud
* MuPDF
* SugarCRM
* RethinkDB
* Redis Modules by Redis Labs before the 2018 license debacle
* MongoDB before the 2018 license debacle

@Gargron Where is Gab's source code published? It is mentioned in their Terms of Service, but I do not see any repository available online with the code...

@Gargron As far as I know about #AGPL, like #GPL, it doesn't require publishing, but this is a form of conveying. One could sell binaries in any medium and put a visible notice offering to ship a CD/DVD/USB storage with the source files, with no extra price than the one of the shipping.

@Gargron please sue them if necessary it'll be awesome

@Gargron that's a slippery slope. Proprietary "pro" features are never good for open source projects.

@Gargron Yes, but then do something! You can… so well…

strictly speaking, AGPL does not "require modifications to be published"; it requires them to be made available to users. we're not well served by (frequently incorrect) exaggerations of license requirements

@Gargron in fact you can host Gab yourself and have all the pro, verified and sponsor badges

@Gargron hmm... AGPL doesn’t work if the SaaS product modifies Mastodon to, say, make an external request to a proprietary service. They’re obligated to release that modification, but not the service it calls out to. So, yeah, I am glad mastodon uses AGPL, but it’s not a panacea of protection.

@apg @Gargron I don't believe the boundaries of "derivative work" have been tested in court for this particular situation.

But then "we don't know if it works" supports your claim that it doesn't solve everything.

@clacke @Gargron I am pretty sure that “external process munges database to add proprietary feature” is also totally possible, and likely a way around it. But yeah, you’re right. Maybe someone could argue that REST is just a distributed linker. Of course, the feature could be built to “link” against, say, a micro formats API, and the propriety one does more fancy...

@Gargron There are many, many freeloaders who will take anything that is seen as 'free' just because they can. If you make something 'free' but actually has some cost to you as the provider, you have to find some way of keeping the freeloaders out... If you can't keep them out, then (at any time) the commercial competition can freeload just to destroy you...

@Gargron for profit social media in general is destined to end up having the same issues as youtube and facebook. Trying to make money by pleasing advertisers and commercial entities etc.

especially once they become publicly traded companies

@Gargron
Taking the pro features and merging them into Mastodon would be the ultimate lol. (If they are worth it.)

@Gargron normally i think you're a big stinky, garg, but if you absolutely whip and nae nae on the gablins by forcing them to publish the gab pro source i'd cum my diaper so fast your head would spin
@jg @Gargron i still think it'd be really funny if we all bit the bullet and ran a clone gab instance that offered the pro features free of charge to starve gab of revenue

@uncletrunks @jg @Gargron
Do this, but block every other instance from federating, except for freespeechextremists

@Gargron doesn't that imply it'll have to be re-implemented clean in the future anyways?

@Gargron yes but courts weigh prayers for relief appropriately. someone who controls major parts of the source will have a better case.
@schmittlauch @Gargron

precisely. that's why really Gargron or maybe Thib need to do it.