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by nivenhuh 850 days ago
If I wanted to create a consumer hardware product that packages the PDS host in a user-friendly interface, does the software license permit that?

Also, services like Twitter started off with a developer friendly open API, and then it got closed off when the business needed to make money off the platform. What's the difference with Bluesky?
1 comments
steveklabnik 850 days ago
(I don't work at bluesky)

It's MIT/Apache 2.0 licensed, so yes. However, because it's also an open protocol, even if it wasn't, you could write your own under whatever license you want.

> What's the difference with Bluesky?

BlueSky is built off of an open protocol, called AT. https://atproto.com/ BlueSky is a particular app built on the protocol. As such, there's no way to "turn off the API," as BlueSky itself is a participant in the open protocol.

They could like, re-write everything to be a central service, port the user data over to it, and then pull out from the network, but then two things would happen:

1. stuff would break, as it's no longer part of the network.

2. since there is true account portability, users could simply swap to a different PDS and client, and re-route around the damage.

Also given that it's against their entire stated mission and goals, it would be social suicide.

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nivenhuh 849 days ago
Ok, I think I understand the hype now — this is sweet? Thanks for the reply.

When I was thinking about rolling my own federated social service (during the whole Twitter / Mastodon shuffle), I started thinking about the negative impacts of federation. “How can I build a kill switch into this thing in case bad actors start to participate?”

Of course, that means a central authority having moderation control.

But then, part of me thought.. does there need to be a kill switch? Do we want centralized moderation control? If laws are being broken, or social issues are being pressed to the fringe (*lons X), then the ISP would intervene. Or… the responsibility of moderation shifts elsewhere than the provider of the software. (To where do moderation responsibilities shift, if anywhere? I think is still a question.)

I personally landed at the spot of: it’s really no different than what the WWW provides — it’s just easier access. But, is that easier access to self host content and media dangerous? (lol I guess I’m still conflicted about what could happen with wider ease-of-access to self hosting.)

… back to sleep. This stuff literally keeps me up at night lol

(I didn’t get to the other comments further down in this post that talk about content moderation .. but I’m seeing them now!)

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