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> Out of curiosity would the GPLv3 at least force providers like Amazon to release any modifications they make to FOSS stuff to turn it into a hosted/managed se

by ezrast 8y ago

> Out of curiosity would the GPLv3 at least force providers like Amazon to release any modifications they make to FOSS stuff to turn it into a hosted/managed service? With things like Apache/BSD/MIT, does AWS currently mod stuff without releasing the results as FOSS? (Is Aurora DB really modified MySql or MariaDB under its core?) Aurora is absolutely a fork of MySQL; they're careful never to explicitly admit this in most of their documentation and marketing but their CTO's blog[1] links to a paper that mentions "obtaining significant throughput improvements over the base MySQL code base from which we started," and given how tightly they mirror MySQL with things like version numbers and goofy configuration flags that only exist for backwards-compatibility reasons, it would be hard to believe they built it from scratch. GPLv2 and v3 both allow this because they only require source modifications to be made available when the resulting program is distributed outside one's organization. Since the public only ever talks to an interface and never obtains the binary, Amazon doesn't have to redistribute. This is not true of the AGPL, which has additional redistribution requirements meant to prevent (what copyleft activists perceive as) this kind of abuse. There's an argument that since Amazon's changes are focused around integrating the storage layer with their particular infrastructure, the general public would find their changes useless even if they were to be distributed. Personally don't think this is terribly relevant to the larger discussion around licensing, even if it's true. [1] https://www.allthingsdistributed.com/2017/05/amazon-aurora-design-considerations.html https://www.allthingsdistributed.com/2017/05/amazon-aurora-d...

e12e 8y ago
Good points. But regarding: > This is not true of the AGPL, which has additional redistribution requirements meant to prevent (what copyleft activists perceive as) this kind of abuse. It's important to note that the "kind of abuse" AGPL is fighting is denying the end user the four freedoms. Eg freedom zero: if Amazon shuts down aurora, you lose the right to run the program. Upstreaming of modifications is kind of orthogonal to the GPL licenses - sure if A sells a program to B under the gpl, B modifies it and sells it to C, C will have the [ed: new and modified] source and may give it to anyone - including back to A. But the main thing gpl tries to enforce is that C will be able to use and improve the program as needed. The AGPL is a reaction to the rise of rent-a-program (SaaS etc) - where the user has very few of the four freedoms guaranteed - both if the provider goes bankrupt, and if the provider makes changes.
- nybble41 8y ago
  > It's important to note that the "kind of abuse" AGPL is fighting is denying the end user the four freedoms. But which end user would that be? The end user of the licensed program is Amazon. They're the ones running the program and using it to provide database services to their customers. Those customers are end users of Amazon's database services, not a particular piece of software.
- kemitchell 8y ago
  > Upstreaming of modifications is kind of orthogonal to the GPL licenses Correct. And well put.

by ezrast 8y ago

e12e 8y ago

Good points. But regarding: > This is not true of the AGPL, which has additional redistribution requirements meant to prevent (what copyleft activists perceive as) this kind of abuse. It's important to note that the "kind of abuse" AGPL is fighting is denying the end user the four freedoms. Eg freedom zero: if Amazon shuts down aurora, you lose the right to run the program. Upstreaming of modifications is kind of orthogonal to the GPL licenses - sure if A sells a program to B under the gpl, B modifies it and sells it to C, C will have the [ed: new and modified] source and may give it to anyone - including back to A. But the main thing gpl tries to enforce is that C will be able to use and improve the program as needed. The AGPL is a reaction to the rise of rent-a-program (SaaS etc) - where the user has very few of the four freedoms guaranteed - both if the provider goes bankrupt, and if the provider makes changes.

nybble41 8y ago
> It's important to note that the "kind of abuse" AGPL is fighting is denying the end user the four freedoms. But which end user would that be? The end user of the licensed program is Amazon. They're the ones running the program and using it to provide database services to their customers. Those customers are end users of Amazon's database services, not a particular piece of software.
kemitchell 8y ago
> Upstreaming of modifications is kind of orthogonal to the GPL licenses Correct. And well put.