I don’t understand the analogy very well. But software is very different to the material world because it’s fungible and copying it is essentially free. I think

I don’t understand the analogy very well. But software is very different to the material world because it’s fungible and copying it is essentially free. I think a more appropriate analogy would be the mechanic that fixes your car explaining what they did so that you can fix yourself when you need. Anyway, you’re not entitled to modify, copy, etc even if the software is distributed to you. Copyright exists exactly to guarantee that the creators have a monopoly over their creations and can more easily profit from them. It is just a consequence of that that users do not have the freedom of running, modifying, studying, etc the software they use as they see fit. You have to give them that freedom, if you want. By default you’re not required to do so, and you don’t want to, which is fair enough. AGPL is there for those who want to give the users even more freedom than the GPL gives them. I don’t know if AGPL is enforceable or not. Using software remotely can be seen as a form of distribution, that’s what needs to be proven in court, I suppose. I don’t think it’s clear cut. Something like gmail using AGPL software seems a lot more likely to be a breach of the license than if someone publishes some graphs that were generated by a batch job linking to AGPL libraries.