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I was directly involved in the decision to split AGPL into a different license (as a lawyer for the FSF at the time). Your story attributing this development to

I was directly involved in the decision to split AGPL into a different license (as a lawyer for the FSF at the time). Your story attributing this development to pressure from Google is completely false (though I have heard something like it as well). Early public drafts of GPLv3 did not exactly have an Affero condition - rather they provided for compatibility with a then-nonexistent class of licenses with Affero conditions satisfying certain criteria (AGPLv1 was not one of them). This approach was disliked by two different constituencies. One was a group of intellectuals who were associated closely with Debian, who largely would have preferred a full-fledged Affero condition in GPLv3. The other was a corporate constituency, but it wasn't Google (or other web 2.0-type companies); rather I would say it was essentially FinSec end users. This group seemed to be worried about the possibility of normalization of Affero-type conditions which it was thought the compatibility provision in early GPLv3 drafts would cause. FSF certainly wanted to get buyin for the provisions dealing with software patents and 'TiVoization', but the companies preoccupied with those provisions were mostly unconcerned about the Affero issue. Edit: There was some concern from corporate interests, at least, about the whole prospect of a proliferation of future Affero-like GPLv3-compatible non-GPLv3 licenses, which the early drafts of GPLv3 specifically contemplated. This was one of the motivations for redesigning the policy to have a single, FSF-authorized Affero license that would be, in all likelihood, the only (partially) GPLv3-compatible license with an Affero condition. The other motivation was to address the concerns of the 'Debian intellectuals' I refer to above.

quadrangle 9y ago
Thanks for the clarification. I did mean to say Google mainly as a stand-in for [that sort of company]. Good to be corrected on being wrong even there. But the confusion probably stems from the way that Google came out as anti-AGPL in the end anyway (as we might expect). Count me as one of those people who want the alternate reality of GPLv3 = AGPLv3 and where that is widely used (but I'm in no position to know that if that decision had gone that way whether the result would have succeeded or whether the denunciation by those with conflict of interests against the Affero clause would too greatly hurt the cause — despite almost everything moving to where Affero clause is ever-more relevant, I'm not seeing much growth in AGPL unfortunately)
k__ 9y ago
lol, buy-in sounds a bit like the FSF sold out.
- quadrangle 9y ago
  It's like people think that FSF is a completely dogmatic and uncompromising organization. In fact, they're interested in whatever serves their mission, including compromising when they feel it's worthwhile. This is nothing new. It's just that most of the compromises that other people wish they would make they feel do not serve their free software mission.

quadrangle 9y ago

Thanks for the clarification. I did mean to say Google mainly as a stand-in for [that sort of company]. Good to be corrected on being wrong even there. But the confusion probably stems from the way that Google came out as anti-AGPL in the end anyway (as we might expect). Count me as one of those people who want the alternate reality of GPLv3 = AGPLv3 and where that is widely used (but I'm in no position to know that if that decision had gone that way whether the result would have succeeded or whether the denunciation by those with conflict of interests against the Affero clause would too greatly hurt the cause — despite almost everything moving to where Affero clause is ever-more relevant, I'm not seeing much growth in AGPL unfortunately)

k__ 9y ago

lol, buy-in sounds a bit like the FSF sold out.

quadrangle 9y ago
It's like people think that FSF is a completely dogmatic and uncompromising organization. In fact, they're interested in whatever serves their mission, including compromising when they feel it's worthwhile. This is nothing new. It's just that most of the compromises that other people wish they would make they feel do not serve their free software mission.