from the we-violate-all-open-source-licenses-equally dept.
Trump Given 30 Days To Have His Social Media Site Comply With Open Source License:
Plenty of people have raised concerns that Donald Trump's sketchy new social media site, Truth Social, is just a lightly reskinned Mastodon, which is violating Mastodon's fairly strict AGPLv3 license. As we had previously discussed, the aggressive (and sloppy) terms of service for the site claim that the code is proprietary, and even claims that "all source code, databases, functionality, software, website designs, audio, video, text, photographs, and graphics on the Site (collectively, the “Content”) and the trademarks, service marks, and logos contained therein (the “Marks”) are owned or controlled by us or licensed to us..."
Of course, part of the reason that Mastodon uses such a license is to encourage others to take the code and build on it if they abide by the terms of the license. And the nature of Mastodon's license is that if you use it, you must make the complete source code available of what you build with it.
[...] the Software Freedom Conservancy has given Trump 30 days to bring the code into compliance -- specifically by providing the source code to Truth Social to the early users who were able to sign up -- or, under the license terms, Trump's "rights in the software are permanently terminated."
For those not familiar, the AGPL license works like the GPL, but eliminates the loophole where GPL software can be used to build a web site without disclosing the GPL and all other related source code of the web site. With AGPL you can either disclose all of the code of your site as open source under AGPL, or you can take a commercial license to the AGPL code you are using.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by RedGreen on Tuesday October 26 2021, @03:03PM (11 children)
communists or some other garbage from that assholes mouth to describe how unfair it is he cannot just steal someones property for his own use.
"I modded down, down, down, and the flames went higher." -- Sven Olsen
(Score: 5, Funny) by DannyB on Tuesday October 26 2021, @03:24PM (10 children)
I can hear it now: But my cyber
nitwitsninjas said it was okay.While Republicans can get over Trump's sexual assaults, affairs, and vulgarity; they cannot get over Obama being black.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday October 26 2021, @03:29PM (8 children)
He literally is that ignorant, and after he's been called out then it becomes a dick measuring contest.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 5, Funny) by DannyB on Tuesday October 26 2021, @03:37PM (5 children)
I suspect the tiny handed one would never actually engage in such a measuring contest with anyone. Even with pills he won't get an insurrection. According to Stormy on late night talk show.
Instead it will be a shouting and nasty name calling match. The one 'skill' he excels at. Bluff and bluster.
While Republicans can get over Trump's sexual assaults, affairs, and vulgarity; they cannot get over Obama being black.
(Score: 5, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 26 2021, @04:30PM (3 children)
Seems like he got an insurrection to me.
(Score: 3, Informative) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday October 26 2021, @05:22PM
Pitiful and insufficient, but yes, I'd say it is clear that he tried for an insurrection.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 3, Funny) by sjames on Tuesday October 26 2021, @08:59PM (1 child)
Yeah, but it flopped.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 27 2021, @02:24AM
and it was premature.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 26 2021, @06:02PM
Yeah, Ray Epps and the rest of the Pentagon Psyop warfare are a national tragedy.
(Score: 2, Funny) by nitehawk214 on Tuesday October 26 2021, @04:50PM (1 child)
Ignorant or impotent?
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 4, Touché) by GlennC on Tuesday October 26 2021, @06:13PM
Yes
Sorry folks...the world is bigger and more varied than you want it to be. Deal with it.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Tuesday October 26 2021, @05:24PM
Yeah, me too.. I think one of my fillings is picking up a radio station. Gotta change the channel
The man is genius (or a termite).. gets his name of every website in the US, and probably UK. We are his "social media". I'm surprised he doesn't sue to make us pay for re-transmitting his signal
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Tuesday October 26 2021, @03:05PM (69 children)
Are you gonna sue him? The guy's a fucking millionaire. He'll run your legal budget to the ground.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday October 26 2021, @03:14PM (17 children)
If you have a million dollars but also two million dollars worth of debt you are no longer a millionaire.
(Score: 3, Informative) by DannyB on Tuesday October 26 2021, @03:26PM
You are not using the proper Trump rules of accounting for determining net worth. This works similarly to the Trump rules of tax valuation versus sale/rental valuation of real property.
While Republicans can get over Trump's sexual assaults, affairs, and vulgarity; they cannot get over Obama being black.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday October 26 2021, @03:34PM (1 child)
That's not how the real estate developers I know live. They're more like:
1. Sweet talk your way into some investment capital (usually through connections with mommy and daddy).
2. Live like that money is yours, and maybe try to build the thing that it was given to you for
3. If the project successfully completes, in spite of their ego, then take some perks like a couple of luxury suites or maybe a whole floor in the building for their own use, then pay off the investors with the remaining profits
4. If the project fails, Chapter 11, or 13, or whatever those expensive legal guys say we planned as a safe exit
5. Regardless of success or failure, rinse, lather and repeat.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 26 2021, @10:47PM
That's smart.
(Score: 5, Informative) by istartedi on Tuesday October 26 2021, @03:45PM (11 children)
If you owe the bank $100k and you can't pay, you're in trouble.
If you owe the bank $1 billion and you can't pay, the bank is in trouble.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Tuesday October 26 2021, @04:58PM (9 children)
He did live by that idea for a long time. And then something started happening, namely the banks started refusing to do business with him on the grounds that he's a terrible credit risk.
Or, almost all the banks. 1 bank, just 1, and in fact just 1 loan officer at that 1 bank, has had anything to do with him in the last decade. And there are good reasons to think that that 1 loan officers' dealings with him were part of a money laundering operation. So yeah, he's potentially in trouble - what's mostly keeping him out of jail right now is the Democrats being invertebrates.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Tuesday October 26 2021, @08:00PM (2 children)
I believe the proper word is complicit, or a plain old Mexican Standoff (there are no innocents), he's still joined at the hips with the Clintons... Everybody has insurance
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Wednesday October 27 2021, @03:28AM (1 child)
So that may be true. Perhaps part of what is going on is the Republicans having "go to jail" levels of information on the Democrats' dirty deeds done cheap, whatever they might be.
And that doesn't change the problem of the Democrats being cowards. Because if they're courageous, and intend to honor their oaths of office, then the right thing to do is to follow through with prosecuting anybody taking part in efforts to overthrow the Constitution and accept the ensuing loss of office and/or jail time. Instead, they're willing to sacrifice the nation for a chance to save their own skins. And before you think that's unfair to ask of a politician, consider that they expect Army grunts, Secret Service officers, etc to risk far more for far less.
Being a real leader, especially in very difficult or dangerous situations, means doing what is necessary for the group you are leading, not what is good for you. For so many of the Democrats to be unwilling to sacrifice themselves to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States is a failure of leadership. Probably still preferable to the Republicans gleefully leading us off a cliff, but not something to be happy about.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Wednesday October 27 2021, @03:42AM
I'm gonna blame the people that reelect those "cowards" for 40 years... "Rats" would be a better description. But the public's voting habits are what conditioned them to act this way over all this time
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Tuesday October 26 2021, @08:17PM (5 children)
Yeah, how do credit ratings work for defaulting on loans that size? You'd think it would push you into something like a logarithmically negative credit rating tier, after which you start looking around for secured credit cards or something. Why isn't his name and photo in the bank-internal wiki's "Do not loan to" [youtu.be] page?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by sjames on Tuesday October 26 2021, @09:04PM (2 children)
That doesn't apply to people born on 3rd base.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 26 2021, @10:50PM
3rd base? More like 4th base and 11 runs ahead in the 9th inning. Guy inherited a real estate empire and ended up with less than he started. He never even walked in a run.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Wednesday October 27 2021, @02:23AM
I don't know what that [youtu.be] would have to do with your credit rating, but ok. You must have meant something else [urbandictionary.com] :-)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 26 2021, @09:37PM
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Wednesday October 27 2021, @03:31AM
I'd answer that as "We know exactly who you are, we know what you did, we don't need to turn that into a number to turn you down."
A lot of the banks that refused to loan to him didn't go through the process of having him stiff them before they decided it, because (a) bankers can read the business pages of the New York Times too, and (b) bankers talk to each other.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 3, Funny) by digitalaudiorock on Tuesday October 26 2021, @07:47PM
...and if Trump owns you anything you're even more fucked than you are stupid.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by ikanreed on Tuesday October 26 2021, @07:36PM (1 child)
You're radically underestimating how much graft he managed to arrange in 4 years.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 26 2021, @10:52PM
He sold a lot of MAGA hats.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday October 26 2021, @03:27PM (41 children)
How much legal budget do you need to show a license, how that license is violated and copyright is infringed, then ask for specific performance or at minimum to cease and desist from using it.
While Republicans can get over Trump's sexual assaults, affairs, and vulgarity; they cannot get over Obama being black.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday October 26 2021, @03:37PM (20 children)
Minimum $5K to cover filing fees, initial pleadings, motions, counter-motions and recording. This will take up to a year, during which time the defendant's "out of court" legal team will be exploring other options to convince the plaintiff to drop the case.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DannyB on Tuesday October 26 2021, @03:41PM (13 children)
It might just be cheaper to buy a commercial license for Mastadon (and any other AGPL software they are misusing).
Isn't Trump's social media platform stock soaring [cnbc.com] right now?
Prediction: Trump will never, ever take out a commercial license for the software.
While Republicans can get over Trump's sexual assaults, affairs, and vulgarity; they cannot get over Obama being black.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 26 2021, @04:48PM (2 children)
This probably isn't a fight that Trump can win. The actual facts of the case are open-and-shut and there are about a billion organizations that would love to deal Trump a huge blow by sinking his "network." I don't think Trump, who is himself poor, can afford to fight this battle with money. Not sure the investors would want to see all their investment thrown away on a pointless pissing contest but if you invest in Trump that's pretty much what you should expect.
I don't even know if Mastodon offers a commercial license. I think if I were them I'd be reaching out to everyone on the left to see who wants to fund a very high profile legal defense in exchange for never ever letting Trump use the software again.
Per the AGPL, there is a one-time allowance for a license violation, that must be cured within 30 days from notification. If it is not, the license can be terminated permanently at the copyright holder's option. So this is a case where, if Mastodon decides, Trump's network will have to start from ground zero. Of course, there might be room for some legal wiggling where the same thing could be started up under a new organization - the AGPL doesn't really prevent this, but maybe some good lawyering could get it done.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 26 2021, @06:42PM (1 child)
It turns out that Mastodon doesn't have copyright assignment. In other words, any developer on the project has to sign on to any settlement, and can refuse to reinstate the license.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 26 2021, @10:55PM
I predict death threats to open source developers... get ready for a rough ride!
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday October 26 2021, @05:24PM (6 children)
Cheaper, yes. But it would appear weak to "his base" which can't be allowed. Would have been acceptable if they had thought to take out the license (or comply with the open source requirements) from the start, but now that it's a court case... oh boy, his options are severely limited in how he is expected to respond to that.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 3, Interesting) by tangomargarine on Tuesday October 26 2021, @06:03PM (5 children)
The whole idea of using a copyleft product in the first place seems bizarre, since I assume the vast majority of his base would decry FLOSS as "commie bullshit."
So it must've strictly been a money-saving measure, only Trump is too much of an asshole to even do that properly. Hence where we are now.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 4, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday October 26 2021, @06:14PM
The vast majority of his base is (also) ignorant of FLOSS, where it is used, etc. and probably would never notice that it was being employed, if it hadn't jumped up and screamed "commie bullshit lawsuit, in yer face!" at them. (For the record, I approve of the lawsuit, regardless of who is abusing the FLOSS - I am dubious as to its prospects at recovering anything resembling satisfying results, but I approve of the defense of those rights...)
As for money saving... yes... but probably more time saving (thereby saving money) as the FLOSS solution was readily available, fulfilled the requirements, etc. I doubt the project would have balked at a $10K annual license fee, but they probably would have balked at a 7 day waiting period while they got approval to spend the money.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2) by GlennC on Tuesday October 26 2021, @06:18PM (2 children)
The vast majority of his base barely knows what software is, let alone FLOSS.
The only licenses they know about are driving, hunting, and fishing licenses.
Sorry folks...the world is bigger and more varied than you want it to be. Deal with it.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Tuesday October 26 2021, @06:20PM
Well yeah, but I'm just picturing somebody trying to explain the idea of open source to them. It's not exactly rocket science.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 3, Funny) by DannyB on Tuesday October 26 2021, @07:14PM
What!?! They don't know about gun licenses?
Dog licenses (which expire if not renewed), or Marriage licenses (which don't expire, but perhaps should).
While Republicans can get over Trump's sexual assaults, affairs, and vulgarity; they cannot get over Obama being black.
(Score: 5, Funny) by number11 on Tuesday October 26 2021, @06:41PM
Hard to believe that PRAVDA wouldn't just provide a link to the code, in small print maybe on the "About" page. I doubt there's been any brilliant mods introduced. The only ones to even look would be Mastodon, and perhaps a few people looking for vulnerabilities. His flock would never notice, or understand it if they did, and it would probably fulfill the legal requirement.
But this is the Orange Shitgibbon, whose standard response is to start flinging poo.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday October 26 2021, @06:18PM (2 children)
I'm thinking of a 5D chess move right now... they might have intentionally pissed off the FLOSS project just to have a new excuse to cry: CENSORSHIP!!!!!
I'm having a hard time believing that anyone in the campaign is that clever, but maybe they hired a guy...
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 26 2021, @09:36PM
Never attribute to cleverness that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.
I'm sure that Trump will claim that, if that trumpnet is forced to shut down, but I don't think it was planned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 26 2021, @10:58PM
It certainly fits the right wing persecution complex. Get all the old biddy's on board for a mass insurrection in their Medicare obesity mobiles.
(Score: 2) by stretch611 on Wednesday October 27 2021, @03:46AM (5 children)
Likely more... Copyright/licensing battles can be quite expensive.
Then there are all the appeals to the higher courts by the loser.
Just look at SCO vs IBM [wikipedia.org]:
Now with 5 covid vaccine shots/boosters altering my DNA :P
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 27 2021, @07:31AM (4 children)
This case would be nowhere near as complex in either fact or law as the SCO debacle.
(Score: 2) by stretch611 on Wednesday October 27 2021, @04:27PM (3 children)
No, It would not be as complicated and very likely not as long.
However, Trump over the years, both before and after becoming president has used to courts to prolong and extend cases to get the other side to be tied up in litigation for years, drain their finances until they can't afford to go on with the case, and just give up.
Trump also does not care about precedent, he will argue until he is blue in the face to delay it even longer or appeal it one more step even if his case is very weak.
He is currently fighting the release of documents while he was president due to executive privilege... something that is only used for the current president (who has already ok'd the release)
In E Jean Carroll's (The woman that accused him of rape in a dressing room years ago,) case where she is suing him for defamation of character, he is claiming that he was speaking as president of the US while defaming her, not as a private citizen, a very weak argument to make the case go away *not to mention have the case tried using the US government's money not his.)
In the case of NYC trying to subpoena documents from financial institutions in a tax fraud case against him, he argued that it would cause undue harm to his time to prepare the documents as a sitting president and how that time is needed to govern the country in the case, despite the subpoena was for the financial institutions to provide docs, not Trump himself. (A case he slowly appealed all the way to the supreme court and eventually lost only to try the same defense with the next piece of needed evidence.)
What makes you think the same SCO defense that "the GPL violates the United States Constitution", would not be brought up by Trump? or any other point that would extend the case out for years? His whole legal strategy is to delay and wait for his accusers to run out of money and give up. This has worked for him for years, he is not going to stop it now.
Now with 5 covid vaccine shots/boosters altering my DNA :P
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 27 2021, @09:57PM (1 child)
Courts will issue a preliminary injunction in copyright cases when one side is determined likely to prevail on the merits. You can't issue an injunction in a defamation case. And "maybe the whole concept of free software will be thrown out by the Supreme Court" isn't much of an argument at an injunction hearing.
I don't remember SCO ever making that argument, and it wouldn't be relevant, since SCO wasn't arguing that they had the right to use free software in violation of its license, but rather that their proprietary code had been copied into free software in violation of their copyright. It just wasn't true.
(Score: 2) by stretch611 on Thursday October 28 2021, @06:54AM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCO_Group,_Inc._v._International_Business_Machines_Corp.#GPL_and_the_US_Constitution [wikipedia.org]
While later withdrawn, SCO made the argument in part because it bought Caldera which distributed linux and therefore was subject to the GPL.
Now with 5 covid vaccine shots/boosters altering my DNA :P
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 28 2021, @03:27AM
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Thexalon on Tuesday October 26 2021, @05:05PM (19 children)
When bad guys are going with this kind of legal strategy, they'll do things like:
- File tons of frivolous motions that your lawyer has to take the time to respond to at $250 / hr.
- Make ridiculous discovery requests (demands that you provide information) that you'll either have to take the time and money to provide or pay the lawyers to push against.
- Try to move the venue to a really inconvenient location, with a judge that just happens to be suspiciously friendly with the defendant, to increase travel costs for everyone on your side.
All that will definitely drive up your costs, potentially beyond your ability to pay. If you're lucky, you might be able to recover attorney's fees as part of the damages, but you can't count on it.
John Oliver described the legal costs of successfully defending against coal baron Bob Murray's completely frivolous defamation suit as costing HBO over $250,000.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday October 26 2021, @05:27PM (9 children)
From TFA . . . with some emphasis added . . .
I think they know what they are doing. I suspect they have good lawyers on their side who might be more interested in software freedom than in money. But we'll see.
While Republicans can get over Trump's sexual assaults, affairs, and vulgarity; they cannot get over Obama being black.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Tuesday October 26 2021, @05:43PM (7 children)
I'm not saying they can't win, I'm just aiming to answer the question of what the costs can be and how bad actors in the US legal system drive those costs up.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DannyB on Tuesday October 26 2021, @05:47PM (4 children)
You are correct. I am aware of that. I watched the SCO vs IBM nonsense for years . . . to this very day. It's still not over.
While Republicans can get over Trump's sexual assaults, affairs, and vulgarity; they cannot get over Obama being black.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 26 2021, @08:17PM (3 children)
SCO vs. IBM was a contractual dispute. Also, SCO's copyright case fell apart rather quickly. And I watched it too.
The AGPL violation is a copyright violation and that is enough to warrant an injunction against further infringement even prior to any damage awards. There are plenty of case laws to support an injunction to limit further damage to the copyright authors. After an injunction, they can wrangle about damages. Statutory damages are probably not warranted but that is what will take its time. Injunction is what happens when there is a preliminary order to cease ongoing damage from continuing.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday October 27 2021, @02:28PM (1 child)
SCO vs IBM started out as a copyright infringement case. The dispute broke out when IBM showed that SCO did not own the copyright, nor even any right to sue for infringement. After several years a separate contract dispute case involving Novell and SCO over who actually owns the copyrights, proved that Novell owns and is the successor in interest to ALL copyrights relating to Unix and SCO has no rights in the copyrights. This completely removes SCO's standing to sue IBM. So then SCO morphed its case into a contract dispute case because IBM's venture with SCO was unsuccessful, while IBM's adventures with Linux were very successful.
In this present case, it would be quite satisfying to see the TRUTH social media site enjoined from ever using Mastodon software and having to settle for something less.
While Republicans can get over Trump's sexual assaults, affairs, and vulgarity; they cannot get over Obama being black.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 27 2021, @05:52PM
I will not bother trying to find this, so I'll assume you are correct. But in this case, there is no need to wonder who owns the copyright -- that can be established very very quickly. So whatever this will be is not SCO vs. IBM level of BS, more like Paramount vs. specific BitTorrent seeder.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 28 2021, @04:55AM
Better to just ignore the whole damned thing, and not give him a way to monetize the violations.
And maybe push a few backdoors in an update …
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 26 2021, @11:03PM (1 child)
Watch, Florida will create a new law banning anyone from inconveniencing (R) political figures for any reason, exactly what the Founding Fathers intended.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday October 27 2021, @02:31PM
Watch Biden tax the wealthiest people. With a large tax credit for any individual who has the capability to drop objects from orbit onto theme parks located in Florida. As the founding fathers intended.
While Republicans can get over Trump's sexual assaults, affairs, and vulgarity; they cannot get over Obama being black.
(Score: 4, Touché) by fustakrakich on Tuesday October 26 2021, @08:08PM
Yeah, it's a real nail biter, ain't it?
*sigh* The press, they want to sniff every piece of toilet paper the man uses. He is the Greatest Show on Earth...
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Tuesday October 26 2021, @05:29PM (3 children)
$250 / hr? Holy shit! Who works that cheap? At that price, I'll take two (sorry, only one per customer)
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Tuesday October 26 2021, @05:41PM (2 children)
My lawyer did, at least a few years ago right out of school when he was first starting out. Nice guy, he's now happily married and has a good practice going mostly focused on defending gun rights cases.
But lawyers who genuinely believe in the cause they're working for can come cheaper or even free as well.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 27 2021, @11:17AM (1 child)
Absolute Nope. They might come free, but never just cheaper. You either hire them at full price or they work pro bono. No way are they going to undercut their regular fees. (And I think they can claim pro bono as a tax loss.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 27 2021, @05:57PM
Not really. No one will have a tax-loophole you can drive any service through down to 0 net gains.
https://coloradononprofits.org/knowledge/faq/can-professional-service-be-tax-deductible [coloradononprofits.org]
So, the lawyer can claim taxi fees or filling fees as expense. He can't claim his time, since he works for free. Don't expect tax payer to subsidies his business.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 26 2021, @10:17PM (4 children)
This strategy works both ways. I once refused to get a lawyer, officially, order to force the more expensive opposing lawyer to work more hours. I wasn't stupid enough to go sans consulting a lawyer, but I did it out of court.
After a few months, they got sick of paying their law firm to negotiate with me--and like this case, I had them dead to rights. They settled and wound up paying more than they would have otherwise.
If you fuck with me enough, suddenly I have all the time and motivation in the world to get creative. Making lawyers work harder and bill their client is as easy as sending emails.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 26 2021, @11:05PM
Username checks out.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday October 27 2021, @02:32PM (2 children)
It is a violation of FRCP to try to increase the legal costs of the other side.
While Republicans can get over Trump's sexual assaults, affairs, and vulgarity; they cannot get over Obama being black.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 27 2021, @07:52PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 28 2021, @05:02AM
(Score: 2, Disagree) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday October 26 2021, @04:39PM (5 children)
You're confusing mere millionaires with multimillionaires and billionaires. How many millions does Trump actually have left? I doubt that he can take on all of the free software advocates at once.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday October 26 2021, @05:18PM (3 children)
The sad thing is there is no need to take on anyone. Simply comply with the AGPL license. Or purchase a commercial license instead.
In Trump's mind there is a need to take on everyone.
While Republicans can get over Trump's sexual assaults, affairs, and vulgarity; they cannot get over Obama being black.
(Score: 1) by Acabatag on Tuesday October 26 2021, @10:37PM (2 children)
Why wouldn't he just release the source? What motivation is there to refuse?
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday October 27 2021, @02:40PM (1 child)
That gigantic inflated ego. Everything must be his way. If challenged even in the slighted, it means war.
While Republicans can get over Trump's sexual assaults, affairs, and vulgarity; they cannot get over Obama being black.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday October 27 2021, @02:42PM
Just to continue that thought . . .
This is a crazy man that over a minor weather mistake, caused news headlines for a week because people in his own administration were too busy cowering in fear to dare contradict him over a simple mistake. So they, in typical Trumpian fashion, struggled to bend reality to fit the narrative that it was not a simple mistake.
While Republicans can get over Trump's sexual assaults, affairs, and vulgarity; they cannot get over Obama being black.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Thexalon on Tuesday October 26 2021, @05:31PM
This is definitely speculation, but my guess is that his current net worth is something like $(750,000,000).
The first thing to remember is that the guy can't run anything resembling a real business. He's stiffed investors left and right, he's stiffed contractors and lawyers and tax authorities, but the concept of "sell a good product at a profit to lots of satisfied customers" has never been part of his playbook. When we've had a look into his books, it's sure looked like the only things that have been genuine profitable ventures in his entire adult life are (a) getting his brother disowned so he could inherit all of daddy's money, and (b) The Apprentice. And that pattern of failure means that his access to legitimate investment cash has been steadily drying up for the last 30+ years or so, and somebody like him would have had no problem turning to his old mob buddies from his early real-estate days for help.
By 2016, he claimed to have something like $1 billion left (how much he has is always questionable, because he declares the value of his own name in gold letters to be whatever's convenient), but there's also good reason to think he was holding about $2 billion in Russian mob money stolen from a Kazakhstan bank [apnews.com]. If that's accurate, the level of money-grubbing while president makes sense: When you owe lots of money to an organized crime syndicate, taking Saudi bribes and committing other crimes to pay them back isn't even close to the worst option. And it also explains any Russian help he might have had in getting elected, namely his creditors were hoping that he'd be able to steal what he owed them from the US Treasury. And it also explains why he agreed to take on something resembling an actual job, the only one he's really had in his entire life, namely he was desperate for cash.
Prosecutors in New York did just bust his CFO, though, so maybe someday we'll find out what the numbers actually are. It should be entertaining.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by richtopia on Wednesday October 27 2021, @12:18AM (2 children)
More importantly TRUTH Social is worth more than a billion already. They can afford some serious lawyers.
DWAC is the SPAC being used for TRUTH to go public. Current market cap is 1.906B
https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/dwac?qsearchterm=dwac [cnbc.com]
Even a bad lawyer should be able to keep any lawsuit stalled until the organization makes or breaks it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 27 2021, @04:14AM (1 child)
A $2 billion market cap definitely doesn't mean $2 billion in money. And it was only $400 million until the Trump news took off. That's a micro-cap stock. And, of course, that's just hype, not dollars. Lawyers don't work for hype.
According to their last financial statement, DWAC had $25 THOUSAND cash on hand on $125,000 total assets. Bernie Sanders has more money than them loose in the pockets of his inauguration coat.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 28 2021, @06:52AM
Unless your name is Rudy Giuliani, but then you'd not be a lawyer anyway.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Mojibake Tengu on Tuesday October 26 2021, @03:51PM (12 children)
https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/blob/main/LICENSE [github.com]
I observe the license changed from GPL2 to AGPL in 2016, commit d70915
Now here's the funny legal problem: if I clone the project without this particular commit, rejecting it or reverting it just because I do not like the change it introduces, what license I am really legally bound to?
If I am bound to new license, am I really bound to accept any other commits done to the project too? Enforcing code on people would be obvious non-freedom, an opposite to original spirit of software freedom. What's so different about enforcing rules? To me, legal rules are just some code executed by societal system.
My stand is U.S. legal system on licensing software is completely flawed. It's culturally backward. It does not fit the information-based society at all. Attaching random legal rules to random pieces of information is just dumb and in long term, as such it damages and hinders all humanity.
The edge of 太玄 cannot be defined, for it is beyond every aspect of design
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 26 2021, @04:15PM (8 children)
In the unlikely event the codebase discussed here predates that commit, it can be used under GPL2. If the license had the "later version" wording then either GPL2 or GPL3. The GPL is a license covering redistribution, the AGPL is not a license but a contract as it stipulates conditions for usage.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Mojibake Tengu on Tuesday October 26 2021, @04:21PM (7 children)
If AGPL is a contract but not a license, as such, mere switch to AGPL is violation of original GPL2.
The edge of 太玄 cannot be defined, for it is beyond every aspect of design
(Score: 4, Informative) by DannyB on Tuesday October 26 2021, @04:23PM (6 children)
Whoever owns the copyright on the software can change the license.
Even if it is a contract, ala Microsoft EULA, then it is still granting you a copyright license. Even if implicitly. Without a license, copyright prevents you from using it. So the commercial contract provider would be in an awkward position to argue that they are not granting you a license under some certain set of conditions.
While Republicans can get over Trump's sexual assaults, affairs, and vulgarity; they cannot get over Obama being black.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 27 2021, @11:32AM (5 children)
There is no license unless both parties sign a contract.
Fuck you DannyB for trying to imply that EULA's are valid you MS asslicker. EULA's are not valid, never have been, never will be. There is no license unless both parties sign a contract.
Bullshit again. Copyright prevents you from copying it. However you obtained your copy the law says NOTHING about using it, only about making copies.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday October 27 2021, @02:36PM (4 children)
That is flat out wrong.
I can give you a license for free. Or subject to certain conditions. Like open source. No contract is necessary. A license might have value, in which consideration might be exchanged (eg, a contract), or a valuable license could be a gift (such as Microsoft giving you a free license to use product X).
The very word license simply means "permission". eg, a hunting license (eg, permission). Fishing license. Marriage license. Dog license. Gun license. Driver license. Pilot license. Etc.
The word license has nothing to do with a contract. A contract must exchange consideration, and one party's consideration may be the granting of a license, because a license can be considered a valuable consideration.
While Republicans can get over Trump's sexual assaults, affairs, and vulgarity; they cannot get over Obama being black.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 27 2021, @04:08PM (3 children)
Nope. There is no license to use free software. You can do whatever you want with open source on your own computer. Modify it as much as you like and keep it as secret as you want. There are no conditions on use at all.
The only conditions are on making copies, because that is the only thing copyright controls. If you distribute your executable without source code, you do not get sued for breach of contract, or for violating license terms. You get sued for making copies without the copyright holder's permission.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 27 2021, @08:46PM
You are really dumb. Or just smart enough to make yourself look really dumb. Effectively the same thing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 28 2021, @01:30AM (1 child)
This just isn't true. Most commercial software has some kind of use restrictions. Windows, for example, has different licensing depending on what kind of computer you run it on. Most people don't notice this because they only have one CPU, but if you want to run it on a server with more than one CPU socket, you need a different license. Oracle is the same way, but even stricter. And most commercial software prohibites use in life-critical applications. And of course, more and more software is under a subscription model, where you can download whatever you want but you can only actually use certain features if you have paid.
Just because the GPL doesn't have any use restrictions doesn't mean that licenses in general don't.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 28 2021, @06:40PM
The only one of your examples that has actually been enforced is the Oracle one. And, Surprise! they have written contracts with their customers.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by DannyB on Tuesday October 26 2021, @04:18PM (1 child)
My opinion: If you take the code prior to the license change, then you could plausibly argue that older license is in effect. If you use any code modified (including license change headers in individual files) after the license change, then the new license covers that code.
The burden would be on you to be sure you are only obtaining entire versions of the the project prior to the license change, and then starting your own separately maintained fork.
Now with that said:
While Republicans can get over Trump's sexual assaults, affairs, and vulgarity; they cannot get over Obama being black.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 26 2021, @05:36PM
> the egotistical need to have the latest greatest version
Thank you for that :)
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Tuesday October 26 2021, @05:33PM
Our "legal rules" revolve around revenue (as a form of taxation), not "humanity" per se. It's a business, a series of contracts to protect the interests of business
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 26 2021, @04:15PM (11 children)
We must stop TRUMP from having a social media presence! CODE RED!!!
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday October 26 2021, @04:18PM (3 children)
The true reason may be simple enforcement of the AGPL license. Just like any other violator. Use the project if your own project is also AGPL licensed, or else take a commercial license. How difficult is that?
While Republicans can get over Trump's sexual assaults, affairs, and vulgarity; they cannot get over Obama being black.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 26 2021, @04:26PM
For a Trumpette, it's real difficult to understand something like that.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by tangomargarine on Tuesday October 26 2021, @04:50PM (1 child)
Porque no los dos?
If he's too stupid to abide by the terms of an agreement, enforce them. And he's giving you another excuse to annoy him in the process, one that has an actual legal basis in reality :)
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday October 26 2021, @05:05PM
Why not dos? Well, here are a lot of reasons actually.
While Republicans can get over Trump's sexual assaults, affairs, and vulgarity; they cannot get over Obama being black.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday October 26 2021, @04:20PM (1 child)
Trump does not need to infringe someone else's license in order to have a social media presence. Even if they can stop him from using Mastadon, it wouldn't prevent him from having a social media presence.
While Republicans can get over Trump's sexual assaults, affairs, and vulgarity; they cannot get over Obama being black.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday October 26 2021, @04:21PM
Apologies for misspelling Mastodon.
While Republicans can get over Trump's sexual assaults, affairs, and vulgarity; they cannot get over Obama being black.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Thexalon on Tuesday October 26 2021, @05:37PM (1 child)
He had a website not that long ago. He got rid of it because nobody was paying the slightest bit of attention to what he was posting on it.
But here's your regular reminder that nobody else's website or networked social media application is under any legal obligation whatsoever to publish what you post to it. And if your counter to that is "Free Speech", I'll just point out that this new thing Trump is trying to create bans, among other things, any posts critical of the site or its management, which makes it not actually a free speech platform at all.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 26 2021, @11:12PM
It's better than free speech. It's the best speech in the history of speech.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 26 2021, @09:42PM
Trump has the code but so do the hackers.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Opportunist on Tuesday October 26 2021, @10:45PM
Nobody wants to keep him from launching his own social media page, if he wants to even with blackjack and hookers.
All we want is that he pays for the stuff he uses. I know, a completely alien concept to him, why pay for something intangible when he's routinely stiffing his suppliers of very tangible goods.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 27 2021, @01:57AM
Yes... I see what this is about. All publicity is good publicity. There is no such thing as bad publicity.
Somebody up there was looking for the 5D chess move, that I think that's it.
All we want is for Trump to abide by the rules of the license he agreed to. I still won't federate with his server, but all he needs to do is just follow the license.
Instead we get your whargarbl, which I believe was the intention, if there was one.... But why not. After all, computer dorks are disgusting incels, as we know, so the right-wing feminists of the Democratic Party ought to have Trump's back....
It's win win win.