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I really like the fact that it can be used offline. Sadly it seems to be AGPL licensed, which makes it pretty much untouchable by anything adjacent to any sort

I really like the fact that it can be used offline. Sadly it seems to be AGPL licensed, which makes it pretty much untouchable by anything adjacent to any sort of business which employs lawyers.

kelnos 4y ago
The linked post seems to indicate there are commercial licensing options. Of course, businesses would prefer to use this for free, but I'm sure they can pay for a license that doesn't bind them to the terms of the AGPL.
- salmo 4y ago
  Big companies want to pay and have “support.” Lawyers don’t like licenses, they want a proper contract. But if it’s AGPL, I’ll move on. They’re too idealistic to deal with megacorp. They don’t sell through intermediaries, can’t/won’t be insured enough, etc. Inevitably the small company sees $$$ and goes nuts trying to sell even when warned not to. Then the risk management and contract stuff kicks in, drags out, and kills it. The small company blew a bunch of cash on nothing. Or they base sales projections on it. I’ve seen a couple go under. Those are people’s livelihoods and I can’t do that to them. That’s not limited to AGPL, but the license is a signal of that type of business. And they never do the smart thing with megacorp and sell through an established intermediary. Takes a lot of good software off the table.
  - kelnos 4y ago
    I mean, that's fine, though, right? If they don't have the headcount to sell support contracts, and that's not the kind of company they want to build, that's their choice. I sympathize; running a company like that doesn't sound particularly pleasant. You quickly lose focus on building the actual technology and spend too much time on enterprise sales. And if they don't want to give away their software under terms that let people put it behind a web service without releasing changes, that's also their choice.
  - happymellon 4y ago
    This is complete hogwash. Most companies are fine with BSD/MIT software with absolutely no support. Your argument holds absolutely no water compared to what they actually want which is to take other people's work and close it up for profit. If they want a license to close it up, they can pay for it.
2Gkashmiri 4y ago
Sadly this is the same sentiment felt by Foss people around proprietary and even stuff like MIT licensed things. MIT is cool and all but it can be used to build proprietary software which is like ideologically troubling. Guess both sides have strong feeling why something is "bad". I personally only contribute to agpl software, try to use agpl/sspl and similar licensed software. Guess the " corporate mentality" and "Foss mentality" don't meet unless it's a corp built around Foss products and ideology. Look at valve and their deck compared to Nintendo switch.
stavros 4y ago
Then contact the authors and pay for licensing, easy peasy!
bhaney 4y ago
> pretty much untouchable by anything adjacent to any sort of business which employs lawyers Darn
pierotofy 4y ago
AGPL is a good license for open source. https://drewdevault.com/2020/07/27/Anti-AGPL-propaganda.html https://drewdevault.com/2020/07/27/Anti-AGPL-propaganda.html (and we should get more open source projects to consider it)
- wmf 4y ago
  There's a big difference between pure AGPL and bait-and-switch AGPL. IMO using AGPL to steer people towards paid proprietary licenses is not good for open source.
  - happymellon 4y ago
    It only steers you to proprietary licences when you want to use other people's code without sharing with others the benefits that you got by using open source software. Use others to gain an advantage, then pull up the ladder after you. I'm not surprised that large corporations want to have their cake, eat it and not pay for it but it's not a compelling argument for people producing opensource software
  - pierotofy 4y ago
    Dual licensing deals can fund work on the AGPL code, which is good. It’s not ideal and has some compromises, but should not be discarded.
synesthesiam 4y ago
The voices are under a CC-BY-SA license, so you can generate all the audio you want (offline), even for commercial usage.
lovelearning 4y ago
Companies like Amazon seem ready to throw cash at their lawyers but not at the developers whose source code they grab to build commercial products.
hobo_mark 4y ago
But why? It's released as a docker container, say I deploy this container, as-is, with Cloud Run or Lambda or whatever, since I'm not "linking" my code against it, I'm just sending it SSML requests as one of several TTS backends, no virality provision applies, I just have to provide users with a download link to the same upstream code I am using. I imagine a lawyer working at a technology company can understand the use case I just described and pattern-match it against the AGPL requirements, what am I missing?

I really like the fact that it can be used offline. Sadly it seems to be AGPL licensed, which makes it pretty much untouchable by anything adjacent to any sort of business which employs lawyers.

kelnos 4y ago

The linked post seems to indicate there are commercial licensing options. Of course, businesses would prefer to use this for free, but I'm sure they can pay for a license that doesn't bind them to the terms of the AGPL.

salmo 4y ago
Big companies want to pay and have “support.” Lawyers don’t like licenses, they want a proper contract. But if it’s AGPL, I’ll move on. They’re too idealistic to deal with megacorp. They don’t sell through intermediaries, can’t/won’t be insured enough, etc. Inevitably the small company sees $$$ and goes nuts trying to sell even when warned not to. Then the risk management and contract stuff kicks in, drags out, and kills it. The small company blew a bunch of cash on nothing. Or they base sales projections on it. I’ve seen a couple go under. Those are people’s livelihoods and I can’t do that to them. That’s not limited to AGPL, but the license is a signal of that type of business. And they never do the smart thing with megacorp and sell through an established intermediary. Takes a lot of good software off the table.
- kelnos 4y ago
  I mean, that's fine, though, right? If they don't have the headcount to sell support contracts, and that's not the kind of company they want to build, that's their choice. I sympathize; running a company like that doesn't sound particularly pleasant. You quickly lose focus on building the actual technology and spend too much time on enterprise sales. And if they don't want to give away their software under terms that let people put it behind a web service without releasing changes, that's also their choice.
- happymellon 4y ago
  This is complete hogwash. Most companies are fine with BSD/MIT software with absolutely no support. Your argument holds absolutely no water compared to what they actually want which is to take other people's work and close it up for profit. If they want a license to close it up, they can pay for it.

2Gkashmiri 4y ago

Sadly this is the same sentiment felt by Foss people around proprietary and even stuff like MIT licensed things. MIT is cool and all but it can be used to build proprietary software which is like ideologically troubling. Guess both sides have strong feeling why something is "bad". I personally only contribute to agpl software, try to use agpl/sspl and similar licensed software. Guess the " corporate mentality" and "Foss mentality" don't meet unless it's a corp built around Foss products and ideology. Look at valve and their deck compared to Nintendo switch.

stavros 4y ago

Then contact the authors and pay for licensing, easy peasy!

bhaney 4y ago

> pretty much untouchable by anything adjacent to any sort of business which employs lawyers Darn

pierotofy 4y ago

AGPL is a good license for open source. https://drewdevault.com/2020/07/27/Anti-AGPL-propaganda.html https://drewdevault.com/2020/07/27/Anti-AGPL-propaganda.html (and we should get more open source projects to consider it)

wmf 4y ago
There's a big difference between pure AGPL and bait-and-switch AGPL. IMO using AGPL to steer people towards paid proprietary licenses is not good for open source.
- happymellon 4y ago
  It only steers you to proprietary licences when you want to use other people's code without sharing with others the benefits that you got by using open source software. Use others to gain an advantage, then pull up the ladder after you. I'm not surprised that large corporations want to have their cake, eat it and not pay for it but it's not a compelling argument for people producing opensource software
- pierotofy 4y ago
  Dual licensing deals can fund work on the AGPL code, which is good. It’s not ideal and has some compromises, but should not be discarded.

synesthesiam 4y ago

The voices are under a CC-BY-SA license, so you can generate all the audio you want (offline), even for commercial usage.

lovelearning 4y ago

Companies like Amazon seem ready to throw cash at their lawyers but not at the developers whose source code they grab to build commercial products.

hobo_mark 4y ago

But why? It's released as a docker container, say I deploy this container, as-is, with Cloud Run or Lambda or whatever, since I'm not "linking" my code against it, I'm just sending it SSML requests as one of several TTS backends, no virality provision applies, I just have to provide users with a download link to the same upstream code I am using. I imagine a lawyer working at a technology company can understand the use case I just described and pattern-match it against the AGPL requirements, what am I missing?