this post was submitted on 13 Jun 2023
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They'd still have to release the source for their modded versions with ads, thus, ads can be mitigated from the instance client/app side.
Not necessarily, there are several ways they could release a proprietary app: either code it from scratch so they own the copyright, use OSS code that has a commercial-friendly license (eg. MIT), use an OSS library that allows them to link with their proprietary code (eg. LGPL).
But even if they did release the source code, I think they could still be profitable. Their main customers would be people who want something that "just works", and a lot of those people would rather see a few ads than deal with downloading a modified version of the official client. People who hate ads and are willing to tinker are more likely to run their own insurance, IMO.
They'd still have to use the Lemmy API, thus, recognizing ads and/or reversing code should be fairly easy (when you actually know how everything communicates).
Just as a side note (am kinda curious to be honest) I always ran the official Reddit app (don't mod anything, so... didn't see the point in using 3rd party apps) and I never EVER saw a single ad in the app. Maybe it's because I don't live in the US, IDK, but would like to hear an explanation as to why ads weren't served on my client... not that it bothered me, lol ๐.
They would only need to use the API to communicate with other fediverse instances. They could make a proprietary API for their mobile client, which would display ads.
But that's beside my point, which is that no one will bother to reverse engineer their app if there are easier ways to avoid ads (like setting up your own instance). Their users will be people who want a turn-key solution. People who are allergic to ads (like me) will be better off setting up their own server or using a smaller server, or paying for "premium" access to a commercial server.
At least, that's how I see the fediverse evolving. I've only been here for about a week, though, so take my opinion with a big grain of salt. It'll be interesting to see how this plays out.
It's GPL licensed. If they mod the Lemmy source to comunicate with their app, they have to release the source.
Unless they write something from scratch (or take MIT/BSD licensed source, as you pointed out) and just implement the API to communicate with other instances, yes, in that case they don't have to release the source. But that is a very unlikely scenario to be honest, it's just too much work.
Yeah, been around a week here as well, still learning the ropes, lol.