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> Interesting to see it on the frontpage again. I believe OP may have picked it up from my comment elsewhere today: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=283893

> Interesting to see it on the frontpage again. I believe OP may have picked it up from my comment elsewhere today: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28389308 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28389308 Anyways, I wanted to ask a few questions, if I may: 1. Why is listmonk AGPLd? It doesn't look like listmonk is core to Zerodha (even if it is released on your personal GitHub) and so curious about the licensing, because MIT/Apache could have done just as nicely, especially since xGPLv3 software is pretty much a no at most tech firms. 2. How do you decide if a repo is going to land on knadh vs zerodha GitHub? 3. Any plans to take it fully serverless with Aurora Serverless + Fargate or fly.io, for examples. Thanks.

knadh 5y ago
1. I think AGPL is a good license for web apps that can also dissuade Elastic/Mongo-like fiascos. Mastodon, Metabase, Grafana, Minio etc. are AGPL and are widely used. 2. We see ourselves as a group of hackers and not really as a corporate entity. Many projects that come out of our team are largely individual efforts. For instance, I have spend considerable personal time working on listmonk over the last couple of years just because I like it. There is no Zerodha mandate involved. Only projects that have to be branded as Zerodha or involve a lot of multi-dev effort go under the official handle (ref: https://zerodha.tech/projects https://zerodha.tech/projects) 3. listmonk offers a one-click Heroku button (a bunch of simple scripts really), so it should just be a matter of creating deployment scripts for other platforms as well. I have not looked into it personally.
- ignoramous 5y ago
  Thanks. > I think AGPL is a good license for web apps that can also dissuade Elastic/Mongo-like fiascos Fair but listmonk doesn't seem like it is core to any for-profit business that zerodha or you run, and so could have been permissively licensed? See also: https://blogs.apache.org/foundation/entry/the-apache-way-to-sustainable https://blogs.apache.org/foundation/entry/the-apache-way-to-... Nothing against the xGPLs, because they protect a user's freedom better than MPLs / EPLs / APLs, even if the license's nuances are not well-understood (which is why they're restricted for use by some tech firms).
  - tlamponi 5y ago
    What would their benefits for releasing it under a permissive license be? AGPLv3 is a good trade, you get to use it for free but if you make improvements they need to be released, which often means that they are directly unstreamed as that is easier in the long in regard to code maintenance and tarball/source-control hosting for the modified sources. So win-win for all users and the devs. > even if the license's nuances are not well-understood Which nuances are not understood? > which is why they're restricted for use by some tech firms Only those companies that want to actually modify the source and directly integrate it in a proprietary project, iow taking all but giving back nothing. All companies that just want to use it unmodified, just accessing the API or integrate it in a compatible project with releasing any changes are just fine to do so.
    - ignoramous 5y ago
      > What would their benefits for releasing it under a permissive license be? Similar benefits to a work released to the public domain (under permissive licenses such as BSD 0-Clause, CC-0, The Unlicense etc) versus any work that isn't. See the linked apache foundation blog-post in my comment above. > AGPLv3 is a good trade, you get to use it for free but if you make improvements they need to be released... This can be achieved with just GPLv3, and to an extent (but not quite) with EPLv2, MPLv2, and LGPLv3. > Which nuances are not understood? Ex A: https://opensource.stackexchange.com/questions/5003/agplv3-source-redistribution-when-does-it-apply-to-my-code-for-a-server-side-ja https://opensource.stackexchange.com/questions/5003/agplv3-s... > Only those companies that want to actually modify the source and directly integrate it in a proprietary project, iow taking all but giving back nothing. Not really. Tech shops also tend to outlaw it for "risks involved". Ex A: https://opensource.google/docs/using/agpl-policy/ https://opensource.google/docs/using/agpl-policy/ Even zerodha, which has closed sourced bits, would do well to seek counsel when using listmonk because there's danger they might violate AGPLv3 (ie, the rights of all contributors to listmonk) themselves if they're not careful enough.
      - tlamponi 5y ago
        >> AGPLv3 is a good trade, you get to use it for free but if you make improvements they need to be released... > This can be achieved with just GPLv3, and to an extent (but not quite) with EPLv2, MPLv2, and LGPLv3. No it cannot be achieved with those in generally, as Elasticsearch and other recent fiascos show. Only AGPLv3 provides protection against "bad actor" SaaS providers. See https://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-affero-gpl.html https://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-affero-gpl.html >> Which nuances are not understood? > Ex A: https://opensource.stackexchange.com/questions/5003/agplv3-s... Seems like a pretty clear answer with lots of good sources backing it up. I'd appreciate it if you could be a bit more specific in where you see the non-understood nuances. >> Only those companies that want to actually modify the source and directly integrate it in a proprietary project, iow taking all but giving back nothing. > Not really. Tech shops also tend to outlaw it for "risks involved". Ex A: https://opensource.google/docs/using/agpl-policy/ I know from personal experience that in practice this is not true in general, there are exemptions and AGPLv3 projects are used (but not derived or directly linked to!) – I cannot give out the specifics though, I'm afraid, so you'd need to take my word on that one.
anaganisk 5y ago
I believe its to prevent AWS from launching Elastics CopyPasteMailer.

knadh 5y ago

1. I think AGPL is a good license for web apps that can also dissuade Elastic/Mongo-like fiascos. Mastodon, Metabase, Grafana, Minio etc. are AGPL and are widely used. 2. We see ourselves as a group of hackers and not really as a corporate entity. Many projects that come out of our team are largely individual efforts. For instance, I have spend considerable personal time working on listmonk over the last couple of years just because I like it. There is no Zerodha mandate involved. Only projects that have to be branded as Zerodha or involve a lot of multi-dev effort go under the official handle (ref: https://zerodha.tech/projects https://zerodha.tech/projects) 3. listmonk offers a one-click Heroku button (a bunch of simple scripts really), so it should just be a matter of creating deployment scripts for other platforms as well. I have not looked into it personally.

ignoramous 5y ago
Thanks. > I think AGPL is a good license for web apps that can also dissuade Elastic/Mongo-like fiascos Fair but listmonk doesn't seem like it is core to any for-profit business that zerodha or you run, and so could have been permissively licensed? See also: https://blogs.apache.org/foundation/entry/the-apache-way-to-sustainable https://blogs.apache.org/foundation/entry/the-apache-way-to-... Nothing against the xGPLs, because they protect a user's freedom better than MPLs / EPLs / APLs, even if the license's nuances are not well-understood (which is why they're restricted for use by some tech firms).
- tlamponi 5y ago
  What would their benefits for releasing it under a permissive license be? AGPLv3 is a good trade, you get to use it for free but if you make improvements they need to be released, which often means that they are directly unstreamed as that is easier in the long in regard to code maintenance and tarball/source-control hosting for the modified sources. So win-win for all users and the devs. > even if the license's nuances are not well-understood Which nuances are not understood? > which is why they're restricted for use by some tech firms Only those companies that want to actually modify the source and directly integrate it in a proprietary project, iow taking all but giving back nothing. All companies that just want to use it unmodified, just accessing the API or integrate it in a compatible project with releasing any changes are just fine to do so.
  - ignoramous 5y ago
    > What would their benefits for releasing it under a permissive license be? Similar benefits to a work released to the public domain (under permissive licenses such as BSD 0-Clause, CC-0, The Unlicense etc) versus any work that isn't. See the linked apache foundation blog-post in my comment above. > AGPLv3 is a good trade, you get to use it for free but if you make improvements they need to be released... This can be achieved with just GPLv3, and to an extent (but not quite) with EPLv2, MPLv2, and LGPLv3. > Which nuances are not understood? Ex A: https://opensource.stackexchange.com/questions/5003/agplv3-source-redistribution-when-does-it-apply-to-my-code-for-a-server-side-ja https://opensource.stackexchange.com/questions/5003/agplv3-s... > Only those companies that want to actually modify the source and directly integrate it in a proprietary project, iow taking all but giving back nothing. Not really. Tech shops also tend to outlaw it for "risks involved". Ex A: https://opensource.google/docs/using/agpl-policy/ https://opensource.google/docs/using/agpl-policy/ Even zerodha, which has closed sourced bits, would do well to seek counsel when using listmonk because there's danger they might violate AGPLv3 (ie, the rights of all contributors to listmonk) themselves if they're not careful enough.
    - tlamponi 5y ago
      >> AGPLv3 is a good trade, you get to use it for free but if you make improvements they need to be released... > This can be achieved with just GPLv3, and to an extent (but not quite) with EPLv2, MPLv2, and LGPLv3. No it cannot be achieved with those in generally, as Elasticsearch and other recent fiascos show. Only AGPLv3 provides protection against "bad actor" SaaS providers. See https://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-affero-gpl.html https://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-affero-gpl.html >> Which nuances are not understood? > Ex A: https://opensource.stackexchange.com/questions/5003/agplv3-s... Seems like a pretty clear answer with lots of good sources backing it up. I'd appreciate it if you could be a bit more specific in where you see the non-understood nuances. >> Only those companies that want to actually modify the source and directly integrate it in a proprietary project, iow taking all but giving back nothing. > Not really. Tech shops also tend to outlaw it for "risks involved". Ex A: https://opensource.google/docs/using/agpl-policy/ I know from personal experience that in practice this is not true in general, there are exemptions and AGPLv3 projects are used (but not derived or directly linked to!) – I cannot give out the specifics though, I'm afraid, so you'd need to take my word on that one.

anaganisk 5y ago

I believe its to prevent AWS from launching Elastics CopyPasteMailer.