5 ms·

> I wouldn’t consider any of this open source any more. If this was BSL I agree with you, but that is not the case. AGPL is about as open source as it gets. I

by lrvick 3y ago

> I wouldn’t consider any of this open source any more. If this was BSL I agree with you, but that is not the case. AGPL is about as open source as it gets. It is forced open source. I recommend AGPL to any of my clients open sourcing anything in a competitive environment these days. Free for the public, but greedy corpos that do not want to share changes and be part of the community are forced to pay to support the developers that are. This AGPL working as designed, and is certainly FLOSS.

gtirloni 3y ago
The AGPL is not the issue. The CLA is. It allows the project to change licenses at will, without going back to all contributors and asking for approval.
- taway1237 3y ago
  Ah yes, CLAs are not a real open source, which is why they're required by uhh FSF. I mean I dislike CLAs personally, but I understand why they can be healthy for a project growth.
  - gtirloni 3y ago
    No, the issue is not that they are not open source. The issue is the risk to users/contributors. These two things are being conflated in this discussion. One thing is a CLA and copyright/license changes. The other is the license itself.
  - ekidd 3y ago
    > Ah yes, CLAs are not a real open source, which is why they're required by uhh FSF. The last time I saw a FSF CLA, it was part of a larger agreement that also imposed obligations on the FSF. In the long run, there may be risks to the FSF holding so many copyrights. But I don't think it clarifies matters to treat the FSF's CLAs the same as ones used by a "open core" VC funded startup.
  - gkbrk 3y ago
    Do you truly see no difference between assigning rights to your own code to a non-profit foundation dedicated to Free Software and assigning rights to your own code to a for-profit company? Especially when the for-profit company openly announces this assignment of rights is for the purpose of selling code you wrote to others without giving back to the authors. The FSF doesn't have a track record of asking for CLAs, and then selling your code to others under different licenses and pocketing the profits.
  - matheusmoreira 3y ago
    If the Free Software Foundation which was started and is headed by Stallman himself betrays the free software movement, then nothing in this world can be trusted anymore.
    - hoseja 3y ago
      Stallman has been browbeaten. For, uhh, being an awkward nerd. Can't have those having influence in our technological world.
- Legogris 3y ago
  They would still have to go back to past contributors prior to introducing CLA. Source: My PR was merged in 2021, the changes are still part of Synapse, and I never signed any CLA. I don't think they'd be able to get enough sign-offs from historical contributors to pull off any actual shenanigans with the Synapse license.
  - Arkanosis 3y ago
    I understand that pre-fork code is under the ASL, not the AGPL, so anybody can use it within derivative works under any license — no CLA needed.
sneak 3y ago
There are many of us who regard the AGPL as a nonfree license. It’s just the FSF zealots who regard the ability to run a services business with free software as a “loophole”.
- oddevan 3y ago
  Hard disagree. I'm looking at a similar license setup for my upcoming project, and I'm going with AGPL because I want to ensure any _users_ of the software have access to the source code. Nothing is stopping anyone from setting up a competing service and charging for it. The only thing they can't do is provide their _modified_ version as a service without providing the source code. Which is just the GPL's usual distribution clause updated for how modern software is distributed. Bear in mind that said source code could literally be a zip file that is emailed when someone requests; there's no requirement to post it publicly on an ongoing basis. I don't consider myself a FSF zealot; far from it in fact. Most of my software to date has been permissively licensed. The difference in this particular case is I'm not just building a tool or a library, I'm building out a complete product and putting a LOT of my hard-earned time and energy into it. Enough that I want to actually put in writing that any modifications should also be open-sourced.

by lrvick 3y ago

gtirloni 3y ago

The AGPL is not the issue. The CLA is. It allows the project to change licenses at will, without going back to all contributors and asking for approval.

taway1237 3y ago
Ah yes, CLAs are not a real open source, which is why they're required by uhh FSF. I mean I dislike CLAs personally, but I understand why they can be healthy for a project growth.
- gtirloni 3y ago
  No, the issue is not that they are not open source. The issue is the risk to users/contributors. These two things are being conflated in this discussion. One thing is a CLA and copyright/license changes. The other is the license itself.
- ekidd 3y ago
  > Ah yes, CLAs are not a real open source, which is why they're required by uhh FSF. The last time I saw a FSF CLA, it was part of a larger agreement that also imposed obligations on the FSF. In the long run, there may be risks to the FSF holding so many copyrights. But I don't think it clarifies matters to treat the FSF's CLAs the same as ones used by a "open core" VC funded startup.
- gkbrk 3y ago
  Do you truly see no difference between assigning rights to your own code to a non-profit foundation dedicated to Free Software and assigning rights to your own code to a for-profit company? Especially when the for-profit company openly announces this assignment of rights is for the purpose of selling code you wrote to others without giving back to the authors. The FSF doesn't have a track record of asking for CLAs, and then selling your code to others under different licenses and pocketing the profits.
- matheusmoreira 3y ago
  If the Free Software Foundation which was started and is headed by Stallman himself betrays the free software movement, then nothing in this world can be trusted anymore.
  - hoseja 3y ago
    Stallman has been browbeaten. For, uhh, being an awkward nerd. Can't have those having influence in our technological world.
Legogris 3y ago
They would still have to go back to past contributors prior to introducing CLA. Source: My PR was merged in 2021, the changes are still part of Synapse, and I never signed any CLA. I don't think they'd be able to get enough sign-offs from historical contributors to pull off any actual shenanigans with the Synapse license.
- Arkanosis 3y ago
  I understand that pre-fork code is under the ASL, not the AGPL, so anybody can use it within derivative works under any license — no CLA needed.

sneak 3y ago

There are many of us who regard the AGPL as a nonfree license. It’s just the FSF zealots who regard the ability to run a services business with free software as a “loophole”.

oddevan 3y ago
Hard disagree. I'm looking at a similar license setup for my upcoming project, and I'm going with AGPL because I want to ensure any _users_ of the software have access to the source code. Nothing is stopping anyone from setting up a competing service and charging for it. The only thing they can't do is provide their _modified_ version as a service without providing the source code. Which is just the GPL's usual distribution clause updated for how modern software is distributed. Bear in mind that said source code could literally be a zip file that is emailed when someone requests; there's no requirement to post it publicly on an ongoing basis. I don't consider myself a FSF zealot; far from it in fact. Most of my software to date has been permissively licensed. The difference in this particular case is I'm not just building a tool or a library, I'm building out a complete product and putting a LOT of my hard-earned time and energy into it. Enough that I want to actually put in writing that any modifications should also be open-sourced.