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Comment by imilk | Hacker News Reader

Funnily enough, the whole "Truth Social" is just a Mastodon clone

Isn't that kind of the point of open source software? I doubt they would use it going forward because of the BS the mastodon developers already tried to pull on a closed alpha site because they disagreed with the users. I get it, there's some people you let the little things slide because you like them and others you act strict as hell because you don't like them. It's odd to use an open source software when you feel the developers are actively trying to catch you slip up to bring you down permanently.

> Isn't that kind of the point of open source software?

With free software, yes. It also includes undesirables as well.

> It's odd to use an open source software when you feel the developers are actively trying to catch you slip up to bring you down permanently.

Well it seems that the Mastodon developers have forgotten that there aren't any restrictions in free software except for the terms of the license and in the end Truth Social complied. So that is that.

Putting special source code restrictions on other users beyond the AGPL intends to basically defeats the purpose of free software.

That's completely besides the point of what I was getting at. They put out press releases and pitch decks boasting on how they were going to develop the best social network that the world had ever seen.

Look at the laughable "Infrastructure" slides on their investment deck:

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1849635/000119312521...

And all this bluster just to pay someone in Eastern Europe to re-skin an existing open source project. It should take about a week to recreate what they've done. It's like saying you're going to make the #1 Slack competitor then just re-skinning Mattermost. It's pathetic.

I love open source and all the ways it benefits the world. But I hate exaggerated bravado when the actual service is the very definition of average.

Mastodon clone or instance? If either, explain why. What's the difference?

The benefit of federation is to have multiple philosophies in charge of moderation of their own communities whilst also being connected.

Clone, as in a re-skinned version. But my main point is the irony of releasing a pitch deck like this [1], and just adding some custom CSS to popular open source product.

[1] https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1849635/000119312521...

So is an instance not allowed to skin itself? Most instances have different designs.

Are companies not allowed to compete with Twitter using Mastodon as the platform?

Is this not the desired goal for social media companies, to operate within a federated network?

You do admit to compete with Twitter you need a lot of resources, that's what the filing you linked to is for.

It is not an instance, it was a clone or if you want to be generous you can call it a fork. A fork that did not abide by the Mastodon license.

https://techcrunch.com/2021/10/29/mastodon-issues-30-day-ult...

https://opensource.truthsocial.com/mastodon-current.zip

They capitulated after being called out on the license/copyright violations.

Sure, capitulated, or developers did not inform them, the notice did, and they complied.

Given the short timeline, couldn't it just be an honest mistake?

My point in the reply was to followup on events, the fact they "capitulated" was left out.

Given that they want to be taken seriously as a major social media network and public company, you'd think they'd actually do some development of their own rather than just copying another project.

> developers did not inform them

That's not how this works. Mastodon has an AGPL license on their repo. The burden is on you to read and follow the license. If your devs don't tell you they were illegally ripping code then you need better devs. The burden still falls on you.

Especially when their so called "Technical Team" purports to have experience from 2 dozen different established tech companies.

That's exactly how this works, the burden did fall on them, and they corrected the mistake.

You enforce your license, people comply. Ideally they know to comply in the first place, but a letter isn't too much trouble to inform them.

Only if they defy that should anyone hold ill will.

If a vendor creating IP/code for your company violates a license, your company violates the license. It can even be as simple as a contractor using an image that they don't have a license for. If they upload the image on your website/use it anywhere public, you are liable. Recently had a client that had to pay out $30k because one of their contractors did exactly that.

This is very basic stuff and makes me wonder if you've ever worked in a vendor/client relationship before.

The account you're responding to is named "hunterb123", so they may not be reading and responding in earnest.

UPDATE: As expected, they proved my point in their response "I'd just worry about the content of my post and not about my name or laptops."

I'd just worry about the content of my post and not about my name or laptops.

There's only one side of bias in this current conversation, anger towards anyone including dev firms that help Trump.

Most likely they're new to this scene, didn't know or weren't informed, then they corrected it without dispute. Non story really.

UPDATE: Who are you yelling at? Everyone can read my joke, as well as the explanation of my point of view, which you haven't addressed...

You're proving my point attacking me and not what I'm saying.

"When the debate is lost slander becomes the tool of the loser"

Yes, and they learned that they violated it and corrected it by hosting the above source. What's the issue?

As you said this happens all time by companies even you worked for, why get bent out of shape if they corrected it?

Do you blow up this much for other companies or is it bias?

Why are you defending a company who has raised over $1 billion in funding and is executing so poorly? Or is it bias?

I'm not defending the company, I'm applying Hanlon's razor to the situation involving the GPL licensing.

I'm not an investor in the company nor do I have any interest to invest. I just think you guys were being biased in assuming malice as well as blowing it out of proportion.

Your bias is due to your hatred of Trump and everything he touches. That's why you were so aggressive in your critiques against even the developers Trump's company employed.

Me not picking up a pitchfork in your witch hunt is not me being biased, it's you being a lunatic...

The license is very clearly included in the code they originally stole and tried to pass off as their own. This wasn't a short timeline as they'd been including it in investment decks for quite some time before release. This is super basic copyright and licensing stuff. And something that a legitimate company with nearly a billion dollars in funding should know.

They hired a North Macedonian development group to create a a cheap copy of the Mastodon code and tried to remove all logos & mentions of Mastodon in the source code.

It'd be like announcing that you're creating what will be the world's most popular website builder and blogging platform, then spending 10k to just rip off WordPress and thinking job done. It's hilariously inept.

> They hired a North Macedonian development group

Way to keep jobs in the USA, I guess? But perhaps this was a 4d-chess move to stay outside of the influence of US/western 'big tech' which 'silences' right wing Truth? Who can tell?

More like them only wanting to spend 5 days worth of a single outsourced coder's time. I can't imagine changing some CSS and find/replace "Mastodon" in the source code took much longer than that.

Just look at the "Infrastructure" slide (22) in their deck I posted above. It's like a middle schooler did a book report on web development.

wow yeah that's pretty lame...

slide 27 mentions mastodon as the backend for v1... as if they'll have the ability to just swap in something else later with 10M active users...

They'll just use firestore

The more hilarious thing is that, Parler did actually just use Wordpress to make their "new" social network! It ran hilariously slow up to the point that it ramped up their server costs, and eventually led to someone hacking the whole thing via a Wordpress vulnerability (hence terabytes of private data getting leaked all over the place).

Didn't realize that and that is hilarious. But I wouldn't expect anything else from parler

Would their server federate with other servers?

Of course not. They probably just wanted to pay a laughably small amount to make a clone of Twitter. And whether the client asked for it to be done or not, the outsourced development group they hired copied the source code while removing the required attribution.

And?

They are using free and open source software. What is wrong with that? Anyone can use it, just like anyone can use Tor, including undesirables.

I'm still waiting for the 'gotcha' though.

They didn't release the source code as required by AGPL and pretended to have built it from scratch initially and defederated from the rest of the network.

Truth Social hasn't launched yet, I think.

It launched last month. It initially had a burst of users and activity, but that has cooled off substantially.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truth_Social

https://mashable.com/article/truth-social-downloads-drop-don...

So what is this then? [0]

[0] https://opensource.truthsocial.com/mastodon-current.zip

That's them acknowledging that they haven't built anything novel or interesting, the just copy/pasted another project and expect people to take them seriously as a major social network.

So their iOS app is also copy and pasted project then? Another asset that didn't stop them from launching, did it?

On top of that, so basing on 'free and open source software' and even giving attribution now means 'you haven't built anything novel or interesting'. Oh dear.

> the just copy/pasted another project and expect people to take them seriously as a major social network.

Yeah, surely Mastodon by itself has hundreds of millions of users worldwide since launch day right? /s

I never knew that a controlled launch, only in the US with a waitlist already means 'it is over' or 'it is failing' /s I guess it depends on the 'sources' one reads.

It's bizarre and hilarious to me how much you're defending a company that has raised $1 billion dollars promising to create one of the greatest social networks on earth - yet the core of their product is a re-skinned open source project (that originally violated the license) and their execution has been incredibly sloppy (wait lists that people have been on for months, 404 error pages when people link publicly to their profiles).

If this company did not have their current political affiliations, I seriously doubt you'd be defending them for a second. Because all the evidence of how well they are performing points to them being laughably inept.

I don't actually care about them. I'm just asking basic questions to you which it seems that you are still struggling to answer them. You also seem to be unable to ignore them and have a strange obsession following them for some reason because it's the Orange Man again isn't it?

Mastodon, despite being an 'alternative' hardly anyone cared about it.

Not even the general public cared either for 6 years until Team Orange came along and used it. They'll probably surpass the amount of users on Mastodon regardless away.

> If this company did not have their current political affiliations, I seriously doubt you'd be defending them for a second. Because all the evidence of how well they are performing points to them being laughably inept.

So now you are a fortune teller and somehow 'launch day disasters' are indicative of future performance isn't it?

Your use of "orange" is a clear sign that you're extremely biased and it's worthless to continue this back and forth.

Why does that even annoy you? Perhaps, former and twice impeached orange man 'Donald J. Trump'? is less triggering to you and makes you feel better about yourself?

Who cares?

You haven't answered any of my questions have you? Only still obsessed around the orange man.

Get outside should talk to some people in the real world.

They put out press releases and pitch decks boasting on how they were going to develop the best social network that the world had ever seen. They have investment slides citing their technical team, who supposedly came up with laughably vague "Infrastructure" slides:

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1849635/000119312521...

And all this bluster just to outsource the re-skinning of an existing open source project. Vlad N listed as their CIO on slide 21 is Vladimir Novachki, CTO of Cosmic Development, a North Macedonian outsourcing firm. It would take about a week to recreate what they've done, costing about $5k max.

It's like saying you're going to make the #1 website builder then paying someone $5k to just re-skin WordPress. Given the promotional materials they've put out, it's beyond pathetic.

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