With Meta exploring the fediverse, would it be possible to create a copy-left federation license to block for-profit entities from federating with a server?
With Meta exploring the fediverse, would it be possible to create a copy-left federation license to block for-profit entities from federating with a server?
I.E. a way to legally enforce that servers which federate with you are not allowed to serve ads alongside content from your server, and must be run by not-for-profit entities?
I'm curious about some sort of strategy that blocks Meta from extracting money from the content creators in the current fediverse by using legal licensing of some sort, similar to how the GPL software license requires any derivative software to be open source.
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I don't know that they need to be blocked, so long as they meet the code of conduct/ethics of federated instances. If they don't then everybody de-federates from them. It's in their best interests to play ball, because they need us, not the other way around.
If they are allowed to join and contribute to the fediverse they will kill it. This is a known tactic used by large corporations.
We must prevent Meta, and others, from interfering with and profiting from the Fediverse as a top priority.
You're treating them as neutral actors when they have been proving to be malicious for over a decade.
They will destroy anything that doesn't benefit them with no remorse.
they need us, not the other way around.
Yeah, until they get a foot on the door. A single foot of theirs is stronger than the whole fediverse. Google used the depend on the android open source project. Then AOSP depended on google. Then they started phasing out base apps like email, browser, gallery, sms/phone, calendar, file manager, music player, etc., in favor of proprietary google apps and made everything require google play services. Other vendors stopped using the AOSP apps as well, and made their own versions in response, up to and including entire app stores like samsung apps. Today most users only know the proprietary android experience, even the UI is proprietary (android ONE, pixel UI, MIUI, etc). Even open source enthusiasts have a hard time installing AOSP or a custom ROM because of hardware level locked bootloaders. Others have mentioned the embrace-extend-extinguish tactic and this is what it is.
@zalack @FreeBooteR69 google never "depended" on Android in any real sense. It was developed by a for profit entity that was bought by Google while it was still in its infancy and has always been wholly owned by Google since - the source code is open, but it wasn't a community project that Google EEE'd, it was a privately owned project that they've made all the investment in and done all the work on, except the apps themselves which they assert little to no control over. The same company literally EEE'd a chat protocol with Google Talk so this was just a really oddball example to pick.
I supposed I would make some mistake talking about xmpp since I never used it. Oh well, thanks for the clarification.