> As far as personal feelings are concerned, of course we would prefer if people so antithetical to our values did not use and benefit from our labour
And sensible people would prefer that license violations would be published and pursued fairly, and personal feelings kept personal, rather than creating a soft list of people and perspectives whose online/computing freedom is less important than others.
Would you care to finish reading the sentence you're quoting the first part of?
> As far as personal feelings are concerned, of course we would prefer if people so antithetical to our values did not use and benefit from our labour, *but the reality of working on free software is that you give up the possibility of choosing who can and cannot use it from the get-go*, so in a practical sense *the only issue we can take with something like Truth Social is if they don’t even comply with the free software license* we release our work under.
But isn't it exactly what they say? Like "hey, I wish they didn't use Mastodon, but there's a license and they can use our software if they want to and they comply with the license"? Or did I misunderstand this?
Their only issue in the article is that they don't comply with the license. I believe the "personal feelings" paragraph was added so that they explain to some people that they don't want to/cannot prevent them from using Mastodon. I'm sure they had received emails like "how can you allow Trump to use your open source software", "stop him, he is evil, and if you allow him to use Mastodon, you are evil too".
I could understand that interpretation. I just don't believe it's true. I think the best thing to say, if anything was necessary to say, would have been "This action is meant to defend the license, and does not constitute a judgment of the user that is violating the license."
I understand why someone would interpret Mastodon's statement that way, but I believe it is a misinterpretation and not what Mastodon meant. I don't have a doubt about Mastodon's meaning.
I read it as being personal at first but on second read interpreted the “antithetical” comment to reference the issue that they were breaking the license and limiting the users freedom.
I meant that my comment was a personal feeling about the license, and not about any particular users or violators of the license.
The post says "we would prefer if people so antithetical to our values did not use and benefit from our labour", and that is clearly not a criticism of just the nature of the license violation, but the people who are violating it.
Can’t a generous person who chooses to give away something (on the condition that anyone who chooses to accept this gift does the same) criticise the character of those who take advantage of this kindness for their own personal financial gain?
In my view, it is OK to invoke personal feelings about whether personal feelings should be invoked in relation to the enforcement of a software license.
This isn’t a fallacy because I’m not making an argument or asserting the parent commenter is wrong. I’m suggesting to the parent commenter that they follow their own advice and keep their personal beliefs personal.
For instance, if someone who eats steak tells me that studies show eating red meat causes heart disease, it’s not a fallacy to suggest that they should stop eating red meat.
>I’m not making an argument or asserting the parent commenter is wrong. I’m suggesting to the parent commenter that they follow their own advice and keep their personal beliefs personal.
You're going further than that, though, aren't you? You're impliedly suggesting they're a hypocrite. You're doing that to cast doubt on whether it's correct to invoke personal feelings when enforcing software licences by saying they are invoking personal feelings themselves when discussing that issue.
I suggest to you that this is an argument, and a blatant fallacy.
>For instance, if someone who eats steak tells me that studies show eating red meat causes heart disease, it’s not a fallacy to suggest that they should stop eating red meat
In your example, if you used the fact that someone who said red meat was bad ate red meat in support of the proposition that it is not bad to eat red meat, that would be a perfect example of the fallacy.
I’m suggesting it because you said that personal beliefs should be kept personal. Similar to how if someone eating steak told me steak was unhealthy, I would advise them to stop eating steak. I read what you originally wrote, assumed it was true, and pointed out a logical inconsistency.
Just as Truth Social can use Mastodon's source code to spread lies and hate as long as they comply with the license, so can Mastodon use their own blog to disprove of Truth Social... as long as they enforce the license.
Their statement does not detract from their action.
I think it makes people believe they will enforce the license unevenly to satisfy their personal feelings about who is using it, as well as add an unwritten "these kinds of people are are not allowed to use our software" clause to their license.
A sensible person might wonder what justification you have for that belief. Looking at the respective histories of both groups, I think you'll find that the violators are the sort of people to engage in uneven enforcement.
Moreover, is there another Mastodon license violator who's getting away with it because of their ostensibly favourable politics? What does it mean for your supposition if there's only the one violator?
> I think it makes people believe they will enforce the license unevenly to satisfy their personal feelings about who is using it
Maybe they will. As copyright holders, they are allowed to do that (though I don't think they have copyright assignation, so there would also be lots of _other_ copyright holders who could attempt different enforcement, presumably).
Is there an example of a software with a license with more overt political views being directly stated in the agreement ? I'm NOT saying that it's wrong to have personal views, or to make a statement about what Mastodon feels about Trump's Truth Social, but I am curious if there is software in wide-use with something like "No anti-vaxxers". So far the most ideology-enforcing licenses I know are mainly about the battle for Free Software or code availability. Just imagine if there was a license demanding a certain way to feel politically (other than open-source political views).
IIRC, there were a lot of those licenses in the 1990s and early 2000s. They were mostly all weeded out in the license flame wars, largely initiated by system integrators and re-distributors who wanted to have a standardized set of licenses and not have to deal with any cute extra restrictions. Nowadays, software should use a license approved by OSI or FSF, or the software will find itself not being worth consideration.
Back in 2004 Fyodor, creator of nmap, terminated SCO's rights to use it based on their suit against IBM and general attacks on the Linux community. A very specific example, but one that immediately came to mind when reading your comment.
There are also a few that disallow the software to be used in nuclear facilities[0]
I think there is a fairly long tail of variations and similar [1]. As others have mentioned I think the additional restrictions aren't particularly popular.
Well, there is the BipCot NoGov license, made by libertarians, that bans use by the government. Being committed libertarians, they don't enforce it with copyright law. I think it's mostly for humor.
I was hoping for something more enforceable than that, but still interesting enough. Looks like half of all companies using JSON are in trouble (obviously it's subjective, don't think that needs to be said).
It's not the JSON format, but rather certain libraries which process JSON (I should have been more precise). Many companies avoid using those libraries for that very reason.
And sensible people would prefer that license violations would be published and pursued fairly, and personal feelings kept personal, rather than creating a soft list of people and perspectives whose online/computing freedom is less important than others.