Definition: A single, abusive entity or a group of abusive entities in the Fediverse has gained so much influence, that they can pull EEE (embrace, extend and extinguish The attack will look like t…
But while that’s a very lucky thing to have, the issue is that we depend on the owner of Mastodon to not sell the company to a billionaire.
We don’t depend on that. Buying Mastodon would get them the branding but not Mastodon itself. It’s all GPL/AGPL and would be forked immediately if sold. The buyer would have no control over it.
Oracle may have owned OpenOffice but it didn’t matter. Everyone uses LibreOffice now. Same shit.
Dont agree here, the https://joinmastodon.org/ already redirects users to make an account there. Even if its FOSS the company that represents it is very powerful.
Think of android, technically FOSS but Google can control preety much all of its developments. No forks would be even be considered
First, Mastodon isn’t a platform, it’s a service. Unlike Mastodon, Android was always a bunch of proprietary stuff built onto an open source base. The Android license (Apache) is also a lot more permissive than Mastodon’s (GPL). Probably the most important thing here is that all derivative works must be licensed under the GPL, whereas Google can use AOSP code to build out proprietary features whenever they want.
Their ability to use the app to direct users to mastodon.social depends entirely on Mastodon’s good reputation. Destroying the reputation destroys the ability along with it. Mastodon is way bigger than just m.s, but a buyer wouldn’t control the instance in a meaningful enough sense. Users aren’t serfs and there would be a mass exodus if, say, Peter Thiel bought Mastodon. Some would stay, but the people who contribute probably 90% of the activity would be out the door. Very likely, users would be given time to migrate before the larger community defederated the instance en masse. Any effort to prevent users from leaving would just accelerate that process. They just have no real ability to compel people to behave the way they want.
To be fair, mastodon.social is Mastodon instance, and all Mastodon instances (that support signup at all) will show a Sign Up link for themselves. This is true from the biggest instances to the smallest ones.
But to bolster your point, the Mastodon app could push exclusively for signups on the newly acquired mastodon.social domain, and hide other options behind a dark pattern… Like how Element does this when you try to log in to a Matrix server.
We don’t depend on that. Buying Mastodon would get them the branding but not Mastodon itself. It’s all GPL/AGPL and would be forked immediately if sold. The buyer would have no control over it.
Oracle may have owned OpenOffice but it didn’t matter. Everyone uses LibreOffice now. Same shit.
Dont agree here, the https://joinmastodon.org/ already redirects users to make an account there. Even if its FOSS the company that represents it is very powerful. Think of android, technically FOSS but Google can control preety much all of its developments. No forks would be even be considered
First, Mastodon isn’t a platform, it’s a service. Unlike Mastodon, Android was always a bunch of proprietary stuff built onto an open source base. The Android license (Apache) is also a lot more permissive than Mastodon’s (GPL). Probably the most important thing here is that all derivative works must be licensed under the GPL, whereas Google can use AOSP code to build out proprietary features whenever they want.
Their ability to use the app to direct users to mastodon.social depends entirely on Mastodon’s good reputation. Destroying the reputation destroys the ability along with it. Mastodon is way bigger than just m.s, but a buyer wouldn’t control the instance in a meaningful enough sense. Users aren’t serfs and there would be a mass exodus if, say, Peter Thiel bought Mastodon. Some would stay, but the people who contribute probably 90% of the activity would be out the door. Very likely, users would be given time to migrate before the larger community defederated the instance en masse. Any effort to prevent users from leaving would just accelerate that process. They just have no real ability to compel people to behave the way they want.
To be fair, mastodon.social is Mastodon instance, and all Mastodon instances (that support signup at all) will show a Sign Up link for themselves. This is true from the biggest instances to the smallest ones.
But to bolster your point, the Mastodon app could push exclusively for signups on the newly acquired mastodon.social domain, and hide other options behind a dark pattern… Like how Element does this when you try to log in to a Matrix server.
Yeah sorry, meant https://joinmastodon.org instead of .social