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Do you have a source for any of that? I worked at Google from 2011 to 2017, and the licensing policy was always pretty clear that the GPL was broadly OK for se

Do you have a source for any of that? I worked at Google from 2011 to 2017, and the licensing policy was always pretty clear that the GPL was broadly OK for server-side but the AGPL was not. They're one of the few corporate entities I know of that are willing to use GPLv3 code, and when I went through their process for open-sourcing personal projects they had no problem with my use of the GPL. You might be confusing Google with Apple, which was historically willing to use GPLv2 code but is strongly opposed to GPLv3. > the so-called "viral clause" (if any part of the software is GPL/AGPL, > the rest of the software it's part of must also be GPL/AGPL) This is not an accurate summary of the GPL, or of software licensing in general. There is no requirement that all parts of some piece of software use the same license. As one famous example, the Linux kernel (largely GPLv2) also contains code covered by the MIT and BSD licenses. I'm also bothered by how you use "GPL/AGPL" repeatedly. The GPL is a standard copyright license, the AGPL is a EULA, and there's good reasons to distinguish them.

fmajid 5y ago
It may not be an accurate summary, but GPLv3 makes extensive claims and none of that has been tested in court, so it is not unreasonable of them to be wary and not take any risks. They abandoned plans to incorporate ZFS in macOS and implemented the inferior APFS instead simply because of a patent troll lawsuit by NetApp against Sun.
ternaryoperator 5y ago
> I'm also bothered by how you use "GPL/AGPL" repeatedly. The GPL is a standard copyright license, the AGPL is a EULA, and there's good reasons to distinguish them. I'm not sure what distinction you're trying to make. The very first line of the AGPL reads: "The GNU Affero General Public License is a free, copyleft license". And from the FSF's own site: "The GNU Affero General Public License is a modified version of the ordinary GNU GPL version 3. It has one added requirement..." [0] [0] https://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-affero-gpl.html https://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-affero-gpl.html
- jmillikin 5y ago
  The GPL is a copyright license. It applies when copyright law would otherwise prevent distributing some program. If I were to violate the GPL, for example by sending someone a compiled version and refusing to provide the source, then there's a clear legal theory by which copyright law could be applied. That "one added requirement" in the AGPL turns it into a EULA, because it's an attempt to regulate for which purposes a user may run the program. If I were to run a modified AGPL'd SSH server on my own hardware, the question of whether I'm violating the AGPL depends on whether I'm allowing others to access it remotely. If the AGPL can be violated without copyright infringement, it's clearly in a different legal category than the GPL.

fmajid 5y ago

It may not be an accurate summary, but GPLv3 makes extensive claims and none of that has been tested in court, so it is not unreasonable of them to be wary and not take any risks. They abandoned plans to incorporate ZFS in macOS and implemented the inferior APFS instead simply because of a patent troll lawsuit by NetApp against Sun.

ternaryoperator 5y ago

> I'm also bothered by how you use "GPL/AGPL" repeatedly. The GPL is a standard copyright license, the AGPL is a EULA, and there's good reasons to distinguish them. I'm not sure what distinction you're trying to make. The very first line of the AGPL reads: "The GNU Affero General Public License is a free, copyleft license". And from the FSF's own site: "The GNU Affero General Public License is a modified version of the ordinary GNU GPL version 3. It has one added requirement..." [0] [0] https://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-affero-gpl.html https://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-affero-gpl.html

jmillikin 5y ago
The GPL is a copyright license. It applies when copyright law would otherwise prevent distributing some program. If I were to violate the GPL, for example by sending someone a compiled version and refusing to provide the source, then there's a clear legal theory by which copyright law could be applied. That "one added requirement" in the AGPL turns it into a EULA, because it's an attempt to regulate for which purposes a user may run the program. If I were to run a modified AGPL'd SSH server on my own hardware, the question of whether I'm violating the AGPL depends on whether I'm allowing others to access it remotely. If the AGPL can be violated without copyright infringement, it's clearly in a different legal category than the GPL.