The terms of the AGPL are pretty easy to comply with • Hacker News Board

Re: The terms of the AGPL are pretty easy to comply with

#61

Post by woofie11 » Mon, Jul 27, 2020, 5:55 PM UTC

tylerhou wrote: post #46

ddevault wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This is the problem: I've fought with IP lawyers we've had on retainer who always boil it down to: "It doesn't matter. We're not going to court to find out." This is incredibly stupid. By this logic your business can't do literally anything . The AGPL simply does not do what Google states it does, and a basic reading of the AGPL text readily and clearly confirms this fact. A more realistic explanation for why Google…

> a basic reading of the AGPL text readily and clearly confirms this fact. Not trying to be rude, but are you a lawyer? To interpret such a license with potentially huge legal ramifications, I would rather listen to lawyers than laypeople.

Then listen to Eben Moglen, who wrote it, and is a brilliant law professor at Columbia :)

Re: The terms of the AGPL are pretty easy to comply with

#62

Post by n0n0n4t0r » Mon, Jul 27, 2020, 5:56 PM UTC

Hello, While I'm employed to develop an agpl software, and I fond of this license, it's clear that with the wrong actors it can be a threat to some businesses.

I'll tell you a little story that happened around 10 years ago:

I got a call from a representative of Oracle, he asked me if we where using MySQL, and if I could described him how, because he wanted to help us make Better use of this tool.

We where pretty happy about MySQL at the time, and I went into deep details about how we used it. At the end, he told me point blank that the PHP's MySQL driver was licenced under the GPL and that we had to licence our whole codebase under the GPL since it was contaminating our code as a whole. (Even if we had encapsulated all the accesses to the driver around a single class)

The alternative was to pay the right to use it under a non GPL contaminating way.

Oracle then called and threatened us many times.

The argument that made them stop was when we told us that we where hosting the applications. This argument would not have been sufficient with the agpl.

There claim was unfonded but I can assure you that I didn't sleep well for a while!

Re: The terms of the AGPL are pretty easy to comply with

#63

Post by oefrha » Mon, Jul 27, 2020, 5:56 PM UTC

ddevault wrote: post #52

oefrha wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your basic reading of the AGPL text readily and clearly confirms something that multiple IP lawyers independently found dubious, and you're not a lawyer, I'd rather trust the lawyers, thanks.

[citation needed]

Lawyers typically don't publish internal legal reviews online, so I can't give you a citation you can access. But if you believe everyone around here sharing their legal review results (e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23967469) are lying to you then there really isn't much point in coming here to "discuss".

Re: The terms of the AGPL are pretty easy to comply with

#64

Post by rydre » Mon, Jul 27, 2020, 5:57 PM UTC

brutt wrote: post #50

rydre wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Linux It's called OpenBSD.

MacOS uses BSD code for free. Apple, most profitable company in the world, contributes nothing back. Sad story.

Yeah so? Apple should be punished for many other things like abusing dominance to get advantage in other industries, not this entitled "contributes nothing back".

It's not Apple's problem that the software was really free. If it were not free, Apple could have gone the windows route and make their own everything. Would not be hard since they control hardware.

Nothing sad here. Just the entitlement of people who do not want to pay for a good OS. If the OSS GPL Stallman-esque community was so good, they could have created a real competitor to macOS not the budget quality os called linux that only lifeless sys admin like people can use (on consumer desktop).

Re: The terms of the AGPL are pretty easy to comply with

#65

Post by SpicyLemonZest » Mon, Jul 27, 2020, 5:57 PM UTC

woofie11 wrote: post #56

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with what you're saying, but it contradicts the source article, which insists that Google is spreading FUD by saying it can't use AGPL dependencies in its proprietary systems.

Yeah, it's complex: * The article is right that Google IS spreading FUD. They're making legal statements which are probably false to minimize usage of the AGPL outside of Google. * Google came to a sensible conclusion, that THEY shouldn't use the AGPL * Google's articulated reasons don't hold legal water, and following Google's lead and interpretation causes many companies to mislicense their code It's a right tool f…

Maybe I'm misunderstanding. It sounds like you agree that companies with proprietary code can't link GPL libraries, and Google's statements don't suggest any problem for companies which don't care about keeping their code proprietary.

Re: The terms of the AGPL are pretty easy to comply with

#66

Post by p0llard » Mon, Jul 27, 2020, 5:57 PM UTC

woofie11 wrote: post #13

lxe wrote: post #5

> Any derivative works of AGPL-licensed software must also use the AGPL. TBH, I'm interpreting this statement just like Google is: > Google states that if, for example, Google Maps used PostGIS as its data store, and PostGIS used the AGPL, Google would be required to release the Google Maps code. What's the definition of 'derivative work' here?

Eben Moglen talks about this at length (author of the license). The rough lines are drawn as per how closely the works couple and interdepend on each other. For example, if I build an extension which works with Chrome and Firefox, over a well-defined API, that's an independent work. AGPL/GPL/LGPL does not apply. If I have two pieces of code which mutually rely on each other and form a common system, and for example c…

> For example, if I build an extension which works with Chrome and Firefox, over a well-defined API, that's an independent work. AGPL/GPL/LGPL does not apply.

> If I have two pieces of code which mutually rely on each other and form a common system, and for example call back-and-forth, or have APIs specific to each other, that generally does form a derivative work.

So why does the LGPL/Linking Exception exist at all? Software which links against libc doesn't have a mutual dependency; libc is quite happy to run crt0 as long as there's a main symbol somewhere, and yet apparently linking against libc would be enough to constitute a derivative work were it not for the exceptions in the LGPL.

Re: The terms of the AGPL are pretty easy to comply with

#67

Post by tzs » Mon, Jul 27, 2020, 5:58 PM UTC

> Any users of such software are entitled to the source code under the terms of the AGPL, including users accessing it over the network such as with their web browser or via an API or internet protocol

That doesn't seem to be quite right. It makes it sound like the source code entitlement applies to all users. The "including users accessing it over the network" is redundant then because they are a subset of all users.

What's actually in the text of the license is:

> Notwithstanding any other provision of this License, if you modify the Program, your modified version must prominently offer all users interacting with it remotely through a computer network (if your version supports such interaction) an opportunity to receive the Corresponding Source of your version by providing access to the Corresponding Source from a network server at no charge, through some standard or customary means of facilitating copying of software.

The user source entitlement only applies to users remotely interacting with the software through a computer network.

Re: The terms of the AGPL are pretty easy to comply with

#68

Post by searchableguy » Mon, Jul 27, 2020, 5:58 PM UTC

ddevault wrote: post #51

searchableguy wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am aware. The problem is many companies won't contribute to open source with code but might pay up if they have no choice. Why can't monetary compensation be counted as contribution? The core point of OSS is freedom to the users, not big companies. MIT provide more freedom to users than AGPL and so does money by empowering contributors to keep working on it. I think there is a case that this should be open source .

Monetary contribution certainly can be considered contribution. But FOSS is not about "contribution" at all. Big companies are users, too.

> Big companies are users, too.

I think we disagree here. Big companies aren't users in the same way I am. People have different power dynamics in the real world. I won't treat rich people the same for stealing food the way I treat poor people for stealing food. One can afford it but still chooses to steal.

Re: The terms of the AGPL are pretty easy to comply with

#69

Post by pydry » Mon, Jul 27, 2020, 5:59 PM UTC

cic48 wrote: post #33

xyzzy_plugh wrote: post #12

> Obligatory: I’m not a lawyer; this is for informational purposes only. and > Google states that if, for example, Google Maps used PostGIS as its data store, and PostGIS used the AGPL, Google would be required to release the Google Maps code. This is not true. They would be required to release their PostGIS patches in this situation. AGPL does not extend the GPL in that it makes the Internet count as a form of linki…

I’ve taken AGPL through two FAANG reviews. Both arrived at the same very-much-not-FUD legal conclusion. Paragraph 1 of section 13 requires modifications to be disclosed and source code for them to be offered to remote users. The license uses the term of art Corresponding Source for this. Corresponding Source is defined in section 1 in a crystal clear way. Two separate teams of lawyers concluded that they could cohere…

The holy war could be avoided if Google simply paid authors of AGPL code they wanted to use instead of going on a tirade against the license.

I think half the reason it exists is to make it deliberately risky for FAANGs etc. because they're exactly the ones who SHOULD be ponying up to support the open source ecosystem they rely upon.

Re: The terms of the AGPL are pretty easy to comply with

#70

Post by victorkab » Mon, Jul 27, 2020, 5:59 PM UTC

Disclaimer - As a CTO of a company I have to take a stance on these issues. As a matter of fact, as you raise money, part of the due diligence is to audit the libraries that you use to make sure that you don't use libraries that can jeopardize the future of the company.

Using an AGPL library for a Saas company will be flagged as a risk by lawyers during the due diligence process.

At Truework, we love open source and try to contribute when we can, but the reality is that if a library is AGPL, I'll ask my team to not use it. It's just not worth it to risk so much for a single library. Yes, it's unlikely that you will have to go to court because you use that one library, but if you do... well that's bad news for you.

If you build a business, it's about making sure that there there is a reasonable ROI for risks that you take. APGL tilts the balance towards "we shouldn't use this, it's too risky". Make your own decisions, but keep that in mind.