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I think companies experimenting with licenses like the AGPL are trying to suss out what open source means in the cloud age. When the GPL came to be and software

I think companies experimenting with licenses like the AGPL are trying to suss out what open source means in the cloud age. When the GPL came to be and software ran on people's computers, there was no way to distribute software that didn't trigger the distribution clause and require modifications to be available under the same license. With the cloud, there is: cloud companies can and do host all sorts of GPL'd software, make modifications, do whatever they want and are under no obligation to release any of that because running a service was not accounted for at the time the GPL was created. MongoDB Inc's license switch may earn them some hate but I think the bigger issue is what license terms will open source contributors be comfortable with? What license captures the same spirit as the GPL, should that spirit still be desired, as software moves to the cloud? When every piece of functionality, no matter how trivial, can be used by a cloud provider to bolster their closed ecosystem, are the developers that created that software comfortable with a license that allows providers to do so without giving back? AWS et al. are committing no violation here of course, they are taking advantage of a market opportunity to offer hosted software, some open source and some not. The market is overwhelmingly saying that they value the convenience of having all of these services available at the click of a button and that the closed source nature and potential for Oracle-style vendor lock-in is not a concern. There's certainly value there and some folks may feel perfectly comfortable contributing to such an ecosystem, as is their right. Others may desire a more reciprocating agreement, and perhaps the AGPL is a first step towards such a license. I think we as software engineers need to recognize just how high we're standing on the giant's shoulders and put some thought towards helping a community that is trying to adjust to the new cloud reality. "Fuck you give me your stuff for free" is unwarranted and not likely to encourage contribution.

bad_user 7y ago
The "spirit of the GPL" is invoked a lot here, however you have to consider that... MongoDB Inc does NOT play by the same rules as everyone else because they own the copyright. When a piece of software is useful on its own and survives, without dual licensing from the copyright holder, then and only then we can talk about the spirit of the GPL. Also people here seem to be confused. The GPL is a super permissive license because it allows you to use it for whatever purpose. You can use it for commercial purposes, you can use it for controlling sharks with lasers to conquer the world, you can use it in combination with any other software or hardware package, doesn't matter. This was by design. The GPL is just a copyright license, not an EULA and that's part of its genius. Now you can say that this company or that have been circumventing GPL, but I think that AGPL licenses have been an abomination, a scurge on this industry, only used to lure developers into dual licensing deals and having nothing to do with actual Free Software. And now we are seeing the effect of allowing AGPL. For one I see an entire forum of really smart individuals that don't really know what the spirit of GPL is, yet we talk about it.

bad_user 7y ago

The "spirit of the GPL" is invoked a lot here, however you have to consider that... MongoDB Inc does NOT play by the same rules as everyone else because they own the copyright. When a piece of software is useful on its own and survives, without dual licensing from the copyright holder, then and only then we can talk about the spirit of the GPL. Also people here seem to be confused. The GPL is a super permissive license because it allows you to use it for whatever purpose. You can use it for commercial purposes, you can use it for controlling sharks with lasers to conquer the world, you can use it in combination with any other software or hardware package, doesn't matter. This was by design. The GPL is just a copyright license, not an EULA and that's part of its genius. Now you can say that this company or that have been circumventing GPL, but I think that AGPL licenses have been an abomination, a scurge on this industry, only used to lure developers into dual licensing deals and having nothing to do with actual Free Software. And now we are seeing the effect of allowing AGPL. For one I see an entire forum of really smart individuals that don't really know what the spirit of GPL is, yet we talk about it.