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

#261

Post by skissane » Mon, Jul 27, 2020, 11:59 PM UTC

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…

> This is the problem: I've fought with IP lawyers we've had on retainer who always boil it down to:

And I think most engineers would rather be doing other things than arguing with their employer's legal team. Their legal opinions may or may not be correct, but it doesn't really matter either way, because you are unlikely to change their mind. If Legal says "AGPL is not allowed", you don't waste your time arguing with them or begging for an exception, you just go look for an alternative component with a license they'll accept.

(If, hypothetically, one's employer's legal team were saying things completely outside the norm of the industry, it might be worth making an issue of it – but, banning AGPL is certainly well within the norm of the industry.)

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

#262

Post by im3w1l » Mon, Jul 27, 2020, 11:59 PM UTC

s17n wrote: post #235

debiandev wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> AGPL is unchallenged in court. The risk to being wrong about it as huge. It’s risk aversion, not ideology, and it’s important to remember that identifying an argument as part of legal review does not call it the correct one. Anyone who’s ever worked with legal matters knows there is no such thing as “correct,” there are rulings. The existence of the argument condemns the license for FAANG, not its validity. Having…

Google doesn't really care that much about the FLOSS community's contributions - they have in house projects to do everything (even a kernel or two!) just because they have so many engineers. Pretty sure the main reason they don't just ban the use of open source software internally is because it would cause their developers to riot, and the cost savings are a secondary factor. If anything, Google probably would like…

The further you deviate from using a standard stack the more you have to spend on training.

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

#263

Post by ghaff » Tue, Jul 28, 2020, 12:00 AM UTC

jkaplowitz wrote: post #196

nine_k wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with this analysis, and I think that dual licensing can help here. That is, something is free is you want to use it in a copyleft-compatible fashion, and costs serious money for a commercial license if you want to go proprietary. Even SQLite, which is public domain, offers a commercial "warranty of title" [1] if your company requires a guarantee that there can't be a lawsuit regarding the use of this software…

That makes a good deal of sense, since not all countries recognize the existence of public domain as a concept or the right of authors to dedicate their work to it before copyright expiration. (These cases are both mentioned on the link you provided.)

That's the reason why the original MIT license (X Consortium license) came into being. The developers wanted to get rid of headaches associated with the proprietary license but at least one of the companies involved wouldn't touch making the code public domain. So MIT's lawyers came up with the MIT license.

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

#264

Post by wglb » Tue, Jul 28, 2020, 12:05 AM UTC

debiandev wrote: post #227

tptacek wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, companies are not happy to discuss, modify, and sign new contracts every day. They are quite hesitant to. At Matasano, it became our practice simply to tell new clients we'd be happy to sign their paper and not ours, because we'd lose weeks just to get to the point where their legal would consider looking at our contracts. At my last company, we non-negotiably used our own contracts, and budgeted a month to legal…

> No, companies are not happy to discuss, modify, and sign new contracts every day. They are quite hesitant to. [citation needed] > And, what's more, the contracts we're talking about are all basically pro-forma. I had very custom employment contracts with 2 well-known large tech companies. When asking to remove some clauses and add new ones they did not flinch at the ask and let me have meetings with their lawyers.…

>I have many other examples but a quick search on the internet can show how many contract-related discussions happen between large companies, suppliers, local governments & so on

It would be surprising if these negotiations were accomplished within a small number of months. I am a small company (smaller than Matasano) and have had my contract accepted, but it is a non-trivial effort. There will certainly be items that come back, then they go to my lawyer followed by more discussion.

In the past, I did a contract negotiation with a very large (non FAANG) company and it took months, and required me to recruit internal advocates for my position.

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

#265

Post by saagarjha » Tue, Jul 28, 2020, 12:05 AM UTC

tyrion wrote: post #226

cic48 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Wouldn't it be a good idea to "fix" the AGPL in order to make it clearer? It seems to me that every time there is a discussion around GNU licenses many people have no idea how to interpret them and then decide not to use them out of fear. It does not seem to me that this is in the interest of the GNU project. Why not fix this?

Well, for one that would require GPLv4. And another one is that if you "fix" it down too much some smart-aleck comes around and says "but I was actually just running it and the results of the computation were beamed into people's brains, so they never knew about the software I was using and so I shouldn't have to release my source code". That being said, I think they should really update their Q&A; one personal one that I would really like revisited is the GPL and the App Store.

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

#266

Post by joshuamorton » Tue, Jul 28, 2020, 12:06 AM UTC

woofie11 wrote: post #201

durin42 wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or listen to Daniel Berlin, who's both an accomplished GCC hacker and a lawyer: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9956542 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13979443 This isn't settled law, and DannyBee would be quick to point out that the practice of law has a major component of risk management.

I don't think Daniel contradicts Eben, at least in the link here... There are good rationales and bad rationales for a decision. Google made a good decision with a bad rationale. Daniel made a good decision with a good rationale. Why does this matter? If I'm running my own business, my business context won't be the same as Google's. There are times to pick AGPL, and times to not pick it, and that requires accurately…

You realize that Daniel works for Google, and is one of the people who makes such decisions about OSS for Google, so if you think he made the decision with a good rationale, then so did Google, since his decision was Google's.

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

#267

Post by saagarjha » Tue, Jul 28, 2020, 12:08 AM UTC

cic48 wrote: post #214

Lammy wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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...

Chris DiBona is paid to care about exactly this issue. Compliance is his job description and AGPL policy companywide is comfortably in that portfolio. That you disagree with him does not indict Google nor create an alternative universe where Googlers are setting out unprompted to screw the free software world that gave them 50% of their infrastructure for no reason other than fear. You underestimate the rigor require…

> Chris DiBona is paid to care about exactly this issue.

Right, which doesn't really address the point being made above, which is that Chris DiBona is paid to care about the issue, has a position on it, and now has a reason to claim that AGPL code is not useful.

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

#268

Post by wwarner » Tue, Jul 28, 2020, 12:08 AM UTC

Sorry, this isn't really the case. The AGPL can be used in a predatory fashion. Projects that are AGPL'd are often dual licensed, with a commercial license for commercial applications and AGPL for experiments. I once negotiated for a couple of weeks to pay for an open source package that was dual licensed under the AGPL. I wanted to make small modifications to the source. The commercial terms were available on request, and I requested and got sort of tangential answers until finally the company's lawyer told me that I'd be liable for 15% of all revenue connected to the library in any way. If I had used the library first and asked for the terms later, I could have been in a very serious situation.

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

#269

Post by saagarjha » Tue, Jul 28, 2020, 12:12 AM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #175

woofie11 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You write this as if it summarizes the discussion, but of course the discussion we can all read here says the opposite: Google's legal concerns are probably not false, and are concerns for multiple other organizations; not only that, but Google has ample reason to be particularly concerned about these kinds of IP issues.

I think it's possible have "Google has concerns about the AGPL for itself" and "Google would like you to not use the AGPL by making you afraid of it".

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

#270

Post by wglb » Tue, Jul 28, 2020, 12:15 AM UTC

debiandev wrote: post #120

cic48 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> AGPL is unchallenged in court. The risk to being wrong about it as huge. It’s risk aversion, not ideology, and it’s important to remember that identifying an argument as part of legal review does not call it the correct one. Anyone who’s ever worked with legal matters knows there is no such thing as “correct,” there are rulings. The existence of the argument condemns the license for FAANG, not its validity. Having…

Having worked for a software producer who all but owns one segment of the industry, while they do discuss with their potential clients modifications to the contract, it is fair to say that the terms discussed all relate to fees. There are certain things with respect to IP that are totally not up for discussion.

Additionally, every use or purchase of software undergoes strict legal review, and there are some licenses that are flat not accepted.

This is not propaganda, and it is not in particular motivated to do anything economic to the FLOSS commmunity.