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Trump’s new social network accused of violating Mastodon license

After Donald Trump was blocked by social media, the former US president is trying to create a new platform free of censorship. Jason Miller, Trump’s aide, is funding Gettr. Trump Media and Technology Group (TMTG) is developing Truth Social, which is scheduled to launch officially in 2022, but the site is in the public domain right now.

Several people have noted the visual similarities between Truth and Mastodon, an open source decentralized social networking project. Eugen Rochko, creator and main developer of Mastodon, confirmed to Motherboard that Mastodon is used as the basis for Truth from screenshots of the site. In the code of the web version, you can find mentions of Mastodon, an elephant mascot remains in the error messages.

The Mastodon server software and its source code are distributed under the terms of the GNU Affero General Public License (AGPL) 3.0, which requires the author of the software to disclose the source code. The software created on its basis must also be distributed under the terms of this license, otherwise it will be regarded as copyright infringement.

The Software Freedom Conservancy, which protects the rights of developers of free software licensed under the GPL, has given TMTG 30 days to comply with the terms, after which it could lead to legal action.

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