@Gargron in that case, we agree! 💜

fwiw, I'm not concerned about the thread – it was specifically the statement around the Mastodon copyright.

I think it'd be really helpful to figure out a way to build that narrative can hold that distinction.

@Gargron @blaine All I'm seeing is a thread that took a comment out of context (about emojis) then itself being taken out of context to imply.. not sure really.

I think it's always been clear that Mastodon is not the fediverse, it's a major user of it, but Activitypub is a w3c standard.

The press like to have a name and a face, and Mastodon and Gargron provide that, but that's merely convenience.

@Gargron you really have yourself to blame for this, both through initial naming choices and by appearing as “CEO of Mastodon” in Interviews and articles while only mentioning the distinction in passing (if at all), especially at a time when a lot of people have their first encounter with a network that isn’t owned or run by a single entity.

I would also prefer if “Mastodon” wasn’t a term overloaded with 3 different meanings but it certainly is that now and that’s going to be very hard if not impossible to undo, simply because how people use language.

And now claiming that Mastodon gGmbH and Mastodon (the software project) don’t benefit from the volunteer work of instance admins and fork maintainers is simply false.

@Gargron @blaine

Many people like myself have started to explore the Fediverse because of Mastodon. I think this should be taken into consideration.

@Gargron @blaine you don’t get to control that. Mastodon has become like “Kleenex” instead of “facial tissue” and it is very possible that it a court of competent jurisdiction takes away some of your rights to control how “Mastodon” is used. If enough people do use the term “Mastodon” to mean to “Fediverse”, eventually you will lose your trademark rights.