Absolutely. As the copyright owners, the authors of the software can always sell permissions to corporations. This allows software to become free. Stallman hims

Absolutely. As the copyright owners, the authors of the software can always sell permissions to corporations. This allows software to become free. Stallman himself has suggested this to corporations: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling-exceptions.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling-exceptions.html People have pointed out to me that the above is not quite the same as what happens today with people building proprietary SaaS platforms. So I emailed Stallman to ask about the ethics of it. This was his reply: > It is my understanding that as the copyright holders > they have the right to do it without any problems. > They leverage the AGPLv3 to make it harder for their > competitors to use the code to compete against them. I see what you mean. The original developer can engage in a practice that blocks coopertation. By contrast, using some other license, such as the ordinary GPL, would permitt ANY user of the program to engage in that practice. In a perverse sense that could seem more fair, but I think it is also more harmful. On balance, using the AGPL is better.