So Gab has decided that their own code that they spent $5M of investor money developing is so unsalvageably bad that they're going to use Mastodon's code instead, with the added bonus of leeching off of our apps (with Gab apps being banned from app stores)
This is an early warning to fellow admins to be vigilant and domain-block them on sight, when/if they appear (unconfirmed whether they intend to federate), and to app devs to consider if blocking Gab's domains from their app is necessary.
@Gargron man imagine ur code base sucking so much mastodon is better than it
@Gargron wonder how feasible it is to have a LICENSE that explicitly forbids it for being used for hate
@Gargron @j @LuigiEsq Licenses with ethical/morality clauses are very hard to enforce, due in part to issues with legal definition and interpretation (esp. across jurisdictions). JSON license "do no evil" clause is the most prominent example, but there are others.
Licenses will not help resolve this problem, which must be solved by the mechanisms most Mastodon instances (and maston.social, joinmastodon.org, and Mastodon client apps) are now using... 1/2
@Gargron @j @LuigiEsq Moderation, instance blocks, ToS, and policies (Server Covenant etc.) are effective, and will need to be done anyway.
Enforcement of copyleft license terms (GPL, AGPL, CC BY-SA etc.) is already extremely hard and requires money and legal resources.
License proliferation (e.g. not choosing AGPL for Mastodon) only causes friction for FOSS collaboration. It hurts devs and makes a mess that is difficult to clean up... which will only harm the Fediverse and limit use. 2/2
@diggity @j @LuigiEsq I agree in the sense that if someone violates AGPLv3 there are multiple established institutions willing to defend it which a custom license does not benefit from
I think I've also mentioned elsewhere in the thread that re-licensing Mastodon is practically very hard due to no CLA and about 600 contributors
@Gargron @j @LuigiEsq Yep. I got to this thread late but we're all in agreement.
I just *really* would hate to see a new license for Mastodon, it has been very successful under AGPL and will continue to be.
Historically, Gab will be a blip on the Mastodon radar... they may not even make the codebase switch. The devs are obviously sloppy AF and now that client apps like Tusky, Sengi etc will block their instance (rickrolling too!), Masto won't solve the primary problem Gab thought it would.
@masterofthetiger Yep, also replied that and explained it in detail: https://social.wiuwiu.de/@rugk/102185554000172778
Completely feasible, and easy. Just insert the (completely subjective) line...
But it wouldn't be a free license as per #RMS, the #OSI, or the #FSF:
https://opensource.org/licenses
@Gargron @OpenSource @chucknorrisfacts @starwall
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@Gargron Mastodon and ActivityPub open them up to a bigger audience. So, I imagine they'd be happy. Regardless if other instances ban them or not, this is how FB, Twitter and Youtube are making money, supporting the controversy because it gets more clicks. Not everyone will ban them and waves of drama will ensue.
@lain It's true that my work isn't free, but Gab gets the results of my work for free, so their investors' money didn't go to the development of their platform (or did, but got wasted--bad either way)
@Gargron @lain i don’t see that bad, firstly our Toots will be available to all Gab users, About 850000 members so our instances can be a trojan horse inside gab. Also there’ll be a lot of publicity around mastodon, and probably a lot of media coverage about fediverse and mastodon creator that will condamn the use of its software, bla bla bla...
so a lot new instances will be created, some band but a lot good, and for sure fediverse will be a lot bigger
@filippodb @Gargron @lain I guess the concern will be the unsavory nature of much of Gab's content then being associated with Mastodon. I honestly tried to engage with folk on Gan once, sought to understand their beliefs & worries. The torrent of abuse I got followed me off Gab and onto twitter. It's a terrible community. I don't think they should be silenced (that's a whole different matter) but I get the concerns of reputational damage by association.
@wiredfire
I just want to say I wasn't up to date with all things concerning Gab, so thank you guys for having this conversation!
@filippodb @Gargron @lain
@Gargron honestly my favourite is how their people clearly _do not understand anything on a technical level_ about mastodon (exhibit A: "we won't offer federation but of course apps that support it would" https://twitter.com/getongab/status/1133945078534299650 , exhibit B: the guy, in their blog post, clearly not understanding that the activitypub c2s protocol is not mastodons API)
@Prez_Cannady he writes that because they use activitypub, they can now use mastodon apps, which is the kind of casual mistake you make if you write about something that you have no clue about
@halcy I didn’t infer that from that post. And Torba talked about federation today on Periscope.
@Prez_Cannady right there:
as a bonus, there's also a "oh we're SO COMMITTED to TRANSPARENCY" which is the usual corporate (remember: they're a for profit corporation) doublespeak for "ugh it's copylefted so we have to share sourcecode"
Oh, didn't even see that. Well, maybe it's a typo.
@halcy There’s another reason to share the source. There’s almost no chance anyone is going to write something worth keeping proprietary. At least not something that requires deeply coupling to the forked source. So why not recruit free labor on both ends of the pipe?
@Prez_Cannady the reason companies like gab share the source when all their previous efforts were closed is is that they have to. everything else is generally post-hoc justification.
@halcy Sheer inertia, I suppose. But regardless of obligation Gab has certainly determined the benefits of going open source outweigh the costs of keeping things in house.
@Prez_Cannady they have no choice. They literally cannot run mastodon and keep their changes for themselves, that is how the affero gpl works.
Agreed. I'm just pointing out that this doesn't seem to be a problem for Gab. Sure, it cuts across the grain, but Gab doesn't really have anything to lose by being a good FLOSS citizen.
@Gargron this is about the level of technical competency I'd expect of them but still, lol
@Gargron wait... someone on the right grifted someone out of their money? This is unprecedent
isn't that just business? 😈
@Gargron - according to Wikipedia gab.ai and gab.com are the domains being used. Any others?
@Gargron From your post, I don't quite understand what is the reason to "domain-block them on sight". They are somehow modifying the Mastodon code so that it could cause trouble to other instances?
@fuxoft They are a far-right host, supporting racism, white supremacy, and hatred. Any decent human will want them blocked on sight.
@Gargron @kmj I don't want to limit my instance users' access to any other networks. Why would I do that unless they threaten my instance somehow? If my instance users are racists / white supremacists / furries, I don't care unless I have problems with them or unless they do something illegal. P.S: You can probably also call me white supremacist because I also have a Gab account (but I don't use it too much so I didn't have a chance to discover that they are all white supremacists yet).
@Posty I don't have any problem with revealing all my cards at all. On the contrary. But why are you calling me "mate"? I don't remember knowing you.
@fuxoft @Gargron I never would ban on sight because this reduces life to black and white, where reality is grey. If illegal its something to be handled by the law, as long as legal, not talking to others reduces the own life to the own comfort zone and let others inside their comfort zone build up emotions without people argumenting in a different way.
As usual: viewing 360 degres has 180 degrees one side and 180 on the other. Viewing only 10 results in 350 others!
It looks like the first app developer built in censorship inside an client app. I am no IOS user nor have I heared of Gab before this come up by Gargon, but i don`t think this is the way to go. Furthermore I think in general censorship by app developers is a bad thing.
"""New post in Release notes from Amaroq: v1.1.16: Hardcode ban of gab.anything"""
One has to wonder if their investors feel ripped off about this... After all, there are more than 2,000 installations of Mastodon and the costs begin at $5/mo, not $5M