3 ms·

A lot of legal departments have a mental image of AGPL (and GPL) as a bogeyman that will steal all the company's code if allowed anywhere near the building. I'

by nzmsv 5y ago

A lot of legal departments have a mental image of AGPL (and GPL) as a bogeyman that will steal all the company's code if allowed anywhere near the building. I've sat through a presentation one time that tried to paint these licenses as something only basement dwellers use for personal projects. I spoke to the presenter afterwards and told them about projects like Linux and Mongo, and how even AGPL is not as scary as they thought. The lawyer seemed genuinely surprised and said they would read up on it. I'm pretty sure my bringing this up in a friendly manner caused them to question their assumptions. Had I picked a fight during the presentation I'd just be labeled a basement dweller. However, this lawyer also told me something interesting. To some extent it doesn't matter whether I was able to change his mind. As long as other lawyers in the field have this bogeyman concept in mind, the use of GPL will get flagged in due diligence, etc. and it's easier to simply not use a component with strong copyleft when developing a product (unless it's as irreplaceable as Linux). This is a long-winded way of saying that selling exceptions will likely scare off potential purchasers long before they are in a position to consider the purchase. Most shops have a blanket "no GPL ever" policy and a dev won't even bother with the component even for a prototype.

robocat 5y ago
My personal experience as a developer and owner is that it is very difficult and time consuming to understand the risks and to comprehend the *GPL licences. For example, using an LGPL based JavaScript library just leaves me confused every time. I read the LGPL 3.0, read some stack overflow answers, and read the GNU website. Yet I am left without being 100% certain that I can minify the LGPL JavaScript into a single file with my own source code (because JavaScript is not object code, and because sending JavaScript to the browser is distribution). With BSD/MIT licences everything is clear and less ambiguous, and if I get something wrong then it is usually something easy to fix. If I were a general counsel, I wouldn’t trust all my developers to follow the GPL licenses properly nor would I trust developers to correctly avoid simple mistakes. A default ban limits liability, reduces risks of negative publicity, and anyone that needs an exception has to justify it. Idealistically, I love the GPL, and I truely believe in the goal of share and share alike. Practically I understand why following the *GPL licences is difficult and that it involves multiple risks for a business, and so many commercial businesses sensibly prefer to avoid the costs.
- laurent92 5y ago
  There was a funny Microsoft license for Xlsx.js (a lib that read Excel files in browser): It was allowed to distribute freely… as long as it runs on Windows: > (F) Platform Limitation- The licenses granted in sections 2(A) & 2(B) extend only to the software or derivative works that (1) are run on a Microsoft Windows operating system product, and (2) are not Excluded Products. So you could not deliver it on Safari, but also not on Chrome if it ran on Mac. Aaaand that is why the JSXLSX implementation was developed, exactly the same as xlsx.js but without the restriction. https://github.com/stephen-hardy/xlsx.js/issues/8 https://github.com/stephen-hardy/xlsx.js/issues/8

by nzmsv 5y ago

robocat 5y ago

My personal experience as a developer and owner is that it is very difficult and time consuming to understand the risks and to comprehend the *GPL licences. For example, using an LGPL based JavaScript library just leaves me confused every time. I read the LGPL 3.0, read some stack overflow answers, and read the GNU website. Yet I am left without being 100% certain that I can minify the LGPL JavaScript into a single file with my own source code (because JavaScript is not object code, and because sending JavaScript to the browser is distribution). With BSD/MIT licences everything is clear and less ambiguous, and if I get something wrong then it is usually something easy to fix. If I were a general counsel, I wouldn’t trust all my developers to follow the GPL licenses properly nor would I trust developers to correctly avoid simple mistakes. A default ban limits liability, reduces risks of negative publicity, and anyone that needs an exception has to justify it. Idealistically, I love the GPL, and I truely believe in the goal of share and share alike. Practically I understand why following the *GPL licences is difficult and that it involves multiple risks for a business, and so many commercial businesses sensibly prefer to avoid the costs.

laurent92 5y ago
There was a funny Microsoft license for Xlsx.js (a lib that read Excel files in browser): It was allowed to distribute freely… as long as it runs on Windows: > (F) Platform Limitation- The licenses granted in sections 2(A) & 2(B) extend only to the software or derivative works that (1) are run on a Microsoft Windows operating system product, and (2) are not Excluded Products. So you could not deliver it on Safari, but also not on Chrome if it ran on Mac. Aaaand that is why the JSXLSX implementation was developed, exactly the same as xlsx.js but without the restriction. https://github.com/stephen-hardy/xlsx.js/issues/8 https://github.com/stephen-hardy/xlsx.js/issues/8