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The article is ambiguous, and both interpretations are legally incorrect. 1) The AGPL is designed to binding when making a joint work -- e.g. two pieces of cod
by frognumber 3y ago
The article is ambiguous, and both interpretations are legally incorrect.
1) The AGPL is designed to binding when making a joint work -- e.g. two pieces of code where the logic is intimately coupled. If I make a front-end and a back-end of an application, the AGPL holds. That's a derivative work.
2) The AGPL is not designed to hold when merely using something over established protocols. If I write a generic web server under the AGPL, clients under any license can (and should be able to) connect. That's not a derivative work. That's two independent works.
The test here is not -- as I've seen corporate legal departs indicated -- a question of how things are linked (e.g. web protocols, dynamic, or static binding), but how closely the logic is coupled. If the two pieces are integral to each other, it's a modified work. If I can swap one out (e.g. a SQL server working over established protocols), it's mere aggregation.
Now, if I'm running a tool under the AGPL, the process of installing it triggered the AGPL at some point:
- If you can access it over any protocol, either I (or someone else) is probably required to give you the source code to any modifications.
- If you can't access it, I can have secret modifications. That's by design.
Where things get complex is what it means for you to have access. Consider:
1) I run a modified AGPL algorithm on my computer to make a picture of a frog for my own use (clearly okay)
2) ... and I distribute the picture
3) ... at your request, by a contract we signed in person
4) ... at your request, manually, based on a web form you filled out
5) ... same as above, but automatically, in daily batches
6) ... instantly (you make an AJAX call to http://myserver/make_image/prompt=frog http://myserver/make_image/prompt=frog).
#6 is clearly infringing if I don't provide access to my modifications. Where does interacting with the work over a network begin? That's untested waters.