Is there any hope? Or is it inevitable that big corporations will take over what started as a way to escape big corporate platforms and to focus on real communities and discussions and replace it with a toxic shithole pumped full of ads?

  • Margot RobbieEnglish
    30•1 year ago

    They have the right to use the open protocol, just as anybody else to build their own instance. Trying to keep Facebook out only through banning of known instances/IP addresses is a losing battle of whack-a-mole.

    If you really want to stop them from EEE, make a pact to refuse to federate with any instance software stack without the AGPL-3.0 license instead, no Apache, no MIT, not even regular GPL, so they simply can’t do the “Extend” bit at all.

      • Margot RobbieEnglish
        12•1 year ago

        Now Lemmy Explain: These are all open-source licenses; however, their provisions are different from each other. For this, I assume you understand what compilation is.

        1. MIT and Apache are “Do whatever you want with my code, just give credit with this license file”, but Apache is a bit more detailed and has a bit more on patent clause.
        2. GPL can be summarized into 2 provisions: “You have to share the source code alongside compiled executables” (.exe for windows), and “if your executables compile with GPL code, then the rest of the code that compiles also has to be GPL licensed” (Which is why some call it a viral license)
        3. However, the loophole with GPL code is that if you are running anything with GPL code running on a server, you are not distributing the executable if you are only accessing it through a web page, so you don’t have to share the source code, and AGPL closes that loophole by saying “You still have to share the source code for AGPL licensed programs if you are using it as a service”

        Companies hate GPL code since they can’t legally keep modified software close sourced, which means that Facebook won’t be able to develop proprietary extensions for AGPL licensed software like Lemmy or Mastodon.

          • Margot RobbieEnglish
            1•1 year ago

            No. RH is following the GPL: They send you the source code when you buy RHEL, but if you share that source code, then Red Hat will just refuse to sell you future versions of RHEL. What they are doing is scummy but allowed under GPL.