Posted on 10/21/2021 11:26:39 AM PDT by DoodleDawg
The new social network founded by former President Trump may violate the terms of use of the software on which it is based.
On Wednesday night, after Trump revealed the TRUTH social app, Twitter users began to note that the network appeared to be based on an open-source social networking software called Mastodon, which allows people to modify the underlying code so long as they abide by its license.
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
"The AGPL license mandates that software developed for free — like Mastodon — remain publicly available after its been modified. Under the license, TRUTH needs to share any modifications to Mastodon’s code."
I know nothing about software development, but if any company uses open source code and if it modifies it for it's own purposes then doesn't having to provide it to others kill any sort of proprietary protections those modifications may have? And doesn't it leave the website open to malicious attacks?
Basically, you can take open source code, compile it as stand alone executables (like a stand alone phone app or stand alone website or stand alone desktop app) and distribute it all you want. What you can't do is take take the open source code, compile it as re-usable libraries, and distribute it to other developers using your re-usable libraries in their own apps without the open source code.
Efff lawyers
Google was able to steal Java and Linux open source code and got away with it.
Boy, with this, Trump has the Communist and their leftist stooges running for the tall grass...
Just like when he was president. Everything he did was illegal and violated something and he had no power to do it. When thy are in charge, any whim they want is allowed.
From the article: Reeeeeeee they can’t just bypass the cancel wall we’ve set up! Noooooooo!
(I expect a steady drumbeat of this sort of thing into and through launch. I can only assume Trump and team are doing this to draw enemy fire, or else they’d have provided no window of opportunity)
Trump is truing his back on the deep state media and creates his own platform...What a hoot!
This is going to burn their azzez.
Good. His strength is in the private sector anyway. I’ll bet it was under budget and ahead of schedule.
Easily fixed if there are any issues.
More crap from the marxists.
I can understand the advantage to using open source code but in this case maybe developing their own code would have prevented problems.
Yes, and No.
It’s being built on software published by someone else. They mandated that any modifications must be published. It’s their software, they can do that. So, yes that would expose any proprietary changes. If they do not want to reveal anything proprietary they cannot use the Mastodon code-base.
As far as security, no it won’t compromise security as long as their modifications didn’t introduce any vulnerabilities. There’s tons of open source software out there that is just as, if not more, secure than closed source.
I can understand the advantage to using open source code but in this case maybe developing their own code would have prevented problems.
~~~
If you know your software is going to be a target of nearly every amateur hack out there, the last thing you want is to be able to start out looking right at the code, no?
This is only the first of the verbal attacks on it. They plan to attack it every way possible with the same passion and hysteria that spurred them to attack Trump.
Then again, it MAY NOT
Didn’t he check to be sure?
Before writing a whole article about it?
[Software Engineer 22 yrs]
If the base code allows for plugins, modules, observers, etc., then there is no need to alter the base code - which in turns does NOT violate the terms of service.
If the claims had any merit, sites built on wordpress, drupal, etc could be sued by the folks who made the original software.
their complaints have no merit
>> modifies it for it’s own purposes then doesn’t having to provide it to others kill any sort of proprietary protections those modifications may have?
That’s the goal of certain licenses (GPL) — requiring the return of changes/improvements/fixes back to the community.
But many licenses are very liberal and only require recognition of the authors. This is generally the trend given the commercial complications of the GPL style licenses.
>> maybe developing their own code
Not practical and generally not necessary.
I’m guessing whatever’s going on with the TRUTH grievances is a nothing-burger.
jimjohn wrote:
“
[Software Engineer 22 yrs]
If the base code allows for plugins, modules, observers, etc., then there is no need to alter the base code - which in turns does NOT violate the terms of service.
If the claims had any merit, sites built on wordpress, drupal, etc could be sued by the folks who made the original software.
their complaints have no merit.”
Thanks for the info !!
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