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Mastodon's Eugen Rochko in talks with Meta?!đ±
(news.ycombinator.com)
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this post was submitted on 25 Jun 2023
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Technology
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Could mean nothing but it's a bad look to be having talks under NDA. We'll see how it turns out but I'm glad I never got invested in using Mastodon.
Companies like Meta don't do anything without an NDA. They probably reached out to Eugen and said "hey, we want to talk but first you need to sign this NDA." They could be asking for his grandmother's sugar cookie recipe.
Sure, there are plenty of reasons to loft an eyebrow at Eugen. Signing an NDA isn't one of them.
There's always the "I'm not signing any NDA, fuck you" answer. The fact that he went along with their NDA says something. He could have said no. Open source thrives on openness, and NDAs are the complete and polar opposite of openness.
Make them play on your own field. If they're the ones coming to you, it's because they see value in what you offer so you have leverage. The fact that they have money is irrelevant.
I mean, the real answer is that most open source developers aren't here for freedom at any cost. They're here like a startup... Waiting to be acquired for big bucks. Open source doesn't pay bills, and if a megacorp pulls up in a Brinks truck full of cash, I wouldn't be surprised if 80% of open source projects sell
This is why I trust GPL licenses over things like MIT. Fully permissive licenses are ripe for developers to sell out. GPL licenses ensure the code remains open and limits even what the original developer can do (so long as they merge a sufficient number of third party changes to make relicensing impossible). Permissive licenses allow developers to close off future updates should they desire. I haven't looked at the license of Mastodon's code to be fair, I'm just speaking in general.
Mastodon is AGPL 3, so no problem there, the problem lies not in the code but somewhere else. Even if Mastodon was closed source, we have other code basis like pleroma, etc. but if the main guys start marching into the wrong direction then this is the beginning of the end.
They can fork the project files and have a community edition
Came here to say this. Open source isnât a noble crusade, and developers are not monks with vows of poverty.
Until we get unlimited gay space communism, people will always take the money and avoiding that truth and acting shocked when they do at least listen to the people with unlimited money will always lead to disappointment.
as true as this is, it means the developers are the ones with more power to stop things being taken over, and clearly as you said, they won't.
truth is it means you can't trust open source devs who touch with for-profit money at all, they're all as corpo and crooked and are willing to sell everyone out for themselves.
I was trying to be a little kinder, but yeah, that's my general opinion.
It's one reason I like code that's actually owned by a foundation/organization that has all that pesky oversight and meetings and politicking because it makes things MUCH harder to be unilaterally sold out from under their users: it DOES happen, but it's not just writing a check to one guy and hey presto next week your shit is broken/infested with malware/vanishes without a trace.
They have their own problems and require funding to actually operate as intended, but it's at least a layer between the 'I made this' meme and the users of the software.
Thereâs no harm in going to the meeting to just listen to what they have to say. Why should he deprive himself of that knowledge? That would be dumb. Information is power. Just because he canât run out and say âhereâs all the things they talked aboutâ doesnât mean he canât use what he heard to his and the FOSS communityâs advantage. Maybe they disclose that theyâre working on some $thing, and now he can start development of a feature that might somehow protect against that $thing.
I love FOSS and the community, but far too often their zealous nature cause them to make poor decisions. The world isnât black and white. Stop treating it like it is. NDAs happen in business all the time for anything and everything. A lot of companies wonât even have a meeting with you/another company AT ALL unless an NDA is in place. Itâs standard.
Not going to at least hear what they had to say was stupid.
That he signed the NDA at all means he's been bought, or is planning to be.
Everyone in open source knows those are tools to shut down prominent voices from being able to call out abuse and rally support. They just make sure to hit every needed talking point in the meeting, and now he legally can't condemn anything meta does because it is "covered by NDA"
It's just one of many shitty ways corporations try and exert coercive control over OSS
That's bullshit.
Especially without knowing the terms of the NDA. It could just be that they can't talk about Metas App Specifics, and/or that the NDA is limited in duration, so they may be able to talk about everything once the App is out.
Yes, it could be what you are talking about, a complete gag order, but "NDA" as a term is way to broad to say that for sure.
It just says that he currently values knowing more about Metas plans higher than being able to tell us about Metas plans.
I mean, depending on the timeline, one could check if there's any interesting PRs by him, that may infer something about Metas plans.
Hope for the best, plan for the worst
Yea the NDA could be benign. Too bad the whole thing is fucking designed to look that way when itâs not.
Iâm planning for him to release the next mastodon release under a different license, one far more favorable to Shitbook
Why the hell do you think this? Or push it?
you seem to know nothing about what youâre talking about
Have you even committed code to an open source project? Maintainers do not automatically get a say, I canât submit a PR and block this, and code has Owners as well, who can override the maintainers at any time
Corporations count on as much when they get the owner to sell out, and force the maintainers to setup a fork and lose a fuckton of momentum
@RandoCalrandian l@Spellbind0127 because thats the law you canât just change the license of code that other have contributed to just because you own the repository doesnât make it so you own the legal rights to all the code. (Your an idiot if you say otherwise. )
lol, you clearly don't know law
They can release the next version under whatever license they want, because they own the code
Happens all the time