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The AGPL breaks with what's IMO is a central tenet in free software: The input and output to and of the software is not covered in any way by the license. The l

The AGPL breaks with what's IMO is a central tenet in free software: The input and output to and of the software is not covered in any way by the license. The license covers distribution, not usage. The AGPL introduces such language as "interacting with it remotely through a computer network". If my database software is AGPL (and I've for some reason modified it) and my webserver is regular GPL, does accessing my blog-webapp (that talks to the DB) constitute "interacting" with the database? What if my blog is generated statically from the DB, triggered by uploading a new post through the web-interface? What if the trigger is cron? If a dataset can be uploaded directly into a software program using HTTP PUT, sure, that's covered. But what if the protocol requires e-mailing the dataset to a clerk who then feeds it in? Server software is used by letting people access it over networks. If you don't want people to use your software freely, for whatever purpose, commercial or not, free software is not for you.

tptacek 17y ago
This is a whole lot of what-iffing about a really straightforward idea. If you're going to incorporate my code into yours, and you're going to sell access to the resulting product as a web site, you need to make your code available. You can't host my code and your extensions on a website to evade the GPL. Agree with this or disagree with it, but it clearly isn't a plot to get the GPL to infect program outputs.
Maro 17y ago
I think such overcomplications are unnecessary. If the DB software is AGPL and you modify the source code, then run a service over it (eg. a webmail service) then you have to put the modified DB source code up on your FTP server. Takes less time then arguing about it here on HN.
lkijuhyghjm 17y ago
The difference between distributing and using your software. If I had a site where people could watch the pirate copies of movies for free - would the MPAA not care, because I'm not distributing the movies I'm just 'using' them.

tptacek 17y ago

This is a whole lot of what-iffing about a really straightforward idea. If you're going to incorporate my code into yours, and you're going to sell access to the resulting product as a web site, you need to make your code available. You can't host my code and your extensions on a website to evade the GPL. Agree with this or disagree with it, but it clearly isn't a plot to get the GPL to infect program outputs.

Maro 17y ago

I think such overcomplications are unnecessary. If the DB software is AGPL and you modify the source code, then run a service over it (eg. a webmail service) then you have to put the modified DB source code up on your FTP server. Takes less time then arguing about it here on HN.

lkijuhyghjm 17y ago

The difference between distributing and using your software. If I had a site where people could watch the pirate copies of movies for free - would the MPAA not care, because I'm not distributing the movies I'm just 'using' them.