10 ms·

AGPL License

brylie 7y ago
Copyleft, and AGPL specifically, seems like a good fit for large applications, whereas more permissive licenses work well for smaller libraries.
- betamaxthetape 7y ago
  Using more permissive licenses for smaller programs is what the FSF recommend: "It is not worth the trouble to use copyleft for most small programs. We use 300 lines as our benchmark: when a software package's source code is shorter than that, the benefits provided by copyleft are usually too small to justify the inconvenience of making sure a copy of the license always accompanies the software." [0] https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-recommendations.html#small https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-recommendations.html#sm...
- mikekchar 7y ago
  I specifically use it because while I'm committed to writing free (as in freedom software), my downstream users may not be. I'd rather they didn't have more options than I do if they decide to compete against me. Free software empowers the downstream user, so I kind of think of it a bit like surfing. You potentially have all this extra energy, but that energy can crush you if you don't walk a very tight line. As the upstream author you have a bit of an advantage, but it's easy to squander it if you don't think carefully about what you are doing. I'm always a bit perplexed when people write free software but intentionally avoid copyleft. There are lots of places where permissive licenses are the right way to go, but also a lot of places where your are just creating an uneven playing field with yourself in the worst position.
  - telmo 7y ago
    For a lot of people, free software is about collaboration, not competition.
    - mjs2600 7y ago
      Enforcing and incentivizing collaboration also seems like a good argument for licensing open source projects with the AGPL. It prevents people who are not willing to contribute things made using your software back to open source from using it.
  - imtringued 7y ago
    I use the AGPL for user facing applications. I personally have nothing against someone taking my project and improving it as long as the project stays opensource. If they somehow manage to turn that into a business model it's fine too but what I have seen is that companies use their resource advantage to destroy the original project if it is permissively licensed. With libraries it's obvious that you are doing it for the benefit of application developers and most of those are proprietary but they are not competing against you, they are collaborating. Therefore a permissive license for libraries is a much better choice.
betamaxthetape 7y ago
I've always wondered about whether the AGPL is a good fit for software that isn't accessed over the network. At first glance this would appear to offer the exact same rights as the GPL in this scenario, however you then have the protection of the AGPL if the software was ever incorporated into a networked program. Does anyone have any experience with this? Are there pitfalls to using the AGPL for a regular program that I'm not thinking of?
- theawesomekhan 7y ago
  I recently used the iText Library for PDF parsing in java. Everything was alright until I discovered their AGPL license. https://itextpdf.com/en/how-buy/agpl-license https://itextpdf.com/en/how-buy/agpl-license Since our product was proprietary, we had to remove the library since our product would also come under the AGPL license or we would have to buy their commercial version, for which we can get a "quote"(https://itextpdf.com/en/how-buy https://itextpdf.com/en/how-buy)
  - daurnimator 7y ago
    What did you replace it with? Why wouldn't iText deserve your money if you were using it in your commercial product?
    - theawesomekhan 7y ago
      We are awaiting a response from IText for the license, but for now Apache PDFBox got us the same results
      - merb 7y ago
        you won't use itext, their quotes are hilarious.
        theawesomekhan 7y ago
        Probably yes, because seems their licensing policy is not very user-friendly or straightforward. On their How-To-Buy Page (https://itextpdf.com/en/how-buy https://itextpdf.com/en/how-buy) the licensing model is pretty convoluted
theawesomekhan 7y ago
Google does not allow usage of AGPL code. https://opensource.google/docs/using/agpl-policy/ https://opensource.google/docs/using/agpl-policy/
- aeyes 7y ago
  Same here. Not sure where to find a good list of who allows what.
  - mxst 7y ago
    Not sure but maybe https://tldrlegal.com/ https://tldrlegal.com/ helps
- fmajid 7y ago
  If you work in a startup, it will bite you during due diligence when a potential acquirer is evaluating your intellectual property. I would give the AGPL a wide berth.
  - giancarlostoro 7y ago
    This is why I avoid AGPL projects for potential ideas / side projects that could potentially turn useful.
    - tptacek 7y ago
      You avoid using it, or avoid using third party code that uses it? The latter makes sense. The former does not, as you can relicense any time you want.
      - ymse 7y ago
        Only if you are the sole copyright holder, i.e. no (nontrivial) external contributions.
        7y ago
newfeatureok 7y ago
I have some questions about AGPL if anyone has answers: 1. If you have code, let's say FooProject, that's AGPL. In which of these scenarios is someone in the wrong for using it? 1a. Google uses FooProject in delivering one GoogleApi, but does not opensource GoogleApi with AGPL. 1b. Facebook uses FooProject in an internal project, FacebookInternal, that's not exposed to the internet, but does not open source FacebookInternal with AGPL. 1c. Microsoft uses FooProject in a special version of Office, which is only distributed via BluRay and does not open source Office under AGPL. 1d. Netflix uses FooProject in AlienNetflixViewer, which is used over the internet, and makes some modifications to FooProject as its used in AlienNetflixViewer. They open source ModifiedFooProject under AGPL, but not AlienNetflixViewer 2. If you have FooProject, and you have 3 libarires, LibraryOne, LibraryTwo, and LibraryThree included in FooProject that are under the MIT license, can someone take Library[Number] and use it under the MIT license? Let's assume these are not actually separate projects, and for all intents and purposes it's the same project as FooProject, but for whatever reason the folders associated with each library has its own license. 3. Assuming someone uses an AGPL project and does not follow the license, what's the penalty? What if its so incorporated into its project its effectively impossible to remove? 4. How do you enforce someone using the AGPL? 5. If you go to a public facing site and suspect that they're using an AGPL project (perhaps because of the nature of the API calls or the client facing JavaScript) can you demand to see the full source?
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- hkolk 7y ago
  IANAL (ofcourse) but in my limited experience: 1a: Not allowed provided because of AGPL (though would be allowed if it is GPL) 1b: Allowed, provided it is purely internal (as described here: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#InternalDistribution https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#InternalDistributi... ) 1c: Not allowed (this is a distribution, and actually is also in violation of general GPL) 1d: Not allowed, linking against the library means using it, which means GPL violation. 2: If (x) is licenses as MIT and does not contain AGPL underneath (it shouldn't, they are not compatible), you can take X under that MIT license. Regardless of actual repository layout. 3: Penalty is a pretty grey area, and this is a civil suite, not a criminal suite. As a result it goes into damages etc 4: I reckon EFF etc. Look for "GPL enforcement" (AGPL is not very different) 5: You can try.. but I reckon only in the discovery etc for a lawsuit a judge can force them to give access to the source-code to verify your claim. For all intents and purposes, AGPLv3 is GPLv3 with the addendum that distribution also covers "As a Service". Also.. at our company we completely banned AGPL because we simply don't want to deal with any potential violations. So I reckon 1b in your example would also not happen in a place like Facebook (I reckon all 4 companies have an AGPL ban in place :) )
Dayshine 7y ago
If you're considering adopting AGPL and the reason is to prevent commercial abuse of your work: Please consider adding a non-commercial use exemption, for charities and academic research. These organisations can't afford the cost of open-sourcing their entire project.
- zeveb 7y ago
  Why would charities and academic institutions be writing anything but free software?
  - ben-schaaf 7y ago
    I never understand this. I get not wanting to build a community around a project, handling contributions, etc. But why not just dump the source code somewhere?
    - ghaff 7y ago
      Because it’s effort. People will want you to make enhancements and maybe expect changes. It may link to proprietary libraries. Open source is not really just about dumping code on GitHub.
      - msla 7y ago
        https://gist.github.com/richhickey/1563cddea1002958f96e7ba9519972d9 https://gist.github.com/richhickey/1563cddea1002958f96e7ba95... > Open Source is Not About You > The only people entitled to say how open source 'ought' to work are people who run projects, and the scope of their entitlement extends only to their own projects. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18538123 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18538123
        ghaff 7y ago
        To be clear, if someone wants to just do a code dump under an open source license, ignore it, and send any communications about the code to /dev/null that’s their choice. Probably not a very useful one but a valid one.
eitland 7y ago
My questions are: - if I allow users to use an AGPL product on my server and that AGPL licensed product connect to a commercially licensed application server or database on my intranet, will that be a problem? - will it be a problem if the commercial application server connects to the AGPL licensed product to fetch data? Except for these two points I now feel I'm starting to understand the AGPL, kind of.
- Dayshine 7y ago
  My understanding is you can simplify it into roughly three tiers of "connection": 1. Same application, dll linked 2. Same computer, IPC linked 3. Different computer, HTTP/etc linked Companies that use AGPL will tell you that all three are covered by AGPL. More reasonable people will tell you that 1 is definitely covered, and 2 is a grey area.
  - eitland 7y ago
    I've recently read someone who I think is affiliated with FSF say that MongoDB(?)and others have misinterpreted the AGPL intentionally to create necessary FUD to sell commercial licenses, so this is my opinion as well but when I tried to find out on the FSF page earlier this week the was still not a word in the FAQ about it.
  - sparkie 7y ago
    My understanding of copyright is that the method of linking is more of a vague guideline than any set in stone legal principle. Copyright determines whether or not some work is a derivative work of an already covered work. If you simply proxy access to a covered work through a different communication interface, but still depend on it for the essential functionality of your own work, you are unlikely to get a free pass to evade the terms of the license. Only a court can make the final decision about whether a work is a derivative work or not. As developers we need to use our common sense to determine whether what we are doing is creating new or derivative works. We've seen from Google vs Oracle that it is not necessarily clear cut as to the extent a work is covered, which is why you should never assume that it's OK to ignore license terms for some perceived "grey area," and if you have any doubts, you should seek a professional opinion.
smarx007 7y ago
I was thinking that ALGPL is a worthy addition. We need a licence that still applies to use in microservices and other code that is not shared with the user but still shows consideration for investment into proprietary code and only limits its provisions to the code under the given license. I would gladly license my work under ALGPL if it existed.
- tbrugz 7y ago
  These references also argue for ALGPL: https://redmonk.com/dberkholz/2012/09/07/opening-the-infrastructure-stack-why-we-need-an-affero-lgpl/ https://redmonk.com/dberkholz/2012/09/07/opening-the-infrast... https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/58033/is-there-any-copyleft-gpl-like-license-with-both-the-affero-and-lesser-modific https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/5803...
sneak 7y ago
I don’t think that copyright enforcement should be used against me based on whether or not I run a webserver alongside a modified application or not. I’m all on board with copyleft in general, but the “service provider loophole” just seems like anti-business sentiment. People using modified free software to provide services useful enough to pay for is a good thing. Forcing someone to publish their own changes simply because they run a business always seems to me like violent coercion, using copyright as a stick; much moreso than forcing someone to release source for object code they are already releasing. Free software is a tool. Using that tool to create a successful business isn’t cheating anyone out of anything. The software is absolutely not free as in freedom if I have one set of rights with the ethernet cable unplugged and a different set of rights with the ethernet cable connected. Stop the service provider hate and avoid the AGPL and AGPL software.
pojntfx 7y ago
I license all my software under the AGPL. Best license IMHO.
bo1024 7y ago
Not common that you see a philosophy more radical than Stallman's. As I understand Stallman's free software philosophy -- the GPL -- the idea is that code must respect the person running it / using it. Under this philosophy, if I am communicating with you, it's not up to me what tools you use in formulating your responses. And whether those tools respect your freedom or not. So GPL only applies to those directly using the code, not others they interact with using the outputs of that code. I'm wondering if the AGPL is supposed to come from a different philosophical foundation, or if it would be better understood as an economic / power-structure tool?
- pornel 7y ago
  SaaS is a workaround for GPL, and AGPL is a bugfix for that. Nowadays people run code remotely, and GPL didn't take that into account. AGPL is still about giving users freedom to control the code they use, and works regardless whether the code is run on a local machine or a remote server.
api 7y ago
We considered AGPL but recently adopted the BSL: https://www.zerotier.com/on-the-gpl-to-bsl-transition/ https://www.zerotier.com/on-the-gpl-to-bsl-transition/ Lots of open source people don't like it as it is not technically an OSI open source license. I'm not in love with it either, but it was the best solution available for now. We are exploring other alternatives. The problem with the AGPL is unfortunately that it has the letters G, P, and L in it. You'd be shocked to learn just how many potential customers have no-GPL policies or are otherwise just allergic to the GPL. There is a lot of FUD and misconceptions out there. Lots of companies won't allow anything GPL to be used internally in connection with any code or product. (Linux seems to get grandfathered in, but they don't like GPL for anything new.) Most of this is fallout from Microsoft's 1990s - early 2000s anti-GPL FUD campaign, and the memes from that are still circulating. Lots of people think GPL code is "viral" in the sense that if it touches your code in any way whatsoever it somehow magically GPLs it. MS spent millions to muddy the waters around the GPL. Yes it's FUD and it's typically rooted in misconceptions, but it's very common and from a sales point of view it's a waste of time to try to fight it. It's hard enough to educate customers about your product without also having to educate them about the license. If it weren't for this issue we'd consider AGPL, but it's really not perfect. What we really need is a modern license that addresses the "SaaSification" phenomenon, which AGPL does partly but not fully, while at the same time being simple to understand and compatible with as much of the rest of the OSS ecosystem as possible. AGPL is more complicated than I would prefer while also not being quite the right thing. I'm starting to think we'll have to make one. If we do we will open source it for others to use.

Copyleft, and AGPL specifically, seems like a good fit for large applications, whereas more permissive licenses work well for smaller libraries.

betamaxthetape 7y ago
Using more permissive licenses for smaller programs is what the FSF recommend: "It is not worth the trouble to use copyleft for most small programs. We use 300 lines as our benchmark: when a software package's source code is shorter than that, the benefits provided by copyleft are usually too small to justify the inconvenience of making sure a copy of the license always accompanies the software." [0] https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-recommendations.html#small https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-recommendations.html#sm...
mikekchar 7y ago
I specifically use it because while I'm committed to writing free (as in freedom software), my downstream users may not be. I'd rather they didn't have more options than I do if they decide to compete against me. Free software empowers the downstream user, so I kind of think of it a bit like surfing. You potentially have all this extra energy, but that energy can crush you if you don't walk a very tight line. As the upstream author you have a bit of an advantage, but it's easy to squander it if you don't think carefully about what you are doing. I'm always a bit perplexed when people write free software but intentionally avoid copyleft. There are lots of places where permissive licenses are the right way to go, but also a lot of places where your are just creating an uneven playing field with yourself in the worst position.
- telmo 7y ago
  For a lot of people, free software is about collaboration, not competition.
  - mjs2600 7y ago
    Enforcing and incentivizing collaboration also seems like a good argument for licensing open source projects with the AGPL. It prevents people who are not willing to contribute things made using your software back to open source from using it.
- imtringued 7y ago
  I use the AGPL for user facing applications. I personally have nothing against someone taking my project and improving it as long as the project stays opensource. If they somehow manage to turn that into a business model it's fine too but what I have seen is that companies use their resource advantage to destroy the original project if it is permissively licensed. With libraries it's obvious that you are doing it for the benefit of application developers and most of those are proprietary but they are not competing against you, they are collaborating. Therefore a permissive license for libraries is a much better choice.

betamaxthetape 7y ago

I've always wondered about whether the AGPL is a good fit for software that isn't accessed over the network. At first glance this would appear to offer the exact same rights as the GPL in this scenario, however you then have the protection of the AGPL if the software was ever incorporated into a networked program. Does anyone have any experience with this? Are there pitfalls to using the AGPL for a regular program that I'm not thinking of?

theawesomekhan 7y ago
I recently used the iText Library for PDF parsing in java. Everything was alright until I discovered their AGPL license. https://itextpdf.com/en/how-buy/agpl-license https://itextpdf.com/en/how-buy/agpl-license Since our product was proprietary, we had to remove the library since our product would also come under the AGPL license or we would have to buy their commercial version, for which we can get a "quote"(https://itextpdf.com/en/how-buy https://itextpdf.com/en/how-buy)
- daurnimator 7y ago
  What did you replace it with? Why wouldn't iText deserve your money if you were using it in your commercial product?
  - theawesomekhan 7y ago
    We are awaiting a response from IText for the license, but for now Apache PDFBox got us the same results
    - merb 7y ago
      you won't use itext, their quotes are hilarious.
      - theawesomekhan 7y ago
        Probably yes, because seems their licensing policy is not very user-friendly or straightforward. On their How-To-Buy Page (https://itextpdf.com/en/how-buy https://itextpdf.com/en/how-buy) the licensing model is pretty convoluted

theawesomekhan 7y ago

Google does not allow usage of AGPL code. https://opensource.google/docs/using/agpl-policy/ https://opensource.google/docs/using/agpl-policy/

aeyes 7y ago
Same here. Not sure where to find a good list of who allows what.
- mxst 7y ago
  Not sure but maybe https://tldrlegal.com/ https://tldrlegal.com/ helps
fmajid 7y ago
If you work in a startup, it will bite you during due diligence when a potential acquirer is evaluating your intellectual property. I would give the AGPL a wide berth.
- giancarlostoro 7y ago
  This is why I avoid AGPL projects for potential ideas / side projects that could potentially turn useful.
  - tptacek 7y ago
    You avoid using it, or avoid using third party code that uses it? The latter makes sense. The former does not, as you can relicense any time you want.
    - ymse 7y ago
      Only if you are the sole copyright holder, i.e. no (nontrivial) external contributions.
      - 7y ago

newfeatureok 7y ago

I have some questions about AGPL if anyone has answers: 1. If you have code, let's say FooProject, that's AGPL. In which of these scenarios is someone in the wrong for using it? 1a. Google uses FooProject in delivering one GoogleApi, but does not opensource GoogleApi with AGPL. 1b. Facebook uses FooProject in an internal project, FacebookInternal, that's not exposed to the internet, but does not open source FacebookInternal with AGPL. 1c. Microsoft uses FooProject in a special version of Office, which is only distributed via BluRay and does not open source Office under AGPL. 1d. Netflix uses FooProject in AlienNetflixViewer, which is used over the internet, and makes some modifications to FooProject as its used in AlienNetflixViewer. They open source ModifiedFooProject under AGPL, but not AlienNetflixViewer 2. If you have FooProject, and you have 3 libarires, LibraryOne, LibraryTwo, and LibraryThree included in FooProject that are under the MIT license, can someone take Library[Number] and use it under the MIT license? Let's assume these are not actually separate projects, and for all intents and purposes it's the same project as FooProject, but for whatever reason the folders associated with each library has its own license. 3. Assuming someone uses an AGPL project and does not follow the license, what's the penalty? What if its so incorporated into its project its effectively impossible to remove? 4. How do you enforce someone using the AGPL? 5. If you go to a public facing site and suspect that they're using an AGPL project (perhaps because of the nature of the API calls or the client facing JavaScript) can you demand to see the full source?

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
hkolk 7y ago
IANAL (ofcourse) but in my limited experience: 1a: Not allowed provided because of AGPL (though would be allowed if it is GPL) 1b: Allowed, provided it is purely internal (as described here: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#InternalDistribution https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#InternalDistributi... ) 1c: Not allowed (this is a distribution, and actually is also in violation of general GPL) 1d: Not allowed, linking against the library means using it, which means GPL violation. 2: If (x) is licenses as MIT and does not contain AGPL underneath (it shouldn't, they are not compatible), you can take X under that MIT license. Regardless of actual repository layout. 3: Penalty is a pretty grey area, and this is a civil suite, not a criminal suite. As a result it goes into damages etc 4: I reckon EFF etc. Look for "GPL enforcement" (AGPL is not very different) 5: You can try.. but I reckon only in the discovery etc for a lawsuit a judge can force them to give access to the source-code to verify your claim. For all intents and purposes, AGPLv3 is GPLv3 with the addendum that distribution also covers "As a Service". Also.. at our company we completely banned AGPL because we simply don't want to deal with any potential violations. So I reckon 1b in your example would also not happen in a place like Facebook (I reckon all 4 companies have an AGPL ban in place :) )

Dayshine 7y ago

If you're considering adopting AGPL and the reason is to prevent commercial abuse of your work: Please consider adding a non-commercial use exemption, for charities and academic research. These organisations can't afford the cost of open-sourcing their entire project.

zeveb 7y ago
Why would charities and academic institutions be writing anything but free software?
- ben-schaaf 7y ago
  I never understand this. I get not wanting to build a community around a project, handling contributions, etc. But why not just dump the source code somewhere?
  - ghaff 7y ago
    Because it’s effort. People will want you to make enhancements and maybe expect changes. It may link to proprietary libraries. Open source is not really just about dumping code on GitHub.
    - msla 7y ago
      https://gist.github.com/richhickey/1563cddea1002958f96e7ba9519972d9 https://gist.github.com/richhickey/1563cddea1002958f96e7ba95... > Open Source is Not About You > The only people entitled to say how open source 'ought' to work are people who run projects, and the scope of their entitlement extends only to their own projects. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18538123 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18538123
      - ghaff 7y ago
        To be clear, if someone wants to just do a code dump under an open source license, ignore it, and send any communications about the code to /dev/null that’s their choice. Probably not a very useful one but a valid one.

eitland 7y ago

My questions are: - if I allow users to use an AGPL product on my server and that AGPL licensed product connect to a commercially licensed application server or database on my intranet, will that be a problem? - will it be a problem if the commercial application server connects to the AGPL licensed product to fetch data? Except for these two points I now feel I'm starting to understand the AGPL, kind of.

Dayshine 7y ago
My understanding is you can simplify it into roughly three tiers of "connection": 1. Same application, dll linked 2. Same computer, IPC linked 3. Different computer, HTTP/etc linked Companies that use AGPL will tell you that all three are covered by AGPL. More reasonable people will tell you that 1 is definitely covered, and 2 is a grey area.
- eitland 7y ago
  I've recently read someone who I think is affiliated with FSF say that MongoDB(?)and others have misinterpreted the AGPL intentionally to create necessary FUD to sell commercial licenses, so this is my opinion as well but when I tried to find out on the FSF page earlier this week the was still not a word in the FAQ about it.
- sparkie 7y ago
  My understanding of copyright is that the method of linking is more of a vague guideline than any set in stone legal principle. Copyright determines whether or not some work is a derivative work of an already covered work. If you simply proxy access to a covered work through a different communication interface, but still depend on it for the essential functionality of your own work, you are unlikely to get a free pass to evade the terms of the license. Only a court can make the final decision about whether a work is a derivative work or not. As developers we need to use our common sense to determine whether what we are doing is creating new or derivative works. We've seen from Google vs Oracle that it is not necessarily clear cut as to the extent a work is covered, which is why you should never assume that it's OK to ignore license terms for some perceived "grey area," and if you have any doubts, you should seek a professional opinion.

smarx007 7y ago

I was thinking that ALGPL is a worthy addition. We need a licence that still applies to use in microservices and other code that is not shared with the user but still shows consideration for investment into proprietary code and only limits its provisions to the code under the given license. I would gladly license my work under ALGPL if it existed.

tbrugz 7y ago
These references also argue for ALGPL: https://redmonk.com/dberkholz/2012/09/07/opening-the-infrastructure-stack-why-we-need-an-affero-lgpl/ https://redmonk.com/dberkholz/2012/09/07/opening-the-infrast... https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/58033/is-there-any-copyleft-gpl-like-license-with-both-the-affero-and-lesser-modific https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/5803...

sneak 7y ago

I don’t think that copyright enforcement should be used against me based on whether or not I run a webserver alongside a modified application or not. I’m all on board with copyleft in general, but the “service provider loophole” just seems like anti-business sentiment. People using modified free software to provide services useful enough to pay for is a good thing. Forcing someone to publish their own changes simply because they run a business always seems to me like violent coercion, using copyright as a stick; much moreso than forcing someone to release source for object code they are already releasing. Free software is a tool. Using that tool to create a successful business isn’t cheating anyone out of anything. The software is absolutely not free as in freedom if I have one set of rights with the ethernet cable unplugged and a different set of rights with the ethernet cable connected. Stop the service provider hate and avoid the AGPL and AGPL software.

pojntfx 7y ago

I license all my software under the AGPL. Best license IMHO.

bo1024 7y ago

Not common that you see a philosophy more radical than Stallman's. As I understand Stallman's free software philosophy -- the GPL -- the idea is that code must respect the person running it / using it. Under this philosophy, if I am communicating with you, it's not up to me what tools you use in formulating your responses. And whether those tools respect your freedom or not. So GPL only applies to those directly using the code, not others they interact with using the outputs of that code. I'm wondering if the AGPL is supposed to come from a different philosophical foundation, or if it would be better understood as an economic / power-structure tool?

pornel 7y ago
SaaS is a workaround for GPL, and AGPL is a bugfix for that. Nowadays people run code remotely, and GPL didn't take that into account. AGPL is still about giving users freedom to control the code they use, and works regardless whether the code is run on a local machine or a remote server.

api 7y ago

We considered AGPL but recently adopted the BSL: https://www.zerotier.com/on-the-gpl-to-bsl-transition/ https://www.zerotier.com/on-the-gpl-to-bsl-transition/ Lots of open source people don't like it as it is not technically an OSI open source license. I'm not in love with it either, but it was the best solution available for now. We are exploring other alternatives. The problem with the AGPL is unfortunately that it has the letters G, P, and L in it. You'd be shocked to learn just how many potential customers have no-GPL policies or are otherwise just allergic to the GPL. There is a lot of FUD and misconceptions out there. Lots of companies won't allow anything GPL to be used internally in connection with any code or product. (Linux seems to get grandfathered in, but they don't like GPL for anything new.) Most of this is fallout from Microsoft's 1990s - early 2000s anti-GPL FUD campaign, and the memes from that are still circulating. Lots of people think GPL code is "viral" in the sense that if it touches your code in any way whatsoever it somehow magically GPLs it. MS spent millions to muddy the waters around the GPL. Yes it's FUD and it's typically rooted in misconceptions, but it's very common and from a sales point of view it's a waste of time to try to fight it. It's hard enough to educate customers about your product without also having to educate them about the license. If it weren't for this issue we'd consider AGPL, but it's really not perfect. What we really need is a modern license that addresses the "SaaSification" phenomenon, which AGPL does partly but not fully, while at the same time being simple to understand and compatible with as much of the rest of the OSS ecosystem as possible. AGPL is more complicated than I would prefer while also not being quite the right thing. I'm starting to think we'll have to make one. If we do we will open source it for others to use.