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The terms of the AGPL are pretty easy to comply with

drewdevault.com

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

#101

Post by oefrha »

woofie11 wrote: post #4

Awesome article! I was in an organization which had an AGPL ban. After a couple of months with lawyers, it's now a major AGPL supporter. AGPL lets you build ecosystems around your software, where everyone contributes, and no one can parasitically compete with you. It's absolutely the right tool for a lot of uses. I'm no longer with the organization, but it had: * Hundreds of open-source contributors * Millions of use…

I find this comment puzzling. You're arguing from an IP owner's perspective. Whether you support using AGPL for your own software is completely orthogonal to whether you should use someone else's AGPL code in your proprietary product (assuming being proprietary is a done decision).

(Btw, one can argue that you have a vested interest in strengthening AGPL so that other companies would more readily choose your AGPL software and then be locked in to your ecosystem, so you're knowingly minimizing the associated risks on this thread.

You see what I did there? Yeah, attack on your integrity based on speculations, exactly like TFA.)

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

#102

Post by jeffbee »

amadeuspagel wrote: post #40

> Ask yourself: why is documentation of internal-facing decisions like what software licenses to use being published in a public place? The answer is straightforward: to influence the public. This is propaganda. Or maybe it's just something that many people have asked about? And why wouldn't they publish it?

The blogger is reading way too much into the existence of this page. The site is clearly just a wholesale export of internal Google documentation. It is not generally intended for the public audience and I don't think you can read intent into specific pages being here. Look at this page for example. Nothing on it is relevant to you outside Google. You can't reach "go/" pages, you can't check out //third_party from their repo, etc.

https://opensource.google/docs/thirdparty/r/

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

#103

Post by yarrel »

dathinab wrote: post #42

My problem with GPL is that the term "derived" is defined to vague or not in the way I like it, which in turn opens up all kind of legal uncertainty. (I don't know if this also applies for AGPL.) I would love to hear that AGPL legal reliably works like he describes (or there is a different license which does).

None of the V3 licenses say "derived".

Derivation is a specific concept in US copyright law, so in fact it doesn't need to be derived in the license. But it also doesn't apply elsewhere.

So the V3 licenses use the term "modify", which they define to specifically include the more internationally-understood concept of adaptation.

Where things get more complex is in each license's concept of linking. But that's only a problem if you want to be a free rider. Like Apple or Google.

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

#104

Post by mark_l_watson »

I think that the AGPL is a fine language in cases where the code being released is a complete system, that you want many people/organizations to use and improve it, but you don't want anyone cloning it as their own standalone product.

I understand why Google would not want to use it, and also other large companies.

For individuals and smaller companies I think the AGPL can make good sense, especially for complete web applications.

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

#105

Post by zchrykng »

sstangl wrote: post #94
SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Google's interpretation implies their belief that if their PostgreSQL server uses AGPL code, then every service using that PostgreSQL server must also be AGPL. The article points out that that is not the case. If you are using AGPL code as a library, however, then your application as a whole must be under an AGPL-compatible license. It's just that connecting to a server does not constitute linking in the GPL, and the…

The article points out that Drew believes it isn't the case. Until this stuff is tested in court, there isn't a lawyer worth the name who would guarantee that. The language isn't precise enough to be 100% sure how courts will interpret it, and the downside risk is monumentally huge for a company like Google if the ruling goes against them.

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

#106

Post by Ajedi32 »

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?

For what it's worth, the license doesn't use the term "Derivative Work". Rather, it explicitly prohibits bundling AGPL software with other software that you aren't able to license under AGPL:

> You may convey a work based on the Program, or the modifications to produce it from the Program, in the form of source code under the terms of section 4, provided that you also meet all of these conditions:

> [...]

> c) You must license the entire work, as a whole, under this License to anyone who comes into possession of a copy. This License will therefore apply, along with any applicable section 7 additional terms, to the whole of the work, and all its parts, regardless of how they are packaged. This License gives no permission to license the work in any other way, but it does not invalidate such permission if you have separately received it.

This is a requirement which is common to many GPL-like licenses, and one which some developers object to (the later requirements for use over the network notwithstanding).

That said, I don't believe the above terms would apply to the hypothetical Google Maps example above, as the license's requirements for making the software controllable over a network seem to be significantly less restrictive:

> 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.

In that situation, the question of what constitutes a "derivative work" might come into play.

Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer and this isn't legal advise, just my own interpretation based on my reading of the license.

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

#107

Post by saagarjha »

knorker wrote: post #60

> Obligatory: I’m not a lawyer; this is for informational purposes only That's the main point, though. You aren't, in fact, a lawyer. And this is not, in fact legal advice. You are presumably expert in a non-legal field, and you are giving expert opinion on something you are not an expert on. The GPL is tested. The LGPL less so, but lawyers seem to be more comfortable with it. There's the extra complexity that Google…

> You're calling Google liars. There's an alternative interpretation of events where a whole legal department, with great lawyers, and backed by great engineers to clarify the technical aspects for the lawyers, come to a different conclusion than yours.

Google claims that they care about your privacy. Entire teams of engineers and lawyers will say the same thing. But when you look at it, you can plainly see that they are probably just saying that because their main business is collecting data about you. Similarly, Google runs many projects with a closed-source server-side component, and using the AGPL would not let them do that. Do you see why it is not surprising they would come to a different conclusion?

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

#108

Post by marcinzm »

woofie11 wrote: post #43
marcinzm wrote: post #17

> 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 linking which creates a derivative work, as Google implies, but rather that it mak…

Eben Moglen wrote the AGPL. There's a standard process courts use to figure this stuff out. Intent fits into it. Eben Moglen clearly states what he meant in many talks. Courts favor intended interpretation of a contract. That makes the risk pretty small.

Intent of whom? Eben Moglen is not the owner of the copyright but merely the writer of the license. If Oracle, for example, uses AGPL would it not be their intent in using the license which actually matters?

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

#109

Post by saagarjha »

michaelcampbell wrote: post #19

Truth or falsehoods aside, the reason one of the places I have worked (large 10's of k's of employees, big legal staff) refused to let us use AGPL is that it had never been decided in court, and they didn't want to be the ones to foot that bill. "No" is pretty cheap, and they were pretty good at it.

> "No" is pretty cheap

Now, is it really? Paying a team of software engineers to recreate every AGPL project surely isn't…

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

#110

Post by belorn »

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…

Under the same meeting ask the lawyer about the linux kernel and where the border is for its license. They will likely give a similar answer, through if the company relies on selling devices with a linux kernel the risk vs reward will result in a very different decision in the end.
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