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Looks interesting but given that the AGPL scares the bejeebers out of so many companies, I’m not sure how much adoption this will get in middle/large size compa

Looks interesting but given that the AGPL scares the bejeebers out of so many companies, I’m not sure how much adoption this will get in middle/large size companies.

j45 2y ago
AGPL has nothing to do with end users. Only if they use the source code in their own source code products and try to re-distribute.
- paulryanrogers 2y ago
  Isn't the whole point of AGPL to close the network-boundary loophole of the GPL? I.e. any user of a service over the network is entitled to the source and any changes. This scares companies because where does the need to share stop? Does it 'infect' everything that the AGPL software interacts with? Everything on the same network?
  - ammo1662 2y ago
    It depends on whether you are providing it as a part of your product. Using it as an internal wiki will not violate AGPL.
    - danpalmer 2y ago
      "for creating production-ready apps" – I don't think this is intended for an internal wiki. Also, I believe technically even an internal wiki would necessitate providing the source to your internal users, which many companies may not want to do, and not to all internal users.
      - andyferris 2y ago
        As far as I can tell, Nocobase is a platform (like e.g. gnu/linux) which you can build things on top of. You should only need to provide changes to the platform (EDIT and any custom plugins), not the rest of the application. (E.g. if a cloud provider were to create an optimized version for their cloud and then sell that, those changes would need to be public - I saw this as addressing behavior like redis has complained about).
        andyferris 2y ago
        Note - apparently custom plugins are infected by the AGPL unless you pay for a commercial license. (But obviously not your private data, and the schema + UI config would be the same (these are visible to users anyway...)).
        j45 2y ago
        Using the existing platform to build if it’s what it’s designed for doesn’t seem to violate anything compared to modifying the platform and distributing it as a competitor. Of course, if it’s creating a competitor, not probably a good idea. Unmodified self-hosted use doesn’t seem to indicate public distribution, to the extent the agpl may hint at network implying to the public. Happy to learn otherwise
      - j45 2y ago
        Production ready app for yourself (as an individual or organization) falls under self-hosting, something that's often advertised to get users. When the procedure taken, is to just run a docker image from the web for an AGPL product, I don't really see what needs to be provided to the users. Notifying them of which docker image and version is being run so they can access it themselves? The key thing here is no modification to the code has happened. "Production ready app" for others outside my individuality, group, organization to others, likely for money, is probably what the AGPL is after, to not let big guys compete with and wipe out the small teams building great software. Happy to learn otherwise, and more too :)
  - andyferris 2y ago
    Yes, the distinction is the networking. If you make changes to Nocobase and provide an app over the network using that changed code, you would need to provide your fork of Nocobase. AFAICT Nocobase is the platform here. Just like when you use linix, compile your code with GCC, or use happen to use a bash script in production, you don't need to provide your application and infrastructure code along with your app, you shouldn't need to provide your application code (or plugin code?) written for Nocobase. Right?
    - andyferris 2y ago
      Apparently I was a bit wrong - the plugins are not seperate (if you want to write closed-source plugins you should use the commerical license, not the AGPL). The schema and data and UI configs should be private though - so enough to build a wiki or notion-like site, and set up some integrations based on the free plugins. https://www.nocobase.com/commercial.html https://www.nocobase.com/commercial.html

Looks interesting but given that the AGPL scares the bejeebers out of so many companies, I’m not sure how much adoption this will get in middle/large size companies.

j45 2y ago

AGPL has nothing to do with end users. Only if they use the source code in their own source code products and try to re-distribute.

paulryanrogers 2y ago
Isn't the whole point of AGPL to close the network-boundary loophole of the GPL? I.e. any user of a service over the network is entitled to the source and any changes. This scares companies because where does the need to share stop? Does it 'infect' everything that the AGPL software interacts with? Everything on the same network?
- ammo1662 2y ago
  It depends on whether you are providing it as a part of your product. Using it as an internal wiki will not violate AGPL.
  - danpalmer 2y ago
    "for creating production-ready apps" – I don't think this is intended for an internal wiki. Also, I believe technically even an internal wiki would necessitate providing the source to your internal users, which many companies may not want to do, and not to all internal users.
    - andyferris 2y ago
      As far as I can tell, Nocobase is a platform (like e.g. gnu/linux) which you can build things on top of. You should only need to provide changes to the platform (EDIT and any custom plugins), not the rest of the application. (E.g. if a cloud provider were to create an optimized version for their cloud and then sell that, those changes would need to be public - I saw this as addressing behavior like redis has complained about).
      - andyferris 2y ago
        Note - apparently custom plugins are infected by the AGPL unless you pay for a commercial license. (But obviously not your private data, and the schema + UI config would be the same (these are visible to users anyway...)).
      - j45 2y ago
        Using the existing platform to build if it’s what it’s designed for doesn’t seem to violate anything compared to modifying the platform and distributing it as a competitor. Of course, if it’s creating a competitor, not probably a good idea. Unmodified self-hosted use doesn’t seem to indicate public distribution, to the extent the agpl may hint at network implying to the public. Happy to learn otherwise
    - j45 2y ago
      Production ready app for yourself (as an individual or organization) falls under self-hosting, something that's often advertised to get users. When the procedure taken, is to just run a docker image from the web for an AGPL product, I don't really see what needs to be provided to the users. Notifying them of which docker image and version is being run so they can access it themselves? The key thing here is no modification to the code has happened. "Production ready app" for others outside my individuality, group, organization to others, likely for money, is probably what the AGPL is after, to not let big guys compete with and wipe out the small teams building great software. Happy to learn otherwise, and more too :)
- andyferris 2y ago
  Yes, the distinction is the networking. If you make changes to Nocobase and provide an app over the network using that changed code, you would need to provide your fork of Nocobase. AFAICT Nocobase is the platform here. Just like when you use linix, compile your code with GCC, or use happen to use a bash script in production, you don't need to provide your application and infrastructure code along with your app, you shouldn't need to provide your application code (or plugin code?) written for Nocobase. Right?
  - andyferris 2y ago
    Apparently I was a bit wrong - the plugins are not seperate (if you want to write closed-source plugins you should use the commerical license, not the AGPL). The schema and data and UI configs should be private though - so enough to build a wiki or notion-like site, and set up some integrations based on the free plugins. https://www.nocobase.com/commercial.html https://www.nocobase.com/commercial.html