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Making the GPL more scary

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Re: Making the GPL more scary

#11

Post by StudentStuff »

enriquto wrote: post #8

The AGPL is a great license for free software development. It is also great to be coupled with a proprietary license, something that does no often make sense with other licenses.

I have found AGPLv3 useful, everything I do is under AGPLv3, if people want to use it under other terms, they can pay me for a branch under a mutually acceptable license. I will not maintain the alternatively licensed branch unless paid, and these branches after a few months are generally missing significant features.

Its a fine revenue stream for me, and in the context of what I am building and the companies that are using it, there is absolutely no reason to not use the AGPLv3 licensed master branch or releases, as I know they will never extend my software. Yet some people have an axe to grind with AGPLv3, to which I get to respond "Pay me money or fuck off". Seeing as none of them understand how to write software, they tend to pay me :P

Worst case someone extends one of my AGPLv3 projects, adding features and improving it. I'll accept a pull request with no CLA so long as the code is of decent quality.

Re: Making the GPL more scary

#12

Post by rvanmil »

amingilani wrote: post #9

I'm probably going to get a lot of flak for this, but here's an opinion supporting the MongoDB license. Two things: 1. MongoDB has the right to do whatever they like ------------------------------------------------------ The creator of a product: 1. Has a rational interest in maximizing their returns 2. Owns all the rights to their products (barring existing IP restrictions) And if they choose to open source their co…

> This License Means More Open Source Code

I don't think that will happen. I think they will just sell more commercial licenses, which seems to be the entire (valid imo) point of this license change.

Re: Making the GPL more scary

#13

Post by microtonal »

StudentStuff wrote: post #11
enriquto wrote: post #8

The AGPL is a great license for free software development. It is also great to be coupled with a proprietary license, something that does no often make sense with other licenses.

I have found AGPLv3 useful, everything I do is under AGPLv3, if people want to use it under other terms, they can pay me for a branch under a mutually acceptable license. I will not maintain the alternatively licensed branch unless paid, and these branches after a few months are generally missing significant features. Its a fine revenue stream for me, and in the context of what I am building and the companies that ar…

I'll accept a pull request with no CLA so long as the code is of decent quality.

If you accept contributions without a CLA, you are not the sole owner of the copyrights anymore and you cannot offer a proprietary paid branch, unless all contributors give you permission to relicense their AGPL code as proprietary.

Re: Making the GPL more scary

#14

Post by arnon »

verst wrote: post #6
filmor wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is only about cases where you expose MongoDB directly, not if you use it in the backend.

I believe that is what prompted the Server Side Public License (SSPL) creation, but as written could be interpreted to cover more than just offering MongoDB as a service. From the SSPL: 13. Offering the Program as a Service. If you make the functionality of the Program or a modified version available to third parties as a service, you must make the Service Source Code available via network download to everyone at no…

Herein lies the problem. Notice you said "I believe that... but could be interpreted".

I've worked with some copyright lawyers that basically said "it's impossible to know, and we'd rather just avoid the question to begin with", and forbade us from using AGPL in any of our deployments.

Re: Making the GPL more scary

#15

Post by feanaro »

amingilani wrote: post #9

I'm probably going to get a lot of flak for this, but here's an opinion supporting the MongoDB license. Two things: 1. MongoDB has the right to do whatever they like ------------------------------------------------------ The creator of a product: 1. Has a rational interest in maximizing their returns 2. Owns all the rights to their products (barring existing IP restrictions) And if they choose to open source their co…

I agree that they might have a legal right to do this, but it doesn't mean this is aligned with the interests of the general free software / open source community and thus it is entirely their right to shun, criticise and disapprove of this move and this licence. Particularly so because they are (arguably) violating an implicit social contract it had with its contributors in the past.

This might be a good thing in the end because it exposes a new downside to CLAs and might make people think twice before signing them in the future.

> If the outside world wants more open source code, I don't see why they'd giving MongoDB any flak for this. All this license will do is result in more open-source code. After all, isn't that the point all along?

It would be a good thing if we could reasonably expect the effect to be that companies might release more open source code as a result. Yet the licence is so vague and broad that the much more likely intention (and effect) is that other companies will be forced to buy the proprietary licence to avoid the impracticability of using code under SSPL. I also don't think this kind of overreach in what is required to be open sourced just because you're using a component X is acceptable.

Re: Making the GPL more scary

#16

Post by iSnow »

amingilani wrote: post #9

I'm probably going to get a lot of flak for this, but here's an opinion supporting the MongoDB license. Two things: 1. MongoDB has the right to do whatever they like ------------------------------------------------------ The creator of a product: 1. Has a rational interest in maximizing their returns 2. Owns all the rights to their products (barring existing IP restrictions) And if they choose to open source their co…

To me, that feels more like a hidden contract. Giving away for free a software only to require the user to do the same.

That's why I prefer BSD-style licenses - when they write "free", they mean "free".

Re: Making the GPL more scary

#17

Post by codetrotter »

antt wrote: post #3

I would like to make it explicit that only flesh and blood individuals should have access to freedom 0. These licenses are a step in a direction closer to what I would like to see, but aren't quite there yet. If you as a person want to run software xyz and try to make money off of it, go ahead. As soon as you open a limited company to reduce your exposure you should be hit with paying license fees. I don't get the ha…

> I would like to make it explicit that only flesh and blood individuals should have access to freedom 0.

So basically, turn freedom 0 into not freedom 0.

For reference, GNU freedom 0 is “the freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose”.

What you are saying seems to go against the principles of freedom 0, and I don’t get your motivation either, because at the same time you don’t seem to mind proprietary software.

My main issue with what you are saying is that it’s not clear what you mean by “removing freedom 0 for corporations”. Do you mean specifically when they are offering software written by someone else as a direct service to customers? What about using it in the backend? What about employees using FOSS?

There is a lot more to be said and discussed about this.

Re: Making the GPL more scary

#18

Post by dnbgfher »

amingilani wrote: post #9

I'm probably going to get a lot of flak for this, but here's an opinion supporting the MongoDB license. Two things: 1. MongoDB has the right to do whatever they like ------------------------------------------------------ The creator of a product: 1. Has a rational interest in maximizing their returns 2. Owns all the rights to their products (barring existing IP restrictions) And if they choose to open source their co…

I think you've missed the point of most of the uproar. I haven't seen anybody claiming MongoDB doesn't have the right to use whatever license they like. I have however seen lots of people claim that it's a bad decision to use this latest license.

And people are free to criticize decisions all they want. It's really no different from the usual claims of bad technical decisions by MongoDB. Now people are just saying they're making bad business decisions too.

The rights discussion is largely irrelevant at this point.

Re: Making the GPL more scary

#20

Post by cyphar »

antt wrote: post #3

I would like to make it explicit that only flesh and blood individuals should have access to freedom 0. These licenses are a step in a direction closer to what I would like to see, but aren't quite there yet. If you as a person want to run software xyz and try to make money off of it, go ahead. As soon as you open a limited company to reduce your exposure you should be hit with paying license fees. I don't get the ha…

This would mean that corporations will have no incentive to use or contribute to free software -- 80% of contributions to the Linux kernel are people working for corporations.

I also don't see why limitation of liability is the point where right to use free software should be curtailed -- there already is no liability in software (see the no warranty clause in literally every software license). Why not put the line at making a profit at all? (Because it's obvious that disallowing users to make any money at all with a free software license would clearly be an issue.)

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