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Honestly, compatibility with the GPL is a very good reason to still use the GPL rather than AGPL. My preferred licensing arrangement (for server software) would

Honestly, compatibility with the GPL is a very good reason to still use the GPL rather than AGPL. My preferred licensing arrangement (for server software) would be something like AGPL + non-profit, but I would never actually license something like that because it's too harmful to code reuse. When you're writing code for the free software community, one of your concerns has to be compatibility with the norms of the community. Kind of like web standards, actually: you may think RSS/ATOM are terrible standards and JSON Feed is the only way to go, but if you're writing blogging software, it should probably be able to generate an RSS feed.

enriquto 6y ago
> Honestly, compatibility with the GPL is a very good reason to still use the GPL rather than AGPL. What do you mean by compatible? the GPL and the AGPL are explicitly compatible to each other.
- bscphil 6y ago
  I'm referring to this, from the GNU.org license comments page: > It [the AGPL] is also technically not compatible with GPLv3 in a strict sense: you cannot take code released under the GNU AGPL and convey or modify it however you like under the terms of GPLv3, or vice versa. In my mind, this is a pretty bad limitation. If I'm writing software for the free software community, it seems bad to me if someone working on a GPL project cannot take my code and use it as part of their project without the whole project then being under a mixed license. The terms of the AGPL would apply to a derived work even if all the other code was GPL. While it might sometimes be possible for someone to do everything they want that way, the added complexity means that using part of an AGPL project may be a non-starter even in those cases. The AGPL is also not compatible at all with GPL 2, which many projects are still using.
pritambaral 6y ago
> My preferred licensing arrangement (for server software) would be something like AGPL + non-profit Sounds like the Non-Profit OSL 3.0: https://opensource.org/licenses/NPOSL-3.0 https://opensource.org/licenses/NPOSL-3.0
- bscphil 6y ago
  Interesting license, I hadn't seen it before. GNU complains about the following provision: > If You distribute or communicate copies of the Original Work or a Derivative Work, You must make a reasonable effort under the circumstances to obtain the express assent of recipients to the terms of this License. This does seem pretty sketchy because I don't know what counts as a reasonable effort. GNU suggests that placing the software in publicly accessible version control or on an FTP server might be in violation of the license because it would allow recipients of your copies to obtain the software without providing "express consent" to the license terms. I think this is a bad requirement.

enriquto 6y ago

> Honestly, compatibility with the GPL is a very good reason to still use the GPL rather than AGPL. What do you mean by compatible? the GPL and the AGPL are explicitly compatible to each other.

bscphil 6y ago
I'm referring to this, from the GNU.org license comments page: > It [the AGPL] is also technically not compatible with GPLv3 in a strict sense: you cannot take code released under the GNU AGPL and convey or modify it however you like under the terms of GPLv3, or vice versa. In my mind, this is a pretty bad limitation. If I'm writing software for the free software community, it seems bad to me if someone working on a GPL project cannot take my code and use it as part of their project without the whole project then being under a mixed license. The terms of the AGPL would apply to a derived work even if all the other code was GPL. While it might sometimes be possible for someone to do everything they want that way, the added complexity means that using part of an AGPL project may be a non-starter even in those cases. The AGPL is also not compatible at all with GPL 2, which many projects are still using.

pritambaral 6y ago

> My preferred licensing arrangement (for server software) would be something like AGPL + non-profit Sounds like the Non-Profit OSL 3.0: https://opensource.org/licenses/NPOSL-3.0 https://opensource.org/licenses/NPOSL-3.0

bscphil 6y ago
Interesting license, I hadn't seen it before. GNU complains about the following provision: > If You distribute or communicate copies of the Original Work or a Derivative Work, You must make a reasonable effort under the circumstances to obtain the express assent of recipients to the terms of this License. This does seem pretty sketchy because I don't know what counts as a reasonable effort. GNU suggests that placing the software in publicly accessible version control or on an FTP server might be in violation of the license because it would allow recipients of your copies to obtain the software without providing "express consent" to the license terms. I think this is a bad requirement.