Square is taking a conservative approach on what a “modified version” as used in the AGPL is. It hasn’t really been litigated so different lawyers have different opinions. Square’s position appears to be combining Square’s products with AGPL code creates a “modified version” of the AGPL code and would require providing the code for Square’s products.
Square’s terms of service forbid use of AGPL-licensed software in online stores
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Re: Square’s terms of service forbid use of AGPL-licensed software in online stores
#32It's not rare to see even very high profile legal firms totally mess up when it comes to software licensing in general and open source licensing in particular. Chalking this one up to incompetence rather than malice until there is proof it is the latter.
Re: Square’s terms of service forbid use of AGPL-licensed software in online stores
#33I don't understand why are there so many proponents of the AGPL when it's one of the most restrictive and therefore against freedom licences there are.
Similar to how my freedom to shoot you is restricted by your freedom to be safe. There is no such thing as a licence that protects every freedom for everyone.
Re: Square’s terms of service forbid use of AGPL-licensed software in online stores
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
The service provider might be breaking the AGPL, but square isn't liable. It isn' using the AGPL it self and isn't a party to the copyright contract.
If they need to redistribute some AGPL content they are liable.
I don' see square having any service that offers fulfillment (for example where you can download your order).
Even if they do though it would be a stretch to hold them liable, it's like requiring github to be agpled if you upload your agpl code there.
Re: Square’s terms of service forbid use of AGPL-licensed software in online stores
#35This makes absolutely no sense. I'm almost certain that Square lawyers fucked up big time. They looked at the AGPL and completely misunderstood the context. There is no way in hell anyone can interpret AGPL in a way that makes Square responsible for any license violations their customers make selling software.
And even if there were liability concerns due to copyleft or other clauses in AGPL, singling out AGPL makes no sense. If they want to avoid copyleft, it should be better phrased like so.
It's almost like they used some kind of AI software to scan legal documents, then it found sentence fragments like " .. opportunity for all users interacting with your Program through a computer network ..".
You need artificial stupidity to misunderstand the "Interacting with Program through a computer network" in the way Square seems to understand it. Distributing software via online store is not interacting with the program.
Re: Square’s terms of service forbid use of AGPL-licensed software in online stores
#36II.B.15: use, under any circumstance, any open source software subject to the GNU Affero General Public License v.3, or greater; That's spooky. Any idea why?
I don't fully understand the context, but I'm guessing that if you provide a service using software that's AGPL licensed and use Square to sell it, they have no way of complying to the AGPL terms of providing end users (your customers) with the source code and/or a link to it.
I have two problems with accepting that as a correct interpretation:
1) they place no restrictions on any other license. What if I use the Server Side Public License, or something else with a similar requirement to distribute?
2) the specifically say "v3", while the original AGPL also had that requirement.
I, like Illniyar, also think the AGPLv3 doesn't have that interpretation in the first place. At what point would Square have accepted the copyright license?
Re: Square’s terms of service forbid use of AGPL-licensed software in online stores
#37Scratching Square off my list of service providers. I bet half of their datacenter software is in some way or the other using AGPL-licensed stuff; hypocrisy is just insane.
It might be GPL but I would guess it's not AGPL. AGPL requires you to open source the code to run the service. They've not done that. Their legal people are likely on top of this. It's not hard to run a SaaS and avoid all AGPL
How does "linking" works in this regard? If I have an internal AGPL service do I have to open source that too?
I mean my end users never interact with that service. They interact with a - let's say - proprietary one. And that service is the client to the AGPL service.
Or anything AGPL touches turns into AGPL? What is considered touching? If I use an AGPL firewall do the packets turn into AGPL? If I use an AGPL log aggregator? Or an AGPL centralized identity management thing every other service that auths turns into AGPL?
Re: Square’s terms of service forbid use of AGPL-licensed software in online stores
#38What's APGL? Anti Personnel Grenade Launchers?
Network GPL, like GPL but if any system in your network (think of a chain of micro services) uses an AGPL/AGPL-like dependency, then all of your services have to be open sourced too.
That's not true although it is easy to misunderstand AGPL in this way.
You only have to provide the source of derivative work, and only to users of your service.
So only the micro service using AGPL code.
If you use an AGPL database for example, you don't have to provide any source code unless you change the source code of the database. This idea was behind the business models of Rethink DB and Mongo DB.
Re: Square’s terms of service forbid use of AGPL-licensed software in online stores
#39This concerns the Online Store, which is their Squarespace clone:
https://squareup.com/us/en/online-store
not Square Payments.
Re: Square’s terms of service forbid use of AGPL-licensed software in online stores
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
If they need to redistribute some AGPL content they are liable.
I don' see square having any service that offers fulfillment (for example where you can download your order). Even if they do though it would be a stretch to hold them liable, it's like requiring github to be agpled if you upload your agpl code there.
This is for their store system: https://squareup.com/us/en/online-store