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

#181

Post by cycloptic » Mon, Jul 27, 2020, 7:46 PM UTC

oefrha wrote: post #101

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 sof…

The simple solution there is to not make a proprietary product to begin with. Sorry, not trying to be snarky, but that (among other things) is the price you pay for that decision. It's baffling to me how some companies are so resistant to having to conduct legal reviews to use open source, which in a lot of cases will directly make them money, but at the same time these companies will gladly wave a giant NDA at someone just to start a negotiation.

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

#182

Post by Lammy » Mon, Jul 27, 2020, 7:47 PM UTC

jeffbee wrote: post #83

jcheng wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that random engineers should have the humility to listen to feedback from lawyers. And IANAL. Here's the sentence with "scripts to control": > The "Corresponding Source" for a work in object code form means all the source code needed to generate, install, and (for an executable work) run the object code and to modify the work, including scripts to control those activities. That being said, it feels like a str…

The AGPL virality is considered such a big risk, and the "scripts to control" clause is considered so sweeping and vague, that Google has its own internal version of R that won't download AGPL libraries from CRAN, because just looking looking at the performance stats from production services in R using an AGPL library could taint the source code of the service itself. Nobody knows.

This entire thread has really sold me on AGPL.

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

#183

Post by evmar » Mon, Jul 27, 2020, 7:47 PM UTC

I can't comment on the "true" motivation for releasing these documents, but I noticed the same site includes https://opensource.google/docs/thirdparty/oneversion/ which is a very Google-internal-only kind of problem, complete with broken links to Google-internal-only tools and processes (rosie and lsc). That page at least is definitely just a dump of the internal documentation.

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

#184

Post by knorker » Mon, Jul 27, 2020, 7:48 PM UTC

boogies wrote: post #160

jeffbee wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the “spreading” aspect is overstated. These are clearly Google’s internal docs that just happen to be accessible to the public.

The article: > 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.

So Google is wrong for being secretive when not sharing, and wrong when they're not because clearly it's a ruse?

Heads I win, tails you lose. With that logic you can fit any action into what you already "know".

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

#185

Post by tptacek » Mon, Jul 27, 2020, 7:49 PM UTC

ddevault wrote: post #37

dvt wrote: post #6

> Any derivative works of AGPL-licensed software must also use the AGPL. That's why people don't use AGPL, and why I personally don't release any code under (A)GPL. If you want to make free software, make free software and release your code under Apache or MIT. And if you really care about attribution, use CC BY 3.0. Legally, you don't want to deal with the burden of constantly checking if you're complying with some…

>This is true, and I don't see much wrong with it. I don't like the idea of other code mandating how I should release my code. What if I just don't feel like up-streaming? Free is meant to be free, and (A)GPL does incur a cost -- at the bare minimum an ideological one. You don't need to go upstream - you just need to provide source to users. I explained this in the article, and it's not especially onerous. You've als…

You write this as if the whole debate wasn't about what the definition of the "source" that needed to be provided was. The concern is that the AGPL is written in a way that admits to an expansive definition of that source.

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

#186

Post by jeffbee » Mon, Jul 27, 2020, 7:51 PM UTC

boogies wrote: post #160

jeffbee wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the “spreading” aspect is overstated. These are clearly Google’s internal docs that just happen to be accessible to the public.

The article: > 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.

Quite a leap. Much more likely explanation is someone asked someone else to publish the open source docs and they did the minimum amount of censorship needed to get it out the door.

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

#187

Post by Lammy » Mon, Jul 27, 2020, 7:56 PM UTC

jeffbee wrote: post #145

pydry wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Well, this is the heart of the issue. Chris DiBona has publicly stated that AGPL software just isn't valuable enough to care about. The authors of such software tend to overestimate its utility. https://www.theregister.com/2011/03/31/google_on_open_source...

"Person who benefits monetarily from developers avoiding AGPL suggests developers should avoid AGPL".

I'm surprised Googlers don't have betters ways to spend their time than having such furious debates about the licensing of supposedly worthless software. Google fear AGPL so much that they used to ban you from using it for projects hosted on Google Code: https://www.theregister.com/2010/09/13/google_code_accepts_a...

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

#188

Post by DannyBee » Mon, Jul 27, 2020, 7:57 PM UTC

I haven't commented on HN in a while, but this article actually pretty much complains about me, since I wrote the text in question and enabled the policy to be released.

So i'm just going to say:

1. The author claims the Google states something, then doesn't actually quote anything google stated, but instead writes their own interpretation of the words and a made up example. That's not a good start.

2. Having set up their own example, the author then proceeds to say it's wrong because of an appeal to authority, asserting no reasonable disagreement is possible - when not only is it possible, but large numbers of IP lawyers disagree on what the AGPL requires. It's true that someone wrote it, and there are FAQ's, but depending when and where, their opinion on what it means is not as relevant as one might think.

In truth, lots of people disagree over interpretation of the AGPL - many more than disagree about GPL interpretation or LGPL interpretation (which are fairly settled at this point). Searches over any legal licensing list in existence will you this.

When I wrote the interpretation you see here, it was the best available info at the time, guided not just by own views, but by listening to a lot of smart lawyers, counterparts at other companies, etc.

Even if you ignore all the lawyers and whatever as useless, the author has the huge problem that There are people who make AGPL software that take the view listed in the google policy

So it's not just Google or lawyers, it's software authors. Not just a few, either.

While companies are generally happy to ignore one or two people whose interpretation is outside the norm (and just not use their software), that's much harder when there is such widespread difference in view of the AGPL.

3. For no particular reason at all, the author then decides to assert a tremendous amount of bad faith in interpretation of the AGPL and reasons for publishing such policies.

We published our policies because over the years I (and others) were repeatedly asked by counterparts at other companies, various communities, and others to understand what our policies look like, for a variety of reasons (to understand for themselves, to use as a template, etc)

Period. That's the whole reason. It even says this: https://opensource.google/docs/

The author here has decided that's clearly all lies or deliberate misinformation, without even bothering to even ask anybody.

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

#189

Post by knorker » Mon, Jul 27, 2020, 8:00 PM UTC

simion314 wrote: post #171

jgilias wrote: post #34

So. From the POW of a total lay person as far as it comes to law. Someone writes a blog post with an 'IANAL' disclaimer on top saying that what Google's army of lawyers have gathered from reading a legal document is false, and I should favor his interpretation instead. I don't know, I'm not exactly convinced.

>Someone writes a blog post with an 'IANAL' disclaimer on top saying that what Google's army of lawyers have gathered from reading a legal document is false, and I should favor his interpretation instead. I don't know, I'm not exactly convinced. Microsoft with their giant army of lawyers also said GPL is a cancer and they promoted this idea a lot but today Microsoft "loves" GPL. I think you can conclude that you shou…

> you should use your own brain to decide

I think you mean "your own lawyers". And my experience says that the AGPL opinion among these experts are about as one-sided as scientists and climate change.

But you're suggesting to armchair lawyer it?

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

#190

Post by knorker » Mon, Jul 27, 2020, 8:01 PM UTC

mark_l_watson wrote: post #104

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…

> 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.

Yup. In the same way that you could have a license that requires people to publicly criticize to use your software.

You'll get some. But most will just not agree to your terms.