I don't see why GPL would be irrelevant. Providing web services with GPL software is well within the recognized use of software. It's yours to use, modify and

I don't see why GPL would be irrelevant. Providing web services with GPL software is well within the recognized use of software. It's yours to use, modify and run, and this includes creating and serving static or dynamic web pages on (modified) GPL software stack as well as essays written on (modified) Emacs. What are the copyright holders missing if GPL is not enough for web software? AJAX is a different case but then again GPL'd javascript libraries are already covered by GPL. You're effectively distributing the GPL js libraries to the user, hence triggering the distribution clause. Tivoization is a whole another issue that certainly stomps on the user's rights and that is indeed addressed by GPLv3. But that has nothing to do with web software.