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> Many people find the AGPL to be a nonfree license, myself included. I don't understand this stance. From the point of view of the user, the AGPL offers the

> Many people find the AGPL to be a nonfree license, myself included. I don't understand this stance. From the point of view of the user, the AGPL offers the same freedoms as the regular GPL. If you use the program, you have the right to see and edit its source code, regardless if the program runs on your own computer or on another computer. How can anybody call this feature "nonfree" is beyond me.

hnfong 4y ago
AGPL basically says you can't use the program to provide an online service unless you $(sacrifice your first-born.) Granted, the license only asks you to publicize your modifications, but in software that's basically your "first-born".
- detaro 4y ago
  Not really, the vast majority of users of these kinds of software run it unmodified, the valuable stuff is around it. (If that weren't the case, MongoDB hadn't come up with their own "give us everything!" license because AGPL was too "weak")
  - hnfong 4y ago
    One of the important definitions of Free (capital F) software is the freedom to modify it without restrictions. If you're just talking about the freedom to run things unmodified, basically every software you can download online without paying is "free", and obviously AGPL fits that bill for the uncapitalized "free" software. But that's not what we're talking about here, right?
    - detaro 4y ago
      If the freedoms is your angle: And a large point of the GPL family of licenses is to make you publish your changes so your users can run and further modify it, and AGPL is a logical extension to that for a world in which users rely on software they don't personally run. So that their important freedom of being able to run and modify software they rely on is preserved. If you get to keep your changes, your users are deprived. The situation is funny that AGPL is widely derided as both being to weak and being to strong.

hnfong 4y ago

AGPL basically says you can't use the program to provide an online service unless you $(sacrifice your first-born.) Granted, the license only asks you to publicize your modifications, but in software that's basically your "first-born".

detaro 4y ago
Not really, the vast majority of users of these kinds of software run it unmodified, the valuable stuff is around it. (If that weren't the case, MongoDB hadn't come up with their own "give us everything!" license because AGPL was too "weak")
- hnfong 4y ago
  One of the important definitions of Free (capital F) software is the freedom to modify it without restrictions. If you're just talking about the freedom to run things unmodified, basically every software you can download online without paying is "free", and obviously AGPL fits that bill for the uncapitalized "free" software. But that's not what we're talking about here, right?
  - detaro 4y ago
    If the freedoms is your angle: And a large point of the GPL family of licenses is to make you publish your changes so your users can run and further modify it, and AGPL is a logical extension to that for a world in which users rely on software they don't personally run. So that their important freedom of being able to run and modify software they rely on is preserved. If you get to keep your changes, your users are deprived. The situation is funny that AGPL is widely derided as both being to weak and being to strong.