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It isn't a surprise that AGPL is on that list, as it redefines simple usage to be redistribution. I'm sympathetic for its goals of closing the "_application se

It isn't a surprise that AGPL is on that list, as it redefines simple usage to be redistribution. I'm sympathetic for its goals of closing the "_application service provider loophole_", but you know what, Open Source, nay Free Software means freedom, so when you grant your users freedoms, your users might end up using your software in ways that you don't support. Freedom is never a _loophole_, freedom is just freedom. In this regard I think FSF has derailed from its own spirit. E.g. GPLv2 just demands for the source code to be available for any distributed binaries, being a simple copyright license. GPLv3 on the other hand extends that with extra clauses to prevent Tivoization, another supposed _loophole_. In the words of Linus Tolvards: > If you're a mad scientist, you can use GPLv2'd software for your evil plans to take over the world ("Sharks with lasers on their heads!!"), and the GPLv2 just says that you have to give source code back. And that's OK by me. I like sharks with lasers. I just want the mad scientists of the world to pay me back in kind When you start noticing _loopholes_ everywhere and closing them, pretty soon you're left with something that is no better than a proprietary, freeware license. GPLv3 may be acceptable, but AGPL should have never been accepted as an Open Source license by OSI.

kuschku 9y ago
The FSF simply has one goal: that all users can access and modify the code of all software they use. If I access photos.google.com, I am a user of photos.google.com – yet I can not access the code. This is a problem. You are misdefining "user" here.
- bad_user 9y ago
  No, you and the FSF have the wrong definition. If I install Wordpress on my own server and do modifications to it for my own purposes, I am nothing more than a user of Wordpress. > If I access photos.google.com, I am a user of photos.google.com – yet I can not access the code. This is a problem. If you borrow my own laptop and use one of my applications installed on it, would you also like access to its source code? And here we have the crux of the matter ... GPL was about distribution as defined by copyright law. AGPL is no longer about distribution, AGPL is an EULA, restricting what users (yes) can do.
  - thomasahle 9y ago
    > No, you and the FSF have the wrong definition. > If I install Wordpress on my own server and do modifications to it for my own purposes, I am nothing more than a user of Wordpress. You may feel that way, but at the end of the day, this distinction is up to whoever wrote the software and chose its license. Do they want to give freedoms to you (the installer of Wordpress) or to the end users (users of your website). They wrote it, they decide.
  - johannes1234321 9y ago
    > If you borrow my own laptop and use one of my applications installed on it, would you also like access to its source code? In the FSF spirit: yes.
    - mikegerwitz 9y ago
      No. You aren't being denied your freedoms on someone else's computer because you have no right to exercise them to begin with---it's not yours. It's the same concept with the AGPL---I have no right to modify the source code on someone else's server; I'd need to install it on my own. If you had to have access to the source code for everything you used, it'd be an almost impossible burden. rms takes public transportation in Boston, for example. Those terminals are interactive touchscreens, required for payment and printing tickets. He'd be unable to use the transit system. From stallman.org: > However, if I am visiting somewhere and the machines available nearby happen to contain non-free software, through no doing of mine, I don't refuse to touch them. I will use them briefly for tasks such as browsing. This limited usage doesn't give my assent to the software's license, or make me responsible its being present in the computer, or make me the possessor of a copy of it, so I don't see an ethical obligation to refrain from this. Of course, I explain to the local people why they should migrate the machines to free software, but I don't push them hard, because annoying them is not the way to convince them. > Likewise, I don't need to worry about what software is in a kiosk, pay phone, or ATM that I am using. I hope their owners migrate them to free software, for their sake, but there's no need for me to refuse to touch them until then. (I do consider what those machines and their owners might do with my personal data, but that's a different issue, which would arise just the same even if they did use free software. My response to that issue is to minimize those activities which give them any data about me.) > That's my policy about using a machine once in a while. If I were to use it for an hour every day, that would no longer be "once in a while" — it would be regular use. At that point, I would start to feel the heavy hand of any nonfree software in that computer, and feel the duty to arrange to use a liberated computer instead. > Likewise, if I were to ask or lead someone to set up a computer for me to use, that would make me ethically responsible for its software load. In such a case I insist on free software, just as if the machine were my own property. https://stallman.org/stallman-computing.html https://stallman.org/stallman-computing.html So using someone else's computer is a similar problem to SaaSS---you're relying on someone else for your computing: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/who-does-that-server-really-serve.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/who-does-that-server-really-s...
- ikeboy 9y ago
  Actually no. Stallman is a lot more nuanced than that. See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/who-does-that-server-really-serve.html http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/who-does-that-server-really-se... He makes it clear his issue is only when the site is doing something that could be done locally (in the photos.google.com example, if you are sharing the photos with others that could not be done locally) or if there is unfree javascript running on your computer (which is a very different issue than the one you're raising - you can access and modify the javascript, but it is nonfree).
meddlepal 9y ago
What's the harm in having the option?
- lvh 9y ago
  Which option? Allowing AGPLv3 use in Google? IANAL, but the usual reason is: a) use is redistribution, b) redistribution means you have to produce the source on demand, c) now you have to produce unknown parts of google3 on demand With the added kicker that smart people (Eben Moglen, Lawrence Rosen) disagree on exactly what you have to do for the copyleft clauses to kick in. For example: if you import an AGPLv3 Python library versus it loads you versus dlopen a library vs statically link one.
  - meddlepal 9y ago
    No. This: > GPLv3 may be acceptable, but AGPL should have never been accepted as an Open Source license by OSI. Why not? What's the harm in the option?
  - belorn 9y ago
    There is no legal precedence to define when a combination of different work create a single work. In theory a program linked with a library could be seen as one work, or two works that interacts, and this is where the disagreement comes when lawyers discuss linking technology. The reason why there is no legal precedence is that no lawyer of a company being accused of copyright infringement has argued the point of the work being multiple rather than a single one. Why has no company done this? Lets look at an example. Back a few years ago when "cloud" was a major buzz word people were suggesting to turn gaming into a service. A cloud provider would buy a single copy and serve millions by running the game locally and providing a remote desktop like environment to the user. The game industry reply was that this would be copyright infringement. A single copy and millions of users would obviously be wrong, no matter what technology is used to enable it. Their bet is that a judge would see very similar on the issue. The question about what a judge or jury would think is very significant. Do they care if a library is linked statically or dynamically, or if the programming language is intepreted or compiled? Will those technical aspect determine the question about what constitute "the work"? My bet, and many others including Eben Moglen seem to be that judges and juries will not. What do you think?
cornholio 9y ago
> Freedom is never a _loophole_, freedom is just freedom. By that standard, the only truly free "license" is the public domain. FSF and other license authors have a different philosophical representation about what freedom means: we are not discussing the freedom of the person using the code (that is maximized simply by ceding him all intelectual rights, ideally with the exclusion of everybody else); we are concerned about the agregate impact the licenses have over the way society uses and engages with technology. That is such a broad topic, lending itself to such diverse political views, that it's impossible to say FSF or GPLv3 are "wrong" without acknowledging their premises and examining your own hidden political assumptions. (I use 'political' here in it's broadest sense, an attitude regarding the functioning of the society).
- geofft 9y ago
  The FSF has its own statement on what freedom means: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html > The freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose (freedom 0). The AGPL denies recipients this freedom.
  - thomasahle 9y ago
    >> The freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose (freedom 0). > The AGPL denies recipients this freedom. The disagreement here is of course about who the user is. If you are running the software on a server for others to use, you are not the user in the eyes of FSF. Luckily multiple licenses exist, so when you write a piece of software you get to decide what definition of user you want to grant freedoms to.
  - cornholio 9y ago
    Applied to cloud computing, they would argue that the person running the software is actually the end-user and not the owners of the cloud.
  - gregknicholson 9y ago
    >> The freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose (freedom 0). > The AGPL denies recipients this freedom. How does the AGPL deny recipients this freedom?
devit 9y ago
The rationale of the GPL is that if one allows a commercial closed-source derivative of an open source project, then the commercial derivative will always be the best one, since it can incorporate any changes from the open source project, but the open source project cannot do the same. This means that the best software will tend to be proprietary software as long as there's anyone at all making such proprietary derivatives, which is the opposite of the FSF's mission. Instead, by preventing non-free derivatives using the GPL, proprietary software can only be better if the total amount of work put on it is greater than open source software, which is a non-trivial barrier. AGPL just extends that logic to remote services. Part of the GPLv3 instead seeks to reduce the commercial success of freedom-denying hardware by preventing it being shipped with GPLv3-licensed software.
cyphar 9y ago
> as it redefines simple usage to be redistribution This is an incorrect interpretation of AGPLv3. AGPLv3 only requires that you provide corresponding sources if you have modified your copy of a program, and you make it accessible to users over a network. Aside from this one provision, AGPLv3 is the same as GPLv3. From the text of the license: > [...] if you modify the Program, your modified version must prominently offer all users interacting with it remotely through a computer network (if your version supports such interaction) an opportunity to receive the Corresponding Source of your version That AGPLv3 explicitly states that allowing access to software through a network does not constitute "conveying", and so many of the requirements don't apply in that case. I would consider the above to be far beyond "simple usage" of a program. > your users might end up using your software in ways that you don't support. This appears to be a carried-forward error from your misinterpretation of AGPLv3. AGPLv3 doesn't restrict usage (no GPL license restricts usage). It adds restrictions for redistribution, and for allowing users to access modified versions of software over a computer network. > In this regard I think FSF has derailed from its own spirit. [...] GPLv2 just demands for the source code [...] GPLv3 on the other hand extends that with extra clauses to prevent Tivoisation. I used to feel the same way, but what caused me to change my mind is to ask why "Tivoisation" is bad and what the long-term rammifications could be of allowing such a practice. In short, the problem is that you have some software that you practically don't have the ability to change, even though you have the source code. The end result is that you will have a world of free software made effectively proprietary because you cannot exercise your freedom to change the software. That is why the FSF felt it was an issue. Now, you may not agree with the scale of the issue, and feel that the FSF over-stepped the mark. But I don't agree that the FSF has derailed from its spirit -- the spirit of the FSF is to promote free software and to protect user freedom. Disallowing a mechanism to be used that stops users from exercising one of their freedoms is very much in keeping with their spirit.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
zzzcpan 9y ago
I disagree, it looks like AGPL actually works for users' benefits, prohibiting usage by corporations that require various lock-ins or secretive spying to make money on users. It also works for developers' benefits by not destroying a potential business model of selling your software to corporations, but still remaining free for anyone to use and try it out. Personally, I've been looking for a license that somehow prohibits usage by large corporations, but still doesn't cause problems for anyone else.
oliwarner 9y ago
You're viewing this from the wrong perspective. GPL was designed to protect the user, not somebody else. To give and ensure freedoms to inspect, edit and redistribute. The user of a GPL webapp is afforded none of those freedoms (except what is sent) and that might go some distance to explain why there's so little GPL activity in this area. AGPL ensures those freedoms. That obviously makes it pretty undesirable for commercial deployment but that's not the goal of the license, enduring freedom for users is.
belorn 9y ago
I see an agenda when people bring out freedom to mean one thing and only one thing without then mention the massive work done in the last hundred if not thousands of years in the field of philosophy. Freedom is not just freedom, and we have words like liberty, negative rights, positive rights, human rights, and so on to define all the variations that we put into the word freedom. When a organization is working to bring freedom I don't say that they are derailing the spirit by demanding laws that define individuals rights. Laws are restrictions, but they are also conditions which are common to everyone. There is a rather large distinction between finding and fixing loopholes for common rights and creating a despotic environment, and that is the intent. Laws that fix common rights are intended to increase liberty. Laws that create despotic environments is intended repress those without power. Linus Tolvards care about DRM but don't think a copyright license is the right way. That is his opinion. If someone want to produce code that can not be reused because of DRM then he do not care, or at least not enough to want a software license to enforce it. Other people disagree and that code that can't be used is of no use and thus any rights to have useless code is useless. They think that a software license is a good place to enforce this.

kuschku 9y ago

The FSF simply has one goal: that all users can access and modify the code of all software they use. If I access photos.google.com, I am a user of photos.google.com – yet I can not access the code. This is a problem. You are misdefining "user" here.

bad_user 9y ago
No, you and the FSF have the wrong definition. If I install Wordpress on my own server and do modifications to it for my own purposes, I am nothing more than a user of Wordpress. > If I access photos.google.com, I am a user of photos.google.com – yet I can not access the code. This is a problem. If you borrow my own laptop and use one of my applications installed on it, would you also like access to its source code? And here we have the crux of the matter ... GPL was about distribution as defined by copyright law. AGPL is no longer about distribution, AGPL is an EULA, restricting what users (yes) can do.
- thomasahle 9y ago
  > No, you and the FSF have the wrong definition. > If I install Wordpress on my own server and do modifications to it for my own purposes, I am nothing more than a user of Wordpress. You may feel that way, but at the end of the day, this distinction is up to whoever wrote the software and chose its license. Do they want to give freedoms to you (the installer of Wordpress) or to the end users (users of your website). They wrote it, they decide.
- johannes1234321 9y ago
  > If you borrow my own laptop and use one of my applications installed on it, would you also like access to its source code? In the FSF spirit: yes.
  - mikegerwitz 9y ago
    No. You aren't being denied your freedoms on someone else's computer because you have no right to exercise them to begin with---it's not yours. It's the same concept with the AGPL---I have no right to modify the source code on someone else's server; I'd need to install it on my own. If you had to have access to the source code for everything you used, it'd be an almost impossible burden. rms takes public transportation in Boston, for example. Those terminals are interactive touchscreens, required for payment and printing tickets. He'd be unable to use the transit system. From stallman.org: > However, if I am visiting somewhere and the machines available nearby happen to contain non-free software, through no doing of mine, I don't refuse to touch them. I will use them briefly for tasks such as browsing. This limited usage doesn't give my assent to the software's license, or make me responsible its being present in the computer, or make me the possessor of a copy of it, so I don't see an ethical obligation to refrain from this. Of course, I explain to the local people why they should migrate the machines to free software, but I don't push them hard, because annoying them is not the way to convince them. > Likewise, I don't need to worry about what software is in a kiosk, pay phone, or ATM that I am using. I hope their owners migrate them to free software, for their sake, but there's no need for me to refuse to touch them until then. (I do consider what those machines and their owners might do with my personal data, but that's a different issue, which would arise just the same even if they did use free software. My response to that issue is to minimize those activities which give them any data about me.) > That's my policy about using a machine once in a while. If I were to use it for an hour every day, that would no longer be "once in a while" — it would be regular use. At that point, I would start to feel the heavy hand of any nonfree software in that computer, and feel the duty to arrange to use a liberated computer instead. > Likewise, if I were to ask or lead someone to set up a computer for me to use, that would make me ethically responsible for its software load. In such a case I insist on free software, just as if the machine were my own property. https://stallman.org/stallman-computing.html https://stallman.org/stallman-computing.html So using someone else's computer is a similar problem to SaaSS---you're relying on someone else for your computing: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/who-does-that-server-really-serve.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/who-does-that-server-really-s...
ikeboy 9y ago
Actually no. Stallman is a lot more nuanced than that. See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/who-does-that-server-really-serve.html http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/who-does-that-server-really-se... He makes it clear his issue is only when the site is doing something that could be done locally (in the photos.google.com example, if you are sharing the photos with others that could not be done locally) or if there is unfree javascript running on your computer (which is a very different issue than the one you're raising - you can access and modify the javascript, but it is nonfree).

meddlepal 9y ago

What's the harm in having the option?

lvh 9y ago
Which option? Allowing AGPLv3 use in Google? IANAL, but the usual reason is: a) use is redistribution, b) redistribution means you have to produce the source on demand, c) now you have to produce unknown parts of google3 on demand With the added kicker that smart people (Eben Moglen, Lawrence Rosen) disagree on exactly what you have to do for the copyleft clauses to kick in. For example: if you import an AGPLv3 Python library versus it loads you versus dlopen a library vs statically link one.
- meddlepal 9y ago
  No. This: > GPLv3 may be acceptable, but AGPL should have never been accepted as an Open Source license by OSI. Why not? What's the harm in the option?
- belorn 9y ago
  There is no legal precedence to define when a combination of different work create a single work. In theory a program linked with a library could be seen as one work, or two works that interacts, and this is where the disagreement comes when lawyers discuss linking technology. The reason why there is no legal precedence is that no lawyer of a company being accused of copyright infringement has argued the point of the work being multiple rather than a single one. Why has no company done this? Lets look at an example. Back a few years ago when "cloud" was a major buzz word people were suggesting to turn gaming into a service. A cloud provider would buy a single copy and serve millions by running the game locally and providing a remote desktop like environment to the user. The game industry reply was that this would be copyright infringement. A single copy and millions of users would obviously be wrong, no matter what technology is used to enable it. Their bet is that a judge would see very similar on the issue. The question about what a judge or jury would think is very significant. Do they care if a library is linked statically or dynamically, or if the programming language is intepreted or compiled? Will those technical aspect determine the question about what constitute "the work"? My bet, and many others including Eben Moglen seem to be that judges and juries will not. What do you think?

cornholio 9y ago

> Freedom is never a _loophole_, freedom is just freedom. By that standard, the only truly free "license" is the public domain. FSF and other license authors have a different philosophical representation about what freedom means: we are not discussing the freedom of the person using the code (that is maximized simply by ceding him all intelectual rights, ideally with the exclusion of everybody else); we are concerned about the agregate impact the licenses have over the way society uses and engages with technology. That is such a broad topic, lending itself to such diverse political views, that it's impossible to say FSF or GPLv3 are "wrong" without acknowledging their premises and examining your own hidden political assumptions. (I use 'political' here in it's broadest sense, an attitude regarding the functioning of the society).

geofft 9y ago
The FSF has its own statement on what freedom means: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html > The freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose (freedom 0). The AGPL denies recipients this freedom.
- thomasahle 9y ago
  >> The freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose (freedom 0). > The AGPL denies recipients this freedom. The disagreement here is of course about who the user is. If you are running the software on a server for others to use, you are not the user in the eyes of FSF. Luckily multiple licenses exist, so when you write a piece of software you get to decide what definition of user you want to grant freedoms to.
- cornholio 9y ago
  Applied to cloud computing, they would argue that the person running the software is actually the end-user and not the owners of the cloud.
- gregknicholson 9y ago
  >> The freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose (freedom 0). > The AGPL denies recipients this freedom. How does the AGPL deny recipients this freedom?

devit 9y ago

The rationale of the GPL is that if one allows a commercial closed-source derivative of an open source project, then the commercial derivative will always be the best one, since it can incorporate any changes from the open source project, but the open source project cannot do the same. This means that the best software will tend to be proprietary software as long as there's anyone at all making such proprietary derivatives, which is the opposite of the FSF's mission. Instead, by preventing non-free derivatives using the GPL, proprietary software can only be better if the total amount of work put on it is greater than open source software, which is a non-trivial barrier. AGPL just extends that logic to remote services. Part of the GPLv3 instead seeks to reduce the commercial success of freedom-denying hardware by preventing it being shipped with GPLv3-licensed software.

cyphar 9y ago

> as it redefines simple usage to be redistribution This is an incorrect interpretation of AGPLv3. AGPLv3 only requires that you provide corresponding sources if you have modified your copy of a program, and you make it accessible to users over a network. Aside from this one provision, AGPLv3 is the same as GPLv3. From the text of the license: > [...] if you modify the Program, your modified version must prominently offer all users interacting with it remotely through a computer network (if your version supports such interaction) an opportunity to receive the Corresponding Source of your version That AGPLv3 explicitly states that allowing access to software through a network does not constitute "conveying", and so many of the requirements don't apply in that case. I would consider the above to be far beyond "simple usage" of a program. > your users might end up using your software in ways that you don't support. This appears to be a carried-forward error from your misinterpretation of AGPLv3. AGPLv3 doesn't restrict usage (no GPL license restricts usage). It adds restrictions for redistribution, and for allowing users to access modified versions of software over a computer network. > In this regard I think FSF has derailed from its own spirit. [...] GPLv2 just demands for the source code [...] GPLv3 on the other hand extends that with extra clauses to prevent Tivoisation. I used to feel the same way, but what caused me to change my mind is to ask why "Tivoisation" is bad and what the long-term rammifications could be of allowing such a practice. In short, the problem is that you have some software that you practically don't have the ability to change, even though you have the source code. The end result is that you will have a world of free software made effectively proprietary because you cannot exercise your freedom to change the software. That is why the FSF felt it was an issue. Now, you may not agree with the scale of the issue, and feel that the FSF over-stepped the mark. But I don't agree that the FSF has derailed from its spirit -- the spirit of the FSF is to promote free software and to protect user freedom. Disallowing a mechanism to be used that stops users from exercising one of their freedoms is very much in keeping with their spirit.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

zzzcpan 9y ago

I disagree, it looks like AGPL actually works for users' benefits, prohibiting usage by corporations that require various lock-ins or secretive spying to make money on users. It also works for developers' benefits by not destroying a potential business model of selling your software to corporations, but still remaining free for anyone to use and try it out. Personally, I've been looking for a license that somehow prohibits usage by large corporations, but still doesn't cause problems for anyone else.

oliwarner 9y ago

You're viewing this from the wrong perspective. GPL was designed to protect the user, not somebody else. To give and ensure freedoms to inspect, edit and redistribute. The user of a GPL webapp is afforded none of those freedoms (except what is sent) and that might go some distance to explain why there's so little GPL activity in this area. AGPL ensures those freedoms. That obviously makes it pretty undesirable for commercial deployment but that's not the goal of the license, enduring freedom for users is.

belorn 9y ago

I see an agenda when people bring out freedom to mean one thing and only one thing without then mention the massive work done in the last hundred if not thousands of years in the field of philosophy. Freedom is not just freedom, and we have words like liberty, negative rights, positive rights, human rights, and so on to define all the variations that we put into the word freedom. When a organization is working to bring freedom I don't say that they are derailing the spirit by demanding laws that define individuals rights. Laws are restrictions, but they are also conditions which are common to everyone. There is a rather large distinction between finding and fixing loopholes for common rights and creating a despotic environment, and that is the intent. Laws that fix common rights are intended to increase liberty. Laws that create despotic environments is intended repress those without power. Linus Tolvards care about DRM but don't think a copyright license is the right way. That is his opinion. If someone want to produce code that can not be reused because of DRM then he do not care, or at least not enough to want a software license to enforce it. Other people disagree and that code that can't be used is of no use and thus any rights to have useless code is useless. They think that a software license is a good place to enforce this.