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Good, I license much of my open source software under the AGPL because of how easily bad actors are able to scare themselves with FUD about the license. I want

Good, I license much of my open source software under the AGPL because of how easily bad actors are able to scare themselves with FUD about the license. I want companies who don't understand the licens to be afraid of simply taking without giving back. That said, most of fear around the AGPL is nonsense, and there are plenty of companies and contributors who understand the license and adhere to the terms AGPL software ships under. If Google wants to limit their options, while smaller competitors get a leg up by understanding and using their AGPL options, that's good for the market.

vander_elst 5y ago
IANAL so I don't have much experience here, but I am not sure this hits the spot. I think that an organization like Google can afford the brain power needed to understand many of the the implications of using such a license. There are probably other legal, compliance and liability reasons behind this rather than just lack of understanding.
- voakbasda 5y ago
  I agree. I think they understand that they do not want to comply with the license terms.
  - ithkuil 5y ago
    Yes, and they clearly state why: > The primary risk presented by AGPL is that any product or service that depends on AGPL-licensed code, or includes anything copied or derived from AGPL-licensed code, may be subject to the virality of the AGPL license. This viral effect requires that the complete corresponding source code of the product or service be released to the world under the AGPL license. It's not that they want to fork a opensource component and they don't want to release their changes. It's because they are afraid that accidentally one part of an AGPL code gets linked into some of their production software which would force them to disclose the sources of their own IP. And it's hard to quantify the blast radius of that, since they are linking a shit-ton of stuff in every binary (think of thick clients for their colossus storage system). It's not that they want to pull an Amazon on OSS components they then sell as a service.
    - withinboredom 5y ago
      License an API under AGPL?
heavyset_go 5y ago
* license. That's what I get for posting from the gym.

vander_elst 5y ago

IANAL so I don't have much experience here, but I am not sure this hits the spot. I think that an organization like Google can afford the brain power needed to understand many of the the implications of using such a license. There are probably other legal, compliance and liability reasons behind this rather than just lack of understanding.

voakbasda 5y ago
I agree. I think they understand that they do not want to comply with the license terms.
- ithkuil 5y ago
  Yes, and they clearly state why: > The primary risk presented by AGPL is that any product or service that depends on AGPL-licensed code, or includes anything copied or derived from AGPL-licensed code, may be subject to the virality of the AGPL license. This viral effect requires that the complete corresponding source code of the product or service be released to the world under the AGPL license. It's not that they want to fork a opensource component and they don't want to release their changes. It's because they are afraid that accidentally one part of an AGPL code gets linked into some of their production software which would force them to disclose the sources of their own IP. And it's hard to quantify the blast radius of that, since they are linking a shit-ton of stuff in every binary (think of thick clients for their colossus storage system). It's not that they want to pull an Amazon on OSS components they then sell as a service.
  - withinboredom 5y ago
    License an API under AGPL?

heavyset_go 5y ago

* license. That's what I get for posting from the gym.