stoat.exposed

License file

Every line of code is public.

The about page still says that, and “100% Open source.” The backend and the main clients are AGPL. The argument is the rest of the animal: the CLA that could relicense you, the Android app that shipped closed, Discover, Shield, an internal GitLab, and an admin panel with proprietary trees inside an AGPL repo.

A crate wrapped in a torn license ribbon, one drawer padlocked, a source-first folder leaning against it. AGPL?

  • 2023 to May 2024 · Android, CLA, closed drawers

    Libre, later

    Revolt marketed an official native Android app while the source stayed closed. A December 2023 inquiry from Vale (quoted in the team wiki) said the Android lead had “explicitly stated that her primary motivation for keeping code proprietary is so she can collect praise,” and that Discover and the admin panel “remain entirely closed source.” The CLA’s own README listed a purpose: “Keep options open for potential relicencing in future.”

    May 2024: a lounge fight over the missing Android source and whether a CLA is FOSS. Insert proposed to “sort out all promised projects/licensing by the end of May.” 7 June 2024 addendum on the monthly blog: CLA dropped for a DCO, Android and admin panel released libre. Still owed: auxiliary projects, “namely Shield and Discover.” A fiduciary license “down the line.”

  • 2024 · Discover

    The near future

    On Reddit, asked why Discover was non-free, Insert wrote: “we intend to release Discover with a libre license in the near future, keep a look out on our blog for when that happens.” A third-party frontend, Discoverolt, called Discover “one of the few proprietary parts of otherwise FOSS service revolt.chat.” Fermi’s 2026 write-up still found source-first / FUTO-style components on an unlinked GitLab at git.is.horse, plus git.stoatinternal.com, which you cannot browse.

  • January 2026 · Admin panel

    AGPL with a locked inner box

    stoatchat/service-admin-panel#5 remains open. MathMan05: app/panel and server/modules “contain proprietary code within an aGPLv3 project which the aGPLv3 prohibits.” Not a lawsuit yet, because the authors can still relicense their own work. The moment an outside contributor lands, the ribbon tears.

  • Late 2022 onward · The Real World

    The license they could not enforce

    Andrew Tate’s paid platform “The Real World” ran a modified Revolt stack and did not publish the changes. Vale confirmed API responses still named Revolt. The team said they lacked resources to sue. TRW later leaked on the order of 800,000 user records after misconfiguring their own databases. Wikipedia lists the fork as the project’s controversy section. The exhibit is still “AGPL will protect you.”

  • October 2025 · F-Droid

    The listing that walked off

    After the rebrand, users on Lemmy reported the Android app disappearing from F-Droid. The Play Store early-access listing remained. A FOSS chat app whose mobile build you fetch from Google is a sentence the about page does not enjoy.

What is actually AGPL. The Rust backend, Stoat for Web, Revite, and (after the 2024 fight) the Android client and a rewritten admin panel. That is a real FOSS core. The homepage’s “100%” is the lie. Percentages that need an asterisk are marketing.