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And even if there were liability concerns due to copyleft or other clauses in AGPL, singling out AGPL makes no sense. If they want to avoid copyleft, it should

And even if there were liability concerns due to copyleft or other clauses in AGPL, singling out AGPL makes no sense. If they want to avoid copyleft, it should be better phrased like so.

nabla9 7y ago
It's almost like they used some kind of AI software to scan legal documents, then it found sentence fragments like " .. opportunity for all users interacting with your Program through a computer network ..". You need artificial stupidity to misunderstand the "Interacting with Program through a computer network" in the way Square seems to understand it. Distributing software via online store is not interacting with the program.
- Beltiras 7y ago
  Some would maintain that being a legal analyst requires you to be artificially stupid because you are looking for loopholes and trying to avoid being trapped by ridiculous edge cases, whereas AI is trying to find a general solution that will work in 6-9s cases.
- EdwardDiego 7y ago
  > Distributing software via online store is not interacting with the program. Has that been tested in a court yet? If it hasn't, then a lawyer would immediately see risk. I mean, look at Oracle vs Google on whether or not an API is copyrighted.
chmarr 7y ago
From the very specificity of the restriction, I gather that they're not copyleft-adverse. They're "Don't upload stuff that risks us being forced to divulge our closed-source code.". Without the prohibition, even if a user of the service included some AGPL libraries without Square's knowledge, a cunning lawyer could argue that Square was complicit in distributing this code to end-users and thus liable. The prohibition makes that argument difficult.
- eesmith 7y ago
  A cunning lawyer could argue anything. But, when did Square ever agree to the copyright license? Who did the actual copyright infringement? And AGPL isn't the only "must publish all your server's source code" license available, so to prohibition is too specific if that's the actual reason.
  - MaulingMonkey 7y ago
    Square is bound by copyright law just as much as anyone else. Agreeing to that license is the only thing giving them permission to redistribute it in the first place. This is why we have the DMCA safe harbor provisions - it'd be incredibly easy to be on the hook for copyright infringement as a company hosting any user content otherwise. Those safe harbor provisions aren't a blank check to knowingly commit wanton copyright infringement however, as can be seen with all the legal wrangling over Megaupload, as an example [1]. Square knows about the AGPL, knows they might not be abiding by it's terms if they redistribute AGPL code, and knows they probably don't have the right to redistribute under any other term. They can choose to knowingly possibly violate the license, or to knowingly commit copyright infringement, or to ban AGPL code. Those first two options, with that "knowingly" in there, open them up to potential legal action. > And AGPL isn't the only "must publish all your server's source code" license available, so to prohibition is too specific if that's the actual reason. If you make Square's lawyers aware of some of those other licenses, it wouldn't suprise me if they get banned too for the same reason. It's not like they have psychic knowledge of the existence of all licenses. Failure to audit the universe doesn't mean that's not their reason. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megaupload#Safe_harbor_provisions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megaupload#Safe_harbor_provisi...
    - eesmith 7y ago
      Square didn't agreeing to that license. A third party did. If the third party sold a copy of MS Windows using Square's services/software/platform, could Square even in theory be sued by Microsoft for copyright infringement? It sounds like "yes" from my reading of what you write. So AGPL isn't something special. Their lawyers don't need to be psychic about other licenses. Why did they specifically qualify with "v3"? That is, the original Affero license is one of the other alternatives, yet they seem to allow it.
tzs 7y ago
Note: I've not looked into the details of what square is doing. This comment is on AGPL in general compared to other licenses. It does make some sense to see AGPL singled out, because it is different from most other free and open source licenses in one major way. Almost all other free and open source licenses only require you to distribute modified source code of a derivative work you've made if you distribute that derivative work. If I take code under those licenses, modify it, link it with my own code, and just run the resulting derivative work on my computer, they do not require me to distribute those modifications or my code, no matter what I'm using the program for, or where from, who from, or how I get its input, or what I do with, where I send, or who I give its output. Not so with AGPL. With AGPL, the requirement to distribute derivative works can be triggered by code running entirely on my computer if it gets its input from and sends its output to people over a network. That's a huge difference from prior free and open source licenses.

And even if there were liability concerns due to copyleft or other clauses in AGPL, singling out AGPL makes no sense. If they want to avoid copyleft, it should be better phrased like so.

nabla9 7y ago

It's almost like they used some kind of AI software to scan legal documents, then it found sentence fragments like " .. opportunity for all users interacting with your Program through a computer network ..". You need artificial stupidity to misunderstand the "Interacting with Program through a computer network" in the way Square seems to understand it. Distributing software via online store is not interacting with the program.

Beltiras 7y ago
Some would maintain that being a legal analyst requires you to be artificially stupid because you are looking for loopholes and trying to avoid being trapped by ridiculous edge cases, whereas AI is trying to find a general solution that will work in 6-9s cases.
EdwardDiego 7y ago
> Distributing software via online store is not interacting with the program. Has that been tested in a court yet? If it hasn't, then a lawyer would immediately see risk. I mean, look at Oracle vs Google on whether or not an API is copyrighted.

chmarr 7y ago

From the very specificity of the restriction, I gather that they're not copyleft-adverse. They're "Don't upload stuff that risks us being forced to divulge our closed-source code.". Without the prohibition, even if a user of the service included some AGPL libraries without Square's knowledge, a cunning lawyer could argue that Square was complicit in distributing this code to end-users and thus liable. The prohibition makes that argument difficult.

eesmith 7y ago
A cunning lawyer could argue anything. But, when did Square ever agree to the copyright license? Who did the actual copyright infringement? And AGPL isn't the only "must publish all your server's source code" license available, so to prohibition is too specific if that's the actual reason.
- MaulingMonkey 7y ago
  Square is bound by copyright law just as much as anyone else. Agreeing to that license is the only thing giving them permission to redistribute it in the first place. This is why we have the DMCA safe harbor provisions - it'd be incredibly easy to be on the hook for copyright infringement as a company hosting any user content otherwise. Those safe harbor provisions aren't a blank check to knowingly commit wanton copyright infringement however, as can be seen with all the legal wrangling over Megaupload, as an example [1]. Square knows about the AGPL, knows they might not be abiding by it's terms if they redistribute AGPL code, and knows they probably don't have the right to redistribute under any other term. They can choose to knowingly possibly violate the license, or to knowingly commit copyright infringement, or to ban AGPL code. Those first two options, with that "knowingly" in there, open them up to potential legal action. > And AGPL isn't the only "must publish all your server's source code" license available, so to prohibition is too specific if that's the actual reason. If you make Square's lawyers aware of some of those other licenses, it wouldn't suprise me if they get banned too for the same reason. It's not like they have psychic knowledge of the existence of all licenses. Failure to audit the universe doesn't mean that's not their reason. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megaupload#Safe_harbor_provisions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megaupload#Safe_harbor_provisi...
  - eesmith 7y ago
    Square didn't agreeing to that license. A third party did. If the third party sold a copy of MS Windows using Square's services/software/platform, could Square even in theory be sued by Microsoft for copyright infringement? It sounds like "yes" from my reading of what you write. So AGPL isn't something special. Their lawyers don't need to be psychic about other licenses. Why did they specifically qualify with "v3"? That is, the original Affero license is one of the other alternatives, yet they seem to allow it.

tzs 7y ago

Note: I've not looked into the details of what square is doing. This comment is on AGPL in general compared to other licenses. It does make some sense to see AGPL singled out, because it is different from most other free and open source licenses in one major way. Almost all other free and open source licenses only require you to distribute modified source code of a derivative work you've made if you distribute that derivative work. If I take code under those licenses, modify it, link it with my own code, and just run the resulting derivative work on my computer, they do not require me to distribute those modifications or my code, no matter what I'm using the program for, or where from, who from, or how I get its input, or what I do with, where I send, or who I give its output. Not so with AGPL. With AGPL, the requirement to distribute derivative works can be triggered by code running entirely on my computer if it gets its input from and sends its output to people over a network. That's a huge difference from prior free and open source licenses.