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> When the GPL 3 added the anti-TiVo clause, it really should have also added AGPL’s anti-google clauses at the same time. They tried that, everyone balked. Yo

> When the GPL 3 added the anti-TiVo clause, it really should have also added AGPL’s anti-google clauses at the same time. They tried that, everyone balked. You know how Linus Torvalds rejected GPLv3 for Linux specifically because anti-TiVo[0] would be "changing the deal"? Imagine that times a thousand. Furthermore, AGPL is only an anti-Google license specifically because Google is as internally afraid of it as Microsoft is of GPL. You can defeat the Affero clause by putting the software behind a proxy, for example. Furthermore, the Affero clause is only appropriate for web applications - ideally ones in dynamic languages that execute from source that remains on disk. Slapping it on all GPL software would be really, really dangerous. I've heard of people using AGPL on Ethernet PHYs - how the fuck do you offer source code to every packet that crosses an Ethernet switch? If you really want a license clause that would absolutely decimate any corporate freeloading behavior, you want OpenWatcom's anti-private-forks clause[1]. It does everything AGPL tries to do, with fewer legal loopholes. But good luck getting that past RMS. The problem with supra-GPL copylefts is that anything that is legally watertight to a corporation is also going to impinge on a lot of freedoms we enjoy. Remember: the whole point of the GPL is to reject copyright, and that specifically means lots of corporate freeloading, because the whole point of copyright is to stop corporate freeloading. [0] From what I've heard, the anti-TiVo clause in GPLv3 is actually less strict than the FSF advertised, at least relative to how TiVo used Linux. I can't find the original article I heard this in, though! [1] Specifically, the OpenWatcom license requires distribution of source code whenever you use a modified version of the software.

freedomben 3y ago
I mostly agree with you, with one exception: > Remember: the whole point of the GPL is to reject copyright, and that specifically means lots of corporate freeloading, because the whole point of copyright is to stop corporate freeloading I don't think this is true. My understanding (which could be flawed) is that the whole point of the GPL is to weaponize copyright in order to guarantee freedoms, not to reject it (a subtle but important distinction). Also the whole point of copyright doesn't seem to be to stop corporate freeloading, though that is of course part of it. It's point is to ensure that the original creator has rights to benefit from the work, whether that means getting stolen from by a huge corporation or stolen from by teenagers passing memes over the internet, or adapted by an individual/sole proprietor as part of some larger work, etc. My guess is we probably agree on this part and the debate is probably over semantics (i.e. you might have meant "business in general" by "corporate" rather than specific corporations).
- dcow 3y ago
  RMS famously refers to the GPL as a hack on the copyright system. It comes from an axiomatic belief that restricting copying in the computer age is fraught. To put yourself in the headspace, imagine the ivory tower discussion: look at how stupid this law is… don’t the plebeians know that computers copy data around the system and the network all the time to even function, literally digital would be dead if we actually enforced the letter of copyright law, oh and data is context dependent anyway so the same underlying data could manifest two wildly different concepts so you have to bind data and context not just allow people to claim rights to arbitrary strings of bits etc. etc. So it follows that copyright is harmful because if enforced it would dismantle cyberspace. The hack is to use copyright law to enforce licenses that perpetually reject copyright to make sure users have custody of their hardware and can’t be inhibited from freely running whatever combination of instructions they can dream up. A better reality would be something more akin to the world running arch linux and compiling every software from source (but we can’t have that because evil wealth extracting corporate automatons will steal your source, license it and sue you, hence copyleft). And since chefs can’t copyright recipes programmers shant copyright programs, which are just instructions that tell your machine how to achieve some outcome. You are free to sell the best tasting implementations of your programs as packaged SaaS software, though. Your value as a software chef is in the quality of the meals you serve not the knowledge of the specific ingredients used to create them.
dingnuts 3y ago
>You can defeat the Affero clause by putting the software behind a proxy, for example Could someone elaborate on this? This is NOT my understanding of the license, and it seems absurd considering e.g. Mastodon is AGPL but the standard install requires a reverse proxy[1]. If using a proxy defeats Affero, why would the Mastodon team do this? Are they stupid? [1] https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/blob/main/dist/nginx.conf https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/blob/main/dist/nginx.co...
- bombcar 3y ago
  It's never been tested in court, but the theory is you with company A run an Affero GPL (modified code) server. It's not accessible to anyone outside company A, except me, with a proxy-ish server in Company B (which may or may not be controlled/related). Then I'm the only user of your software, and never request the code, even though ten billion users use it via my proxy.
  - singpolyma3 3y ago
    This is only gonna work with a very specific corporate structure, if it even works at all. Judges don't tend to fall for this kind of "being cute"
    - TylerE 3y ago
      I'm not so sure it's just being cute. Define a bright line difference between this API proxy and something like an IRC server. Fundamentally it's an RPC black box. Client sends a command and gets a response. How that response is generated the client has no way of knowing or differentiating. For the defense to fail, wouldn't you have to prove that end user C was a recipient of software from company A? How could this possibly be true when user C cannot observe even the existence of A? Like, imagine this hypothetical. Set up a server. For each unique client that exists, it proxies to one of two backends. One is wrapping an LGPL library. The other is wrapping a cleanroom non-CL implementation. A given user will always get one or the other. Think of it as being assigned off the high bit of a user hash or something. Which users have rights under the LGPL? Remember that half of them have never used the (wrapped) LGPL implementation, and NONE of them can tell which group they are in. I don't actually see the difference as being that distinct from the long accepted fact that a program compiled by a copyleft compiler or running in a copyleft interpreter is not itself inherently copyleft.
not_the_fda 3y ago
[0] The anti-TiVo clause only applies to "User Product" defined in the GPL as a consumer device, i.e. not a device you sell to a business. The idea being business's can fend for themselves. Its perfectly valid to create say a medical device that is sold to hospitals and have it locked down and use LGPL code. The hospital actually wants it locked down.
singpolyma3 3y ago
https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2021/jul/23/tivoization-and-the-gpl-right-to-install/ https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2021/jul/23/tivoization-and-t...
- kmeisthax 3y ago
  > [so], these words in GPLv3: “The information must suffice to ensure that the continued functioning of the modified object code is in no case prevented or interfered with solely because modification has been made.” mean that the proprietary software that is not a combined work with the GPLv3'd work must also function? > Absolutely. And I wrote it specifically to do that! Welp, looks like I was wrong about that one.

freedomben 3y ago

I mostly agree with you, with one exception: > Remember: the whole point of the GPL is to reject copyright, and that specifically means lots of corporate freeloading, because the whole point of copyright is to stop corporate freeloading I don't think this is true. My understanding (which could be flawed) is that the whole point of the GPL is to weaponize copyright in order to guarantee freedoms, not to reject it (a subtle but important distinction). Also the whole point of copyright doesn't seem to be to stop corporate freeloading, though that is of course part of it. It's point is to ensure that the original creator has rights to benefit from the work, whether that means getting stolen from by a huge corporation or stolen from by teenagers passing memes over the internet, or adapted by an individual/sole proprietor as part of some larger work, etc. My guess is we probably agree on this part and the debate is probably over semantics (i.e. you might have meant "business in general" by "corporate" rather than specific corporations).

dcow 3y ago
RMS famously refers to the GPL as a hack on the copyright system. It comes from an axiomatic belief that restricting copying in the computer age is fraught. To put yourself in the headspace, imagine the ivory tower discussion: look at how stupid this law is… don’t the plebeians know that computers copy data around the system and the network all the time to even function, literally digital would be dead if we actually enforced the letter of copyright law, oh and data is context dependent anyway so the same underlying data could manifest two wildly different concepts so you have to bind data and context not just allow people to claim rights to arbitrary strings of bits etc. etc. So it follows that copyright is harmful because if enforced it would dismantle cyberspace. The hack is to use copyright law to enforce licenses that perpetually reject copyright to make sure users have custody of their hardware and can’t be inhibited from freely running whatever combination of instructions they can dream up. A better reality would be something more akin to the world running arch linux and compiling every software from source (but we can’t have that because evil wealth extracting corporate automatons will steal your source, license it and sue you, hence copyleft). And since chefs can’t copyright recipes programmers shant copyright programs, which are just instructions that tell your machine how to achieve some outcome. You are free to sell the best tasting implementations of your programs as packaged SaaS software, though. Your value as a software chef is in the quality of the meals you serve not the knowledge of the specific ingredients used to create them.

dingnuts 3y ago

>You can defeat the Affero clause by putting the software behind a proxy, for example Could someone elaborate on this? This is NOT my understanding of the license, and it seems absurd considering e.g. Mastodon is AGPL but the standard install requires a reverse proxy[1]. If using a proxy defeats Affero, why would the Mastodon team do this? Are they stupid? [1] https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/blob/main/dist/nginx.conf https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/blob/main/dist/nginx.co...

bombcar 3y ago
It's never been tested in court, but the theory is you with company A run an Affero GPL (modified code) server. It's not accessible to anyone outside company A, except me, with a proxy-ish server in Company B (which may or may not be controlled/related). Then I'm the only user of your software, and never request the code, even though ten billion users use it via my proxy.
- singpolyma3 3y ago
  This is only gonna work with a very specific corporate structure, if it even works at all. Judges don't tend to fall for this kind of "being cute"
  - TylerE 3y ago
    I'm not so sure it's just being cute. Define a bright line difference between this API proxy and something like an IRC server. Fundamentally it's an RPC black box. Client sends a command and gets a response. How that response is generated the client has no way of knowing or differentiating. For the defense to fail, wouldn't you have to prove that end user C was a recipient of software from company A? How could this possibly be true when user C cannot observe even the existence of A? Like, imagine this hypothetical. Set up a server. For each unique client that exists, it proxies to one of two backends. One is wrapping an LGPL library. The other is wrapping a cleanroom non-CL implementation. A given user will always get one or the other. Think of it as being assigned off the high bit of a user hash or something. Which users have rights under the LGPL? Remember that half of them have never used the (wrapped) LGPL implementation, and NONE of them can tell which group they are in. I don't actually see the difference as being that distinct from the long accepted fact that a program compiled by a copyleft compiler or running in a copyleft interpreter is not itself inherently copyleft.

not_the_fda 3y ago

[0] The anti-TiVo clause only applies to "User Product" defined in the GPL as a consumer device, i.e. not a device you sell to a business. The idea being business's can fend for themselves. Its perfectly valid to create say a medical device that is sold to hospitals and have it locked down and use LGPL code. The hospital actually wants it locked down.

singpolyma3 3y ago

https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2021/jul/23/tivoization-and-the-gpl-right-to-install/ https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2021/jul/23/tivoization-and-t...

kmeisthax 3y ago
> [so], these words in GPLv3: “The information must suffice to ensure that the continued functioning of the modified object code is in no case prevented or interfered with solely because modification has been made.” mean that the proprietary software that is not a combined work with the GPLv3'd work must also function? > Absolutely. And I wrote it specifically to do that! Welp, looks like I was wrong about that one.