Notices by kaniini (kaniini@mastodon.dereferenced.org), page 37

@SolSoCoG

that is the only obligation AGPLv3 adds over GPLv3, eugen asserted this meant modified versions must be interoperable, but there exists no such requirement.

@nydel

my interest is to ensure that all parties have an understanding of their obligations under the AGPL, and that the project does not put itself at risk by engaging in a lawsuit that could be very damaging to the project (punitive SLAPP damages against Eugen)

@msk @Laurelai

cached content is protected via 47 USC 230

@msk @Laurelai

it's not a solution for the fediverse because anyone can write an activitypub implementation.

the solution for the fediverse is skilled moderation teams that can recognize the illegal content, fake news, etc and remove it from their instance actively.

in regards to contractual access, the unreal engine github access requires agreeing to a clickwrap statutory license agreement before getting access to the code

but i don't believe it is effective for removing nazis from the fediverse.

@msk @Laurelai

the only solution is to require a signed contract before distribution of the software occurs; otherwise the license is considered compulsory.

i expanded on that in my last post...

@Laurelai

unfortunately, the problem is that software released to the public under a set of license terms are considered "compulsory licenses."

this means that the license applies to any party who does not explicitly violate the license.

unfortunately, this also means that the license can't be written in such a way that it denies certain classes of people from making use of it.

blame the Berne convention for this... there is no way to license open source software under a traditional license; all open source licenses are by their nature compulsory.

@Laurelai

this is what the HESSLA license attempts to do, but as I noted, a legal enforcement action is likely to fail in court because of various copyright law nuances.

the HESSLA explicitly bans nazis from using software licensed under it.

@trwnh

trademarks can't prevent usage of the software, but could be used to force the counter.social admin to stop referring to his instance as a Mastodon instance.

@Laurelai

unfortunately, free software licenses can't deny freedom for some and still be free.

beyond that, copyright law does not allow for denying select groups use of a license typically.

the HESSLA license would likely be usable for discouraging the counter.social admin from using the software, but a court enforcement action would likely fail: the HESSLA license would have major portions of it nullified, leaving the project in a worse position than sticking with AGPL.

@Laurelai

licenses are not an appropriate tool for this; see https://www.gnu.org/licenses/hessla.html for analysis.

i covered a workable strategy in my "Eugen, counter.social and trademarks" post.

a workable enforcement strategy to disassociate counter.social with Mastodon would be to use Mastodon's implicit trademark rights to make the counter.social admin remove all references to Mastodon from his instance.

this may have chilling effects however, because trademark rights require equal enforcement action, meaning that you can't pick and choose who you want to enforce against.

a workaround could be to create a trademark license, explicitly spelling out what types of instances are allowed to be called "Mastodon instances," but this may have chilling effects on forks.

it will be important to be extremely careful when creating a trademark license agreement to ensure that Mastodon remains with the same atmosphere.

counter.social is an instance that is unpalatable to many users because of broken and utterly incorrect policies that may or may not be nationalist depending on who you ask.

i have no opinion on the instance itself, at best it is an instance that is run by a highly misinformed admin, at worst, it is an instance that is run by a nationalist.

however, yesterday I jumped into the twitter thread where Eugen was fighting with them, because he threatened to take a completely improper AGPL enforcement action against them.

accordingly, I jumped in to simply advise both parties of their obligations under the AGPL: he asserted that AGPL requires interoperability, when it does not.

continuing to hold such a position would damage credibility when trying to engage in actual AGPL enforcement actions; this is why I always recommend to developers to speak to a lawyer before asserting their license has been violated.

this does not mean i agree with the approach used by counter.social (essentially I don't)

i have an extensive background in paralegal work when it comes to FOSS, and am happy to provide any instance admin with advice concerning their obligations under the AGPL if requested, just ping me and i will get back to you...

removing state propaganda bots/trolls from an instance is a job for the instance moderators.

they must have an understanding of what propaganda and fake news look like, so that they can handle this content when they encounter it.

the approach used by counter.social of banning a bunch of "russian" IP blocks and proxy lists will not stop propaganda from being distributed via their service, because the fake news was being relayed by hacked machines in the US.

bottom line: skilled moderators are needed to combat fake news, there is no easy technical solution.

@weirdoslam
there are co-conspirators which were doing the money laundering which they believe may actually have been in nigeria, but they don't know for sure.

@weirdoslam basically yes

turns out the 419 nigerian prince spammer was actually a white dude living in louisiana

http://www.sacbee.com/news/nation-world/national/article192149904.html

Also, I wonder if it is possible to have multiple frontends, for example, if you want to have a Medium clone that is federated verses a Twitter clone.

Other design goals:

* When in doubt, do the opposite of whatever Gargamel would do.

* Seriously I can't stress the above point enough.

Eshu is mostly a project I am intending to start with somebody else taking it over in the future.

I don't really have the time, but willing to get it started.

It is named after Eshu, the Yoruban trickster who kills elephants. That should give an idea about a conceptual feature roadmap.

We are going to write it in Go, it is going to be ActivityPub-first; we may add support for OStatus later.

Key planned features include policy-defined message filtering using SAT-solving, split timelines based on rules, pattern banlists, keyword mutes and basic Mastodon API compatibility.

NO, IT WILL NOT FEATURE ACTIVITYPUB READ RECEIPTS, I WAS KIDDING ABOUT THAT

@Laurelai

planned feature of Eshu (the elephant-killing activitypub server written in Go)