> Are you missing the difference between > distributing the program and distributing > its result? The latter lands firmly into > "usage" category.

> Are you missing the difference between > distributing the program and distributing > its result? The latter lands firmly into > "usage" category. [...] it's like saying if > I send somebody a Word document it's the > same as if I sent them a copy of > Word. That's baloney. The AGPL is meant to cover the cases where the "output" is what the program itself does. E.g. free software web applications like bug trackers, wikis etc. So the analogy is not sending someone a Word document being like distributing Word, neither the APGL or the GPL cover that. It's setting up a paid-for VNC service where users can access your copy of Word. The GPL explicitly permits this sort of thing, because it's quite lax about defining network interaction, the AGPL is more strict. > Again, only if "user" means "never modifying > or building on it", which in OSS world is a > very restrictive condition. Copyright law has no purview over whether you modify or build on something, and neither can any free software license. I can modify and build on any software I have that I haven't signed a contract to obtain, copyright law only comes into play when I want to distribute the software in any way. If and when I've done that whether I've modified or built on it has little bearing on whether I'm committing copyright infringement. > Did you just claim "following standard > copyright law" and "ignoring the license" is > the same and both things are easy and > obvious? I really can't see how you've read this thread and somehow become this confused. All I'm doing here is correcting WBrentWilliams's misconception that free software licenses are somehow something you need to get end-users to agree to before they use freely licensed software. That this isn't how things work is something the GPL itself explicitly states. The same applies to any free software license, the GPL just happens to be a rather verbose license which goes out of its way to explain the basics of copyright law to you.