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> Not everyone agrees that the freedom to start a SaaS business with GPL software is a "loophole". Neither GPLv3 nor GPLv2 prohibit this. You're thinking of
by chimeracoder 6y ago
> Not everyone agrees that the freedom to start a SaaS business with GPL software is a "loophole".
Neither GPLv3 nor GPLv2 prohibit this.
You're thinking of the AGPL, the first version of which was based on the GPLv2 and released in 2002, years before the FSF announced that they were even beginning work on the GPLv3.
- cma 6y agoThe reason people confuse it is because early work on GPLv3 was going to include similar clauses but they were later abandoned.
- kazagistar 6y agoThats wrong too. If you use an unmodified version of AGPL software, or just host any modifications in a public repository like github, then you aren't in violation of AGPL, even if the rest of your stack is proprietary and your service paid. How does it prevent SaaS?