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Surely it doesn't need to—either you accept the license or you don't accept the license. If you don't accept the license, you can't use the software. I'd imagi

Surely it doesn't need to—either you accept the license or you don't accept the license. If you don't accept the license, you can't use the software. I'd imagine that the challenge with the AGPL is catching and suing the non-compliant services.

sneak 8y ago
If the source is available, I absolutely can use the software—regardless of license. The only thing preventing me from doing so would be either criminal or civil law, and while IANAL, I don’t believe there are criminal penalties for license violations. The copyright holder would have to sue me, and prove that I violated the license, and then they might be able to get a court to force me to stop, pay them, or both. I am curious whether there are any practical observations, one way or the other, about the AGPL’s enforceability.
- sjwright 8y ago
  Obviously you can use the software. Of course you'll probably get away with a license violation if you're not shouty about it. Similarly, I can use a pirated copy of Windows XP too, with effectively zero risk of getting caught. Nobody is suggesting that an AGPL licence violation would result in a criminal penalty, but if you got caught you may be forced to release any changes you made to the source code. And you could lose the ability to use the software in future—if your business relied on it you might be screwed. Personally I think the AGPL is stupid, but people are free to pick whatever license terms they like for their copyrighted works. Whether I like it or not is irrelevant.
  - sneak 8y ago
    The way you get forced is by someone filing a civil suit. My question was has anyone done that and been successful. It looks like the answer is yes, although it was settled out of court and not adjudicated. I am curious if a judge has ever found the AGPL to be a valid license constraint. Personally, I find “you are licensed to use the software without releasing your modifications on your internet connected computer, however if you open a port and offer it as a service, you are not” to be entirely ridiculous. It seems to me that a license can’t (or at least shouldn’t) hinge on what other software I am or am not running on my computer (eg a webserver). That is why I asked. I’m all for copyleft (despite the fact that its validity hinges on an inherent affirmation of the validity of the concept of intellectual property), but I passionately hate the AGPL because I think it is an unjust infringement upon my freedom as a user. It’s like saying “you have a license to use this software as long as you don’t run a browser that accesses porn on the same machine”. I think it oversteps the boundaries of copyright-as-designed.

sneak 8y ago

If the source is available, I absolutely can use the software—regardless of license. The only thing preventing me from doing so would be either criminal or civil law, and while IANAL, I don’t believe there are criminal penalties for license violations. The copyright holder would have to sue me, and prove that I violated the license, and then they might be able to get a court to force me to stop, pay them, or both. I am curious whether there are any practical observations, one way or the other, about the AGPL’s enforceability.

sjwright 8y ago
Obviously you can use the software. Of course you'll probably get away with a license violation if you're not shouty about it. Similarly, I can use a pirated copy of Windows XP too, with effectively zero risk of getting caught. Nobody is suggesting that an AGPL licence violation would result in a criminal penalty, but if you got caught you may be forced to release any changes you made to the source code. And you could lose the ability to use the software in future—if your business relied on it you might be screwed. Personally I think the AGPL is stupid, but people are free to pick whatever license terms they like for their copyrighted works. Whether I like it or not is irrelevant.
- sneak 8y ago
  The way you get forced is by someone filing a civil suit. My question was has anyone done that and been successful. It looks like the answer is yes, although it was settled out of court and not adjudicated. I am curious if a judge has ever found the AGPL to be a valid license constraint. Personally, I find “you are licensed to use the software without releasing your modifications on your internet connected computer, however if you open a port and offer it as a service, you are not” to be entirely ridiculous. It seems to me that a license can’t (or at least shouldn’t) hinge on what other software I am or am not running on my computer (eg a webserver). That is why I asked. I’m all for copyleft (despite the fact that its validity hinges on an inherent affirmation of the validity of the concept of intellectual property), but I passionately hate the AGPL because I think it is an unjust infringement upon my freedom as a user. It’s like saying “you have a license to use this software as long as you don’t run a browser that accesses porn on the same machine”. I think it oversteps the boundaries of copyright-as-designed.