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I license all of my software AGPL and the reason I do it isn't gatekeeping or some theoretical argument about what software is. It's because I have put a large

by djaque 7y ago

I license all of my software AGPL and the reason I do it isn't gatekeeping or some theoretical argument about what software is. It's because I have put a large amount of effort into this product and decided to release it for the benefit of the community. I would feel taken advantage of if a company came in and hoarded that software while making a profit off of it and never giving back. The free market is great and all, but it's also OK to just ask that people give you a fair deal when they use your code.

beefhash 7y ago
> and decided to release it for the benefit of the community I don't understand. You're saying “for the benefit of the community”, but then only speak about companies as negative examples. (1) Are companies inherently incapable of being members of the community to you? (2) Are people whose software is more liberally licensed (and may wish to incorporate parts of yours) not part of the community to you?
- saagarjha 7y ago
  Presumably companies who are not willing to give back to the community are not part of the community for them, nor are people who enable people who do not give back to the community part of the community (in certain cases). (The community, of course, being "people who are willing to keep their work available to all other members of the community".)
- abdullahkhalids 7y ago
  OP clearly said > never giving back AGPL allows companies to use the product, while also guaranteeing that they contribute back. And community = entities who contribute back.
  - kazinator 7y ago
    The AGPL is about the operator of software not being legally allowed to hide nefarious code on their servers that harms users. The problem is that if you're a big enough monopolist prooviding some online service that people have to use, you can do that in the open. You just comply with the AGPL and reveal all the code that tracks users or discriminates or whatever Bad Stuff. At the end of the day, the code is still running, and vast numbers of users are still logging in. Basically, the AGPL has no real teeth; it gives the users no real control over the program they are using, only some visibility into it. Nefarious behavior can be hidden in configurations, not just code. And in other services. Like suppose a server program, at some point in its execution, makes a HTTPS request to another server. The URL, including parameters and an POST data, are driven by data from a configuration database. Oops! Who knows what the heck that is doing? But, hey, if you want to run such a thing on your own machine, here is the source code.
sneak 7y ago
The only thing that non-A GPL allows them to “hoard” that the AGPL does not are their own modifications. Your hard work is still available to the community. I don’t consider the AGPL to be free software. My freedoms to keep my own code to myself should not change based upon whether or not I am running a web server process on my machine or not. I think it’s just generic anti-corporate/anti-business sentiment dressed up as egalitarianism. ASPs are a feature, not a bug.
- EGreg 7y ago
  Why is anti-corporate sentiment not an example of egalitarianism? Seems to me that this is the paradox of intolerance... being intolerant of intolerance is a reasonable stance for otherwise tolerant people.
- cyphar 7y ago
  > The only thing that non-A GPL allows them to “hoard” that the AGPL does not are their own modifications. The point of the GPL family of licenses is not to solely make the author's "hard work available to the community". It's to ensure that any modifications which are later provided to other users must be licensed such that those users can make their own modifications. Private modifications are still permitted under the AGPL. In fact, the FSF explicitly states that licenses which disallow private modifications are not free software. > Your hard work is still available to the community. That'd also be true if you used CC-0 or made it public domain. That's not the point of using one of the GPL licences. > My freedoms to keep my own code to myself should not change based upon whether or not I am running a web server process on my machine or not. The AGPL doesn't say "if you run apached on your server you must release your code to everyone who asks for it". It says that people who use your software over a network must be given the source code. And in the context of SaaS and "online-only software" it's pretty clear why such a provision is necessary -- in the nightmare scenario, all software would be only accessible over the internet and you'd have no rights to the source code even if the code was GPL. You might not agree with this measure or the plausibility of such a nightmare scenario (and that's fine), but there is a clear ethical argument for it (and it is consistent with the history of the free software movement).
ygra 7y ago
On the other hand, if a company did that, would it actually impact you or your project? It's not that it'd be vanishing just because of that.
- pfalcon 7y ago
  The question is not that, the question is how many people would be motivated to work on community-facing open-source projects then? Would you be motivated? "Show me your code". Otherwise, we're all carriers of petty human nature. And few people enjoy thoughts that for time you've torn off from your family, to help some random strangers (and user support is biggest time/effort sync for open-source project, and what makes them popular), risking family problems (re: Reiser and his FS), the eventual benefactor will be some company, making money on the popularity of your project.
- djaque 7y ago
  The way I see it, it doesn't matter if it impacts the project or not. It's about getting a fair deal for the effort you give to the community, not protecting the project. I'm uncomfortable with the idea of the Googles of the world making a profit off of my work for free. If they want to use the code, then they can pay their due and purchase a licensed version or give back to the community.
  - kazinator 7y ago
    You deeply misunderstand what the AGPL is about; what are its motivations. It has nothing to do with preventing profit.
    - djaque 7y ago
      No I don't. It's possible to belive in free software principles and also care about the AGPL for reasons not spelled out in its preamble.
jsjddbbwj 7y ago
If a company took your code and made a service people like and enjoy with that code, how is that not benefiting the community? The bsd licence gave us the iPhone. Doesn't that benefit mankind?
- imtringued 7y ago
  The project is the service that people like and enjoy.
- abdullahkhalids 7y ago
  Should you not compare the mean benefit to some community for the two cases of releasing the code either as BSD or as AGPL? Of course you will have to include counterfactual scenarios, rather than what you did: summing up the total benefits of only observed scenarios. Obviously, averaging over counterfactuals is difficult, if not impossible in practice, so people go with intuition. It remains up for debate which way is the better basis for a ethical decision theory.
- djaque 7y ago
  If I only wanted to provide a service people used then I'd just start a company and charge for my product. This is about getting a fair deal in the case where I distribute my work for free. I'm not OK with a company turning around and profiting off of it without paying their fair shair, whether that be a licensing fee or by giving back to the community.
- pfalcon 7y ago
  > The bsd licence gave us the iPhone. I wouldn't put it like that. It wants to "bill" people for a grand each, and gave billions to some company. But most importantly, what about the guy who wrote that BSD code - he didn't die unable to buy medicines for cancer? No? Then it's all good.
- ryukafalz 7y ago
  Its users may like and enjoy it, but only ever as users. The community has lost the right to shape the project as they wish. The software becomes a tool of influence over its users. I don’t think that benefits them. > The bsd licence gave us the iPhone. Doesn't that benefit mankind? The BSD license gave Apple a start to build the iPhone; Apple gave us devices that we aren’t given full access to even though we ostensibly own them. No, I’m not sure that’s a net benefit for humanity.

by djaque 7y ago

beefhash 7y ago

> and decided to release it for the benefit of the community I don't understand. You're saying “for the benefit of the community”, but then only speak about companies as negative examples. (1) Are companies inherently incapable of being members of the community to you? (2) Are people whose software is more liberally licensed (and may wish to incorporate parts of yours) not part of the community to you?

saagarjha 7y ago
Presumably companies who are not willing to give back to the community are not part of the community for them, nor are people who enable people who do not give back to the community part of the community (in certain cases). (The community, of course, being "people who are willing to keep their work available to all other members of the community".)
abdullahkhalids 7y ago
OP clearly said > never giving back AGPL allows companies to use the product, while also guaranteeing that they contribute back. And community = entities who contribute back.
- kazinator 7y ago
  The AGPL is about the operator of software not being legally allowed to hide nefarious code on their servers that harms users. The problem is that if you're a big enough monopolist prooviding some online service that people have to use, you can do that in the open. You just comply with the AGPL and reveal all the code that tracks users or discriminates or whatever Bad Stuff. At the end of the day, the code is still running, and vast numbers of users are still logging in. Basically, the AGPL has no real teeth; it gives the users no real control over the program they are using, only some visibility into it. Nefarious behavior can be hidden in configurations, not just code. And in other services. Like suppose a server program, at some point in its execution, makes a HTTPS request to another server. The URL, including parameters and an POST data, are driven by data from a configuration database. Oops! Who knows what the heck that is doing? But, hey, if you want to run such a thing on your own machine, here is the source code.

sneak 7y ago

The only thing that non-A GPL allows them to “hoard” that the AGPL does not are their own modifications. Your hard work is still available to the community. I don’t consider the AGPL to be free software. My freedoms to keep my own code to myself should not change based upon whether or not I am running a web server process on my machine or not. I think it’s just generic anti-corporate/anti-business sentiment dressed up as egalitarianism. ASPs are a feature, not a bug.

EGreg 7y ago
Why is anti-corporate sentiment not an example of egalitarianism? Seems to me that this is the paradox of intolerance... being intolerant of intolerance is a reasonable stance for otherwise tolerant people.
cyphar 7y ago
> The only thing that non-A GPL allows them to “hoard” that the AGPL does not are their own modifications. The point of the GPL family of licenses is not to solely make the author's "hard work available to the community". It's to ensure that any modifications which are later provided to other users must be licensed such that those users can make their own modifications. Private modifications are still permitted under the AGPL. In fact, the FSF explicitly states that licenses which disallow private modifications are not free software. > Your hard work is still available to the community. That'd also be true if you used CC-0 or made it public domain. That's not the point of using one of the GPL licences. > My freedoms to keep my own code to myself should not change based upon whether or not I am running a web server process on my machine or not. The AGPL doesn't say "if you run apached on your server you must release your code to everyone who asks for it". It says that people who use your software over a network must be given the source code. And in the context of SaaS and "online-only software" it's pretty clear why such a provision is necessary -- in the nightmare scenario, all software would be only accessible over the internet and you'd have no rights to the source code even if the code was GPL. You might not agree with this measure or the plausibility of such a nightmare scenario (and that's fine), but there is a clear ethical argument for it (and it is consistent with the history of the free software movement).

ygra 7y ago

On the other hand, if a company did that, would it actually impact you or your project? It's not that it'd be vanishing just because of that.

pfalcon 7y ago
The question is not that, the question is how many people would be motivated to work on community-facing open-source projects then? Would you be motivated? "Show me your code". Otherwise, we're all carriers of petty human nature. And few people enjoy thoughts that for time you've torn off from your family, to help some random strangers (and user support is biggest time/effort sync for open-source project, and what makes them popular), risking family problems (re: Reiser and his FS), the eventual benefactor will be some company, making money on the popularity of your project.
djaque 7y ago
The way I see it, it doesn't matter if it impacts the project or not. It's about getting a fair deal for the effort you give to the community, not protecting the project. I'm uncomfortable with the idea of the Googles of the world making a profit off of my work for free. If they want to use the code, then they can pay their due and purchase a licensed version or give back to the community.
- kazinator 7y ago
  You deeply misunderstand what the AGPL is about; what are its motivations. It has nothing to do with preventing profit.
  - djaque 7y ago
    No I don't. It's possible to belive in free software principles and also care about the AGPL for reasons not spelled out in its preamble.

jsjddbbwj 7y ago

If a company took your code and made a service people like and enjoy with that code, how is that not benefiting the community? The bsd licence gave us the iPhone. Doesn't that benefit mankind?

imtringued 7y ago
The project is the service that people like and enjoy.
abdullahkhalids 7y ago
Should you not compare the mean benefit to some community for the two cases of releasing the code either as BSD or as AGPL? Of course you will have to include counterfactual scenarios, rather than what you did: summing up the total benefits of only observed scenarios. Obviously, averaging over counterfactuals is difficult, if not impossible in practice, so people go with intuition. It remains up for debate which way is the better basis for a ethical decision theory.
djaque 7y ago
If I only wanted to provide a service people used then I'd just start a company and charge for my product. This is about getting a fair deal in the case where I distribute my work for free. I'm not OK with a company turning around and profiting off of it without paying their fair shair, whether that be a licensing fee or by giving back to the community.
pfalcon 7y ago
> The bsd licence gave us the iPhone. I wouldn't put it like that. It wants to "bill" people for a grand each, and gave billions to some company. But most importantly, what about the guy who wrote that BSD code - he didn't die unable to buy medicines for cancer? No? Then it's all good.
ryukafalz 7y ago
Its users may like and enjoy it, but only ever as users. The community has lost the right to shape the project as they wish. The software becomes a tool of influence over its users. I don’t think that benefits them. > The bsd licence gave us the iPhone. Doesn't that benefit mankind? The BSD license gave Apple a start to build the iPhone; Apple gave us devices that we aren’t given full access to even though we ostensibly own them. No, I’m not sure that’s a net benefit for humanity.