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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.
      - giancarlostoro 7y ago
        Which is why I avoid it directly, unless I'm not touching the code at all. If I'm just using it as-is, then I don't care.
- lucasyvas 7y ago
  You can always change the license.
  - flynnsdeadman 7y ago
    except you cannot, once its AGPL youre stuck with it
    - pmontra 7y ago
      If you're the owner of the code, all the past versions of the project are and will be AGPL forever (or MIT, or BSD) but all the new versions will be whatever you want. You can also dual license. If someone forks the old AGPL version (or MIT, or BSD) they can keep that license on the fork, but they can't use your new code.
      - zwily 7y ago
        Yes, this is why so many projects have Contributor License Agreements - so the project owner can relicense at will. It’s also why you shouldn’t sign a CLA if you disagree with that possibility.
dhuramas 7y ago
OP is speaking hypothetically- the question is perfectly valid and asks for which of the scenarios are okay.
zeveb 7y ago
Sounds like it's working as intended: preventing services from restricting the rights of their users to run, modify & share source code.
- anyzen 7y ago
  This! I am quite sure that most projects, in exchange for some negligible part of Google's money, would be more than happy to offer the software under a different license. My guess is that it's the difficulty of ensuring that the new license terms are not breached (the license would need to be checked by lawyers, approved,...) that is the real deal breaker. Not that I sympathise with Google here, they can afford to give something back to FOSS (not just when it advances their agenda).
- protanopia 7y ago
  IMO, the goal of open source licenses is to encourage more usage of open source. If AGPL is preventing companies from using it, then it is accomplishing the opposite.
  - aaronm67 7y ago
    Every license has different goals - that's the whole point of having different licenses. The goal of this license is to encourage more companies to contribute to open source, not to encourage usage.
  - belorn 7y ago
    A license is a legal document that specific under what conditions that the author allow others to use their software. Nothing more, nothing less. Open source licenses and free software licenses are standardization of common goals and conditions, and encourage usage is one such goal, but its not the only goal. Some authors want more like share-alike, attribution, and fair competition.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - jrockway 7y ago
giancarlostoro 7y ago
It makes a lot of sense. If a lick of AGPL hits any of their web services, they have to make the source available. I imagine they use plenty of FLOSS on their back-end servers, and I imagine quite a bit is GPL, BSD, MIT, Apache and so on.
belorn 7y ago
Google can afford to re-implement software. It is questionable if they even get hurt much by release delays, especially if the new product is within their eco system. Thats the benefit of having monopoly or monopoly-like position in a market. If you are on the other hand in a highly competitive market then re-implementing code and delaying launches can result in being replaced by some with more flexible approach. My go-to example is the gaming industry. As an example, if you have a webbased ticket system it might not matter much if there is a download button, and developer time is much better spent on finishing the actually game than writing one more ticket system. Game studios in general seems to have very flexible approach to licenses. To my knowledge they will apply all methods if it means saving time, as long as they can keep the game itself proprietary and sell copies. They will any software directly if they can, buy if it makes economical sense, or even just ask the author for an exception (with attribution in the credits).
tyingq 7y ago
Seems shortsighted. There are categories of software where even corporate drones shouldn't worry about AGPL. The ThoughtWorks tech radar is a decent example: https://github.com/thoughtworks/build-your-own-radar https://github.com/thoughtworks/build-your-own-radar Maybe you modified it to use some new data source, and to display it for internal use. Say O365 as a custom data source. You aren't giving away any real secret sauce by sharing your modifications. Anything sensitive is probably the actual data, not the code. The license warrants caution. But not an outright ban.
- skissane 7y ago
  > Seems shortsighted. There are categories of software where even corporate drones shouldn't worry about AGPL... The license warrants caution. But not an outright ban. The problem with a policy of "AGPL is allowed sometimes but not others" is who makes the judgement call on when it is appropriate and when it isn't? Can you trust the engineer implementing/consuming the component – and the average engineer isn't very familiar with licensing issues – to make that judgement call, especially when there could be significant legal and financial risks of getting it wrong? Probably not. So then the policy has to be "you can use AGPL but you have to ask for approval". But, that's not too different from an AGPL ban – most bans have a process to ask for an exception. And, in practice, it de facto amounts to a ban, because most people will probably decide to just use some non-AGPL alternative instead of asking for formal approval (which probably has to go via legal and relatively senior management).
skissane 7y ago
A lot of other companies have the same policy. Google is unusual in being publicly open about it. Most companies, internal policies on what open source licenses are allowed are maintained by the legal department and as such are company confidential by default.

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.
    - giancarlostoro 7y ago
      Which is why I avoid it directly, unless I'm not touching the code at all. If I'm just using it as-is, then I don't care.
lucasyvas 7y ago
You can always change the license.
- flynnsdeadman 7y ago
  except you cannot, once its AGPL youre stuck with it
  - pmontra 7y ago
    If you're the owner of the code, all the past versions of the project are and will be AGPL forever (or MIT, or BSD) but all the new versions will be whatever you want. You can also dual license. If someone forks the old AGPL version (or MIT, or BSD) they can keep that license on the fork, but they can't use your new code.
    - zwily 7y ago
      Yes, this is why so many projects have Contributor License Agreements - so the project owner can relicense at will. It’s also why you shouldn’t sign a CLA if you disagree with that possibility.

dhuramas 7y ago

OP is speaking hypothetically- the question is perfectly valid and asks for which of the scenarios are okay.

zeveb 7y ago

Sounds like it's working as intended: preventing services from restricting the rights of their users to run, modify & share source code.

anyzen 7y ago
This! I am quite sure that most projects, in exchange for some negligible part of Google's money, would be more than happy to offer the software under a different license. My guess is that it's the difficulty of ensuring that the new license terms are not breached (the license would need to be checked by lawyers, approved,...) that is the real deal breaker. Not that I sympathise with Google here, they can afford to give something back to FOSS (not just when it advances their agenda).
protanopia 7y ago
IMO, the goal of open source licenses is to encourage more usage of open source. If AGPL is preventing companies from using it, then it is accomplishing the opposite.
- aaronm67 7y ago
  Every license has different goals - that's the whole point of having different licenses. The goal of this license is to encourage more companies to contribute to open source, not to encourage usage.
- belorn 7y ago
  A license is a legal document that specific under what conditions that the author allow others to use their software. Nothing more, nothing less. Open source licenses and free software licenses are standardization of common goals and conditions, and encourage usage is one such goal, but its not the only goal. Some authors want more like share-alike, attribution, and fair competition.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- jrockway 7y ago

giancarlostoro 7y ago

It makes a lot of sense. If a lick of AGPL hits any of their web services, they have to make the source available. I imagine they use plenty of FLOSS on their back-end servers, and I imagine quite a bit is GPL, BSD, MIT, Apache and so on.

belorn 7y ago

Google can afford to re-implement software. It is questionable if they even get hurt much by release delays, especially if the new product is within their eco system. Thats the benefit of having monopoly or monopoly-like position in a market. If you are on the other hand in a highly competitive market then re-implementing code and delaying launches can result in being replaced by some with more flexible approach. My go-to example is the gaming industry. As an example, if you have a webbased ticket system it might not matter much if there is a download button, and developer time is much better spent on finishing the actually game than writing one more ticket system. Game studios in general seems to have very flexible approach to licenses. To my knowledge they will apply all methods if it means saving time, as long as they can keep the game itself proprietary and sell copies. They will any software directly if they can, buy if it makes economical sense, or even just ask the author for an exception (with attribution in the credits).

tyingq 7y ago

Seems shortsighted. There are categories of software where even corporate drones shouldn't worry about AGPL. The ThoughtWorks tech radar is a decent example: https://github.com/thoughtworks/build-your-own-radar https://github.com/thoughtworks/build-your-own-radar Maybe you modified it to use some new data source, and to display it for internal use. Say O365 as a custom data source. You aren't giving away any real secret sauce by sharing your modifications. Anything sensitive is probably the actual data, not the code. The license warrants caution. But not an outright ban.

skissane 7y ago
> Seems shortsighted. There are categories of software where even corporate drones shouldn't worry about AGPL... The license warrants caution. But not an outright ban. The problem with a policy of "AGPL is allowed sometimes but not others" is who makes the judgement call on when it is appropriate and when it isn't? Can you trust the engineer implementing/consuming the component – and the average engineer isn't very familiar with licensing issues – to make that judgement call, especially when there could be significant legal and financial risks of getting it wrong? Probably not. So then the policy has to be "you can use AGPL but you have to ask for approval". But, that's not too different from an AGPL ban – most bans have a process to ask for an exception. And, in practice, it de facto amounts to a ban, because most people will probably decide to just use some non-AGPL alternative instead of asking for formal approval (which probably has to go via legal and relatively senior management).

skissane 7y ago

A lot of other companies have the same policy. Google is unusual in being publicly open about it. Most companies, internal policies on what open source licenses are allowed are maintained by the legal department and as such are company confidential by default.