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> We do not choose AGPL so we would not harm our users. This is a first. If anything, it seems clear that a FLOSS license such as AGPL achieves exactly the opp

> We do not choose AGPL so we would not harm our users. This is a first. If anything, it seems clear that a FLOSS license such as AGPL achieves exactly the opposite: is highly protective of the users' best interests, both in the short term and long term. Could you elaborate on why do you think that users are harmed by standard, run-of-the-mill FLOSS licenses?

cortesoft 4y ago
Depends on who you consider 'the users'. If you are a 'user' in the sense of an individual working on their own stuff, then yes, AGPL protects you a lot. However, if you are a 'user' in the sense of a company wanting to make software to sell as a service, it doesn't protect you very much, and can make you vulnerable.
- leonidasv 4y ago
  How does AGPL can make a company trying to sell a software* as service vulnerable? *Assuming it's not a memory-store as a service, obviously.
  - cortesoft 4y ago
    I don’t know, but I do know my legal department says we can’t use it, and I have heard the same about many other companies.
    - adastra22 4y ago
      Most legal departments don't allow for copyleft licenses. This is because most legal departments don't actually make their own legal determinations but instead rely on industry norms. And google set the stage here ages ago with their no-GPL (and especially, no-AGPL) policy. However this is rather uniquely due to Google's monorepo infrastructure. Google quite literally has all its products in the same source code repository, being built and statically linked together to create a single system binary (or so I am told--I've never worked there). In this case AGPL would virally infect the rest of your code and you could find yourself in trouble. Even if they don't, they might get hit with a discovery request for the source code of some project to prove compliance, and in the process have to provide their entire monorepo and all its business secrets to the court. Etc. Etc. But these are concerns which stem directly from Google's monorepo architecture. It's not generally true of the whole industry. And yet Google's fear of copyleft--rational though it may be in their particular instance--has been copied throughout the entire industry. 99% of the companies out there have nothing to fear from the AGPL. But hey, if you're some random in-house lawyer at company XYZ, who are you to question Google's legal precedent?
- arinlen 4y ago
  > However, if you are a 'user' in the sense of a company wanting to make software to sell as a service (...) That does not meet the definition of "user", does it? In addition, if that was the motivation behind that absurd claim, why not be honest and just say "we don't release our software under a FLOSS license because what we actually want is to keep it proprietary"?
  - cortesoft 4y ago
    It means ‘user’ in the sense of the person who is choosing what software to include in their work stack, and most software of this type is going to be used in a professional setting. If you use a license that most legal departments won’t let their developers use, your software won’t gain much adoption… which is especially important if you are planning on making money from your software. People aren’t going to be paying for support for their personal projects.

cortesoft 4y ago

Depends on who you consider 'the users'. If you are a 'user' in the sense of an individual working on their own stuff, then yes, AGPL protects you a lot. However, if you are a 'user' in the sense of a company wanting to make software to sell as a service, it doesn't protect you very much, and can make you vulnerable.

leonidasv 4y ago
How does AGPL can make a company trying to sell a software* as service vulnerable? *Assuming it's not a memory-store as a service, obviously.
- cortesoft 4y ago
  I don’t know, but I do know my legal department says we can’t use it, and I have heard the same about many other companies.
  - adastra22 4y ago
    Most legal departments don't allow for copyleft licenses. This is because most legal departments don't actually make their own legal determinations but instead rely on industry norms. And google set the stage here ages ago with their no-GPL (and especially, no-AGPL) policy. However this is rather uniquely due to Google's monorepo infrastructure. Google quite literally has all its products in the same source code repository, being built and statically linked together to create a single system binary (or so I am told--I've never worked there). In this case AGPL would virally infect the rest of your code and you could find yourself in trouble. Even if they don't, they might get hit with a discovery request for the source code of some project to prove compliance, and in the process have to provide their entire monorepo and all its business secrets to the court. Etc. Etc. But these are concerns which stem directly from Google's monorepo architecture. It's not generally true of the whole industry. And yet Google's fear of copyleft--rational though it may be in their particular instance--has been copied throughout the entire industry. 99% of the companies out there have nothing to fear from the AGPL. But hey, if you're some random in-house lawyer at company XYZ, who are you to question Google's legal precedent?
arinlen 4y ago
> However, if you are a 'user' in the sense of a company wanting to make software to sell as a service (...) That does not meet the definition of "user", does it? In addition, if that was the motivation behind that absurd claim, why not be honest and just say "we don't release our software under a FLOSS license because what we actually want is to keep it proprietary"?
- cortesoft 4y ago
  It means ‘user’ in the sense of the person who is choosing what software to include in their work stack, and most software of this type is going to be used in a professional setting. If you use a license that most legal departments won’t let their developers use, your software won’t gain much adoption… which is especially important if you are planning on making money from your software. People aren’t going to be paying for support for their personal projects.