4 ms·

AGPL all the way. The best way to keep things opensource and have large corporations pay you to use your sofwtare.

rad_gruchalski 5y ago
Is it? AGPL prevents the operating company from hosting modified version of the application without releasing changed code but doesn’t prevent actual hosting.
- lucasyvas 5y ago
  This might as well be the same thing. GPL variants are viral and the big corporation lawyers won't touch it with a mile long stick as a result. It's a perfectly competitive license and fair. If they change your code and offer it as a service, they must publish the changes which will benefit you, the original author. There's also a chance it will require they open source some of their other code as AGPL. It's the perfect trap and most corporations won't touch it. What constitutes a change is very fuzzy since it covers access over a network.
  - rad_gruchalski 5y ago
    Thanks for more details. I do understand how AGPL and GPL work. Both are strong copyleft license. My experience with AGPL is: lawyers would review the request to use AGPL code on a case-by-case basis because of the risk of having to expose modifications to the source code and would always make a decision based on the context of usage. AGPL and GPL are definitely a problem in embedded world but not so for hosted systems. I would argue that, for a player committed to host an AGPL licensed system, it narrows down to properly fencing the system from proprietary systems. I personally maintain an AGPL based project but I treat the "lawyers will not touch it" as a case of "security by obscurity". There's nothing fuzzy about access over the network: > The GNU Affero General Public License is based on the GNU GPL, but has an additional term to allow users who interact with the licensed software over a network to receive the source for that program. We recommend that people consider using the GNU AGPL for any software which will commonly be run over a network. http://www.gnu.org/licenses/licenses.html#AGPL http://www.gnu.org/licenses/licenses.html#AGPL If a corporation hosts an unmodified or even modified version of the AGPL system, where they can afford to share their modifications, they can still leverage their scale / network effect and take the creator out of business.

Is it? AGPL prevents the operating company from hosting modified version of the application without releasing changed code but doesn’t prevent actual hosting.

lucasyvas 5y ago
This might as well be the same thing. GPL variants are viral and the big corporation lawyers won't touch it with a mile long stick as a result. It's a perfectly competitive license and fair. If they change your code and offer it as a service, they must publish the changes which will benefit you, the original author. There's also a chance it will require they open source some of their other code as AGPL. It's the perfect trap and most corporations won't touch it. What constitutes a change is very fuzzy since it covers access over a network.
- rad_gruchalski 5y ago
  Thanks for more details. I do understand how AGPL and GPL work. Both are strong copyleft license. My experience with AGPL is: lawyers would review the request to use AGPL code on a case-by-case basis because of the risk of having to expose modifications to the source code and would always make a decision based on the context of usage. AGPL and GPL are definitely a problem in embedded world but not so for hosted systems. I would argue that, for a player committed to host an AGPL licensed system, it narrows down to properly fencing the system from proprietary systems. I personally maintain an AGPL based project but I treat the "lawyers will not touch it" as a case of "security by obscurity". There's nothing fuzzy about access over the network: > The GNU Affero General Public License is based on the GNU GPL, but has an additional term to allow users who interact with the licensed software over a network to receive the source for that program. We recommend that people consider using the GNU AGPL for any software which will commonly be run over a network. http://www.gnu.org/licenses/licenses.html#AGPL http://www.gnu.org/licenses/licenses.html#AGPL If a corporation hosts an unmodified or even modified version of the AGPL system, where they can afford to share their modifications, they can still leverage their scale / network effect and take the creator out of business.