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> in order for any license to close this loophole, you need to create a licensing term that obligates the user to publish private forks. These terms will inevit
by goodpoint 5y ago
> in order for any license to close this loophole, you need to create a licensing term that obligates the user to publish private forks. These terms will inevitably either restrict the user's freedom to run the program
No. The end user is the one using the SaaS service, not the company providing the service. AGPL is there to give freedom all the way up to the end user. Also, there is no private fork in this scenario.
- kmeisthax 5y agoUh, there is a private fork in this scenario. The whole point of AGPL is that you cannot legally modify the software and host it over a network to avoid having to publish your fork and comply with the GPL copyleft clause. Mere use does not trip the AGPL copyleft, because Freedom Zero is considered sacrosanct. Furthermore, there are plenty of situations involving a network, other than SaaS, in which both the client and server could be considered end-users. For example, a WordPress site. The people who own the site and the people viewing it are two separate sets of end-users with their own freedoms to protect.
- goodpoint 5y agoNo, you are still conflating running something for internal use or for external users. Under AGPL when a service is provided to the public it is not a private fork or private execution. That's the whole point of the AGPL.