this post was submitted on 25 Jun 2023
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Technology
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Mastodon is AGPLv3. That means if you allow someone to communicate with a server, you must offer them the modified source code. Not just when you distribute the modified code like in the GPLv3. So even if they forked Mastodon their code modifications would need to be made available.
However iirc ActivityPub itself is under a more permissive scheme (I think it's predecessor was using the MIT license?) so Meta could use the protocol itself.
Hey, you’re right!
To get around that they’d have to do something drastic, like getting the owner of the code to change the license in next release, and keep him in an NDA while doing so in order to position themselves when the change happens.
Good thing we’re not seeing that
AFAIK, all contributors need to agree in order to change the license of a codebase. If a contributor disagrees, their part of the code has to be rewritten in order to comply.