There’s been a lot of speculation around what Threads will be and what it means for Mastodon. We’ve put together some of the most common questions and our responses based on what was launched today.
Excellent post, and it is truly heartbreaking stuff. We know Eugen signed an NDA with Meta which just seals the deal for me given the other refusals to answer basic questions. I think he is probably a person who is finding validation for something he’s worked on for a very long time, and Meta is blinding him. But that’s what they do. They are emotional manipulators by trade.
Mark my words, this’ll be the end of Mastodon especially when Meta can outspend Mastodon all day every day to add proprietary functionality
This is exactly what happened with RCS. Sure, it is an open standard. But Google EEE’d it by adding proprietary functionality using their near unlimited budget and influence, then built it all around their own proprietary middleware, like Jive, to lock out others. Some of the most popular messaging apps, including Signal, had been begging Google for RCS access for years. Google refuses, because they firmly control it now. Only a handful of partners get to access the supposedly “open” standard which Google has co-opted. Sure, you could pour resources into the old, unmaintained RCS standard from over a decade ago. Before Google essentially killed it by moving proprietary and snuffing it out. But then it wouldn’t work with Google’s RCS, and Google’s RCS is what people know as RCS at this point.
Meta will do the same thing with ActivityPub specifically, and decentralized social media in general. They will EEE their way to the finish line. They will wall it all off and prevent account portability and cross-communication outside of a preferred partner network. I could see them walling it off to the Meta-owned properties as they seek ways to further tie Facebook, Instagram, and Whatsapp together under a common protocol which they’ve EEE’d.
Could you explain more about IBM? I’m not as tech literate and I’ve been barely keeping up with the conversations about federation and EEE, what’s going on with IBM?
IBM bought RedHat, and recently decided to take ther code repos for RedHat Enterprise Linux semiprivate. They still have to offer the source code to people they give the compiled product to, but they don’t have to give it publically, even though it is open source. Their claim is that they didn’t like others profiting off their work by rebuilding the source an selling it. Of course RedHat seems to now be ignoring the rather large amount of open source code they didn’t write that they are selling, like the Linux kernel.
You could say this about literally any big tech company.
Ultimately it’s up for humanity to decide what it values most.
A lot of people are sick of BT, but so many are locked into their services and they don’t have much capacity to change at the moment, so until that infrastructure for switching evolves it’s going to be a while before anything really changes.
It’s just as likely though that there are enough people who are indifferent too, which then implies that BT has a higher likelihood of doing what it does.
Too much is happening right now for any real projection to be made. Best we let this settle for a minute.
Excellent post, and it is truly heartbreaking stuff. We know Eugen signed an NDA with Meta which just seals the deal for me given the other refusals to answer basic questions. I think he is probably a person who is finding validation for something he’s worked on for a very long time, and Meta is blinding him. But that’s what they do. They are emotional manipulators by trade.
This is exactly what happened with RCS. Sure, it is an open standard. But Google EEE’d it by adding proprietary functionality using their near unlimited budget and influence, then built it all around their own proprietary middleware, like Jive, to lock out others. Some of the most popular messaging apps, including Signal, had been begging Google for RCS access for years. Google refuses, because they firmly control it now. Only a handful of partners get to access the supposedly “open” standard which Google has co-opted. Sure, you could pour resources into the old, unmaintained RCS standard from over a decade ago. Before Google essentially killed it by moving proprietary and snuffing it out. But then it wouldn’t work with Google’s RCS, and Google’s RCS is what people know as RCS at this point.
Meta will do the same thing with ActivityPub specifically, and decentralized social media in general. They will EEE their way to the finish line. They will wall it all off and prevent account portability and cross-communication outside of a preferred partner network. I could see them walling it off to the Meta-owned properties as they seek ways to further tie Facebook, Instagram, and Whatsapp together under a common protocol which they’ve EEE’d.
This is why God invented GPL. With GPL, you don’t get to do that.
For example, right now, IBM is in the process of learning very hard lessons why they don’t get to do that.
Could you explain more about IBM? I’m not as tech literate and I’ve been barely keeping up with the conversations about federation and EEE, what’s going on with IBM?
IBM bought RedHat, and recently decided to take ther code repos for RedHat Enterprise Linux semiprivate. They still have to offer the source code to people they give the compiled product to, but they don’t have to give it publically, even though it is open source. Their claim is that they didn’t like others profiting off their work by rebuilding the source an selling it. Of course RedHat seems to now be ignoring the rather large amount of open source code they didn’t write that they are selling, like the Linux kernel.
Yup, and very little people realize that almost all RCS implementations are by Google (often via their Jibe service).
You could say this about literally any big tech company.
Ultimately it’s up for humanity to decide what it values most.
A lot of people are sick of BT, but so many are locked into their services and they don’t have much capacity to change at the moment, so until that infrastructure for switching evolves it’s going to be a while before anything really changes.
It’s just as likely though that there are enough people who are indifferent too, which then implies that BT has a higher likelihood of doing what it does.
Too much is happening right now for any real projection to be made. Best we let this settle for a minute.