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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 perfectl

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.

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.