Truth Social: Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC) announced today that former President Donald Trump's new social network has violated an open-source software licensing agreement by falsifying the decentralized social network Mastodon.
So the Trump Media and Technology Group (TMTG) has 30 days to comply with the terms of the license before its access is terminated, which will essentially force the Group to rebuild the platform from scratch or have to take legal action. .
TMTG launched a fundraising effort yesterday with promises to build a media empire. Its only product so far is a social network called Truth Social , which appears to have been created by Mastodon.
As we mentioned yesterday , anyone can freely use the Mastodon code, but they must comply with the AGPLv3 license that governs that code. One of the terms of the license requires that any new project developed based on Mastodon must release the source code.
Of course, Truth Social does not comply with this license and in fact, mentions its service as "privately owned". Trump's developers apparently tried to clear up any references to Mastodon.
TMTG's strategy does not align with SFC, an organization that enforces free and open source software licenses.
“The license treats all users equally (even people we don’t like or agree with), but they should operate within the rules of copyleft licenses that apply to everyone else,” SFC policy officer Bradley Kuhn said in a post.
"Today, we saw Trump's media and technology team ignore these important rules - which were designed for the good of society."
Truth Social has not been officially released yet. However, SFC requires TMTG to give all users access to the Truth Social source code.
"If they do not do so within 30 days, their rights to the software are automatically and permanently terminated," says Kuhn.
George is still wondering what he is doing here….
