So far so good. Except that now the Truth Social story gets slightly complicated—too complicated, apparently, for the folks at TMTS. Open-source software is free to use but that doesn’t mean that it’s in the public domain. It’s still subject to a software license and the user has to agree to the terms of that license before he can deploy it.

A lot of open-source software is made available under what is known as a “copyleft” license. The terms are simple: You are free to use the software for any purpose. However, you cannot claim ownership in the software. And if you fork it, you must put the new version of the software—including the parts you developed—in the public domain and make the source code freely available. Mastodon, the software Trump is using to create Truth Social, uses just such a license.

So TMTS can’t claim any ownership in Truth Social. And yet, that’s exactly what Truth Social does in its terms and conditions. To make matters worse, Truth Social—despite multiple requests—is refusing to publish its source code.

Both of these actions are direct violations of the Mastodon license. And the terms of the license specify that if TMTS fails to correct these problems within 30 days, it will automatically and permanently lose all rights to use the software.