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>> 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

>> 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?

candiodari 9y ago
Probably this is a misunderstanding of the parent post. It might be useful to explain: AGPL does not forbid running a piece of software as a network service, of course you can do that. You must, however, provide the users with the source code to the software, and their data (upon request, you can even ask money for this service). With the source, you must include the right to redistribute the source further. This is the same demand the GPL always demanded of users, however the advent of cloud software has enabled a sort of loophole in the sense that making software based on GPL software available for users through a web interface was not regulated and thus imposed no demands for source redistribution (same for other distribution "through the cloud", for instance, some companies do this using VNC, RDP or Citrix. There's also custom protocols). If outlook used the Exim mail service, for instance, you would be able to get the source for that service from Microsoft. It also closes the RPC loophole. If you build a GPL piece of software into another piece, connect them up using some sort of RPC interface, in GPLv2 it is somewhat unclear whether this constitutes redistribution (and therefore requires full source) or not. In AGPL/GPLv3, there is no doubt: it does require source to the whole thing.
- angersock 9y ago
  Yeah, no thanks, I'll use BSD-licensed software.
  - candiodari 9y ago
    I think you'll find the "users" of the GPL are software authors, not people who use the software. Good luck replacing your linux kernel with something else. I mean FreeBSD is doable, but easy ... no.
    - hungerstrike 9y ago
      Linux is GPLv2 not AGPL or GPLv3. Linus Torvalds never liked AGPL or GPLv3 and is quoted as saying that "it violates everything that v2 stood for".
  - grey_earthling 9y ago
    Fair enough. We don't have to all agree on which software to use.
- hungerstrike 9y ago
  What if I took, say iText (the PDF library that is licensed under AGPL) and I made a "data to pdf" conversion server with it...then I made the iText library optional by building in support for multiple PDF libraries? Clearly, this server is a stand-alone product. However, it's also a piece of infrastructure that could be used by my other servers to do work for users. Is the AGPL well defined for this case? Do I have to release the source for my entire product or just the PDF conversion server? Perhaps I should also mention: Generating PDFs is a very, very small feature of my overall product. It's not the whole product. So, IMO this type of usage should be completely fair.
geofft 9y ago
If there is, say, a high-quality AGPL hash-table implementation, and I combine that into my TCP stack, the resulting work is AGPL, sure. But I can't actually use the TCP stack - I have no way to make source code available to people who connect to my TCP stack. There's no TCP option for a URL for source code. So, I cannot run the program as I wish for any purpose. I can run it for limited purposes: those where there is no network interaction, and those where the network interaction is rich enough to support offering source code.
- haldean 9y ago
  You do not have to offer the source code using the source code or through the service it provides. If you just throw it up on GitHub or whatever it still counts.
  - geofft 9y ago
    That still means that I must offer the entire source code for my TCP stack to the world. That's not how any other free software license works - if I'm running a GPL'd TCP stack like Linux's, and I've made modifications to it, I don't have to offer the sources for it unless I'm distributing the program. Merely using the modified code to be on the network does not imply a source obligation. I mean, it is probably reasonable, in the abstract, to have licenses that say "You may not modify this software internally and use it at all unless you make the changes public." Plenty of licenses have required that. Those licenses are non-free in the FSF sense, and they have rejected such licenses before.

>> 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?

candiodari 9y ago

Probably this is a misunderstanding of the parent post. It might be useful to explain: AGPL does not forbid running a piece of software as a network service, of course you can do that. You must, however, provide the users with the source code to the software, and their data (upon request, you can even ask money for this service). With the source, you must include the right to redistribute the source further. This is the same demand the GPL always demanded of users, however the advent of cloud software has enabled a sort of loophole in the sense that making software based on GPL software available for users through a web interface was not regulated and thus imposed no demands for source redistribution (same for other distribution "through the cloud", for instance, some companies do this using VNC, RDP or Citrix. There's also custom protocols). If outlook used the Exim mail service, for instance, you would be able to get the source for that service from Microsoft. It also closes the RPC loophole. If you build a GPL piece of software into another piece, connect them up using some sort of RPC interface, in GPLv2 it is somewhat unclear whether this constitutes redistribution (and therefore requires full source) or not. In AGPL/GPLv3, there is no doubt: it does require source to the whole thing.

angersock 9y ago
Yeah, no thanks, I'll use BSD-licensed software.
- candiodari 9y ago
  I think you'll find the "users" of the GPL are software authors, not people who use the software. Good luck replacing your linux kernel with something else. I mean FreeBSD is doable, but easy ... no.
  - hungerstrike 9y ago
    Linux is GPLv2 not AGPL or GPLv3. Linus Torvalds never liked AGPL or GPLv3 and is quoted as saying that "it violates everything that v2 stood for".
- grey_earthling 9y ago
  Fair enough. We don't have to all agree on which software to use.
hungerstrike 9y ago
What if I took, say iText (the PDF library that is licensed under AGPL) and I made a "data to pdf" conversion server with it...then I made the iText library optional by building in support for multiple PDF libraries? Clearly, this server is a stand-alone product. However, it's also a piece of infrastructure that could be used by my other servers to do work for users. Is the AGPL well defined for this case? Do I have to release the source for my entire product or just the PDF conversion server? Perhaps I should also mention: Generating PDFs is a very, very small feature of my overall product. It's not the whole product. So, IMO this type of usage should be completely fair.

geofft 9y ago

If there is, say, a high-quality AGPL hash-table implementation, and I combine that into my TCP stack, the resulting work is AGPL, sure. But I can't actually use the TCP stack - I have no way to make source code available to people who connect to my TCP stack. There's no TCP option for a URL for source code. So, I cannot run the program as I wish for any purpose. I can run it for limited purposes: those where there is no network interaction, and those where the network interaction is rich enough to support offering source code.

haldean 9y ago
You do not have to offer the source code using the source code or through the service it provides. If you just throw it up on GitHub or whatever it still counts.
- geofft 9y ago
  That still means that I must offer the entire source code for my TCP stack to the world. That's not how any other free software license works - if I'm running a GPL'd TCP stack like Linux's, and I've made modifications to it, I don't have to offer the sources for it unless I'm distributing the program. Merely using the modified code to be on the network does not imply a source obligation. I mean, it is probably reasonable, in the abstract, to have licenses that say "You may not modify this software internally and use it at all unless you make the changes public." Plenty of licenses have required that. Those licenses are non-free in the FSF sense, and they have rejected such licenses before.