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The terms of the AGPL are pretty easy to comply with

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

#291

Post by lmm »

knorker wrote: post #161
saagarjha wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

So your legal interpretation as a lawyer (I assume) is an ad hominem on Google for unrelated reasons?

When you complain about someone calling Google liars, the fact that Google has a long history of flagrant lying is not an ad hominem but relevant background.

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

#292

Post by andi999 »

tptacek wrote: post #251
cycloptic wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If they were, they wouldn't be negotiating AGPL with Google; they'd be negotiating an actual contract. This would stop being true if (and when) FAANG figured out how to effectively use AGPL internally. In my opinion, this is inevitable as long as software continues to be published under this license. From their perspective it seems they don't even have to do anything besides wait for other smaller companies to get i…

If you're trying to pivot this to a place where I'll concede that AGPL is a good thing, you're wasting energy, because I already think AGPL is a good thing. I'm not making this point about contracts because I'm motivated to talk down AGPL; I'm doing it because, in my experience over the last 15 years, it has definitely not been the case that companies are comfortable entering into arbitrary contracts. It's just not t…

Precisely. Also the negotiation takes a long time and usually the risk is not as high as agpl, since these contracts dont have clauses like 'all your ip is mine'(except one player here known to try to sneak such a clause in every time).

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

#293

Post by em-bee »

Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #180
n0n0n4t0r wrote: post #62

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 happ…

Stories like this are the reason I tell everyone to never touch MySQL and anything related to Oracle. If you need a relational DB, look no further than PostgreSQL.

or MariaDB. or is oracle also going after MariaDB users, since they own a good amount of its code?

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

#294

Post by rmc »

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 company might have to release the source for everything!” isn't a downside for some people. The FSF's philosphy is that all source code should be opened. What you're describing as a bug (for a company), is (I think) a feature for the FSF.

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

#295

Post by knorker »

simion314 wrote: post #210
knorker wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

Only if your decide you need a lawyer.

:-P

It's OK to drive drunk, as long as you put a blindfold on so you can't see that you're drunk?

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

#296

Post by knorker »

lmm wrote: post #291
knorker wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So your legal interpretation as a lawyer (I assume) is an ad hominem on Google for unrelated reasons?

When you complain about someone calling Google liars, the fact that Google has a long history of flagrant lying is not an ad hominem but relevant background.

Background yes, argument no.

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

#297

Post by KingOfCoders »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #159
KingOfCoders wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When working for eBay I've asked our legal department "So if we do this, are when then safe?" - The answer was always "The court decides, before that noone knows."

Right. That's really the issue -- it's not that the risk isn't there, it's that the risk is always there, so it's an isolated demand for rigor. For example, here's the Windows 10 license: > c. Restrictions. The device manufacturer or installer and Microsoft reserve all rights (such as rights under intellectual property laws) not expressly granted in this agreement. For example, this license does not give you any righ…

At least Microsoft is not Oracle, who are famouse for their horrible license audits where a whole consulting industry [1] sprung up to survive them, but yes I agree.

[1] e.g. "Founded in 2011, Palisade is the leading independent provider of Oracle contract advisory services."

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

#298

Post by woofie11 »

kube-system wrote: post #278
woofie11 wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've worked in several of those industries. Oddly enough, open source was always easier there. I'd challenge you to find a regulation which prevents open source in any of those industries. I think the one exception -- and this was an extreme example -- was the firmware of a medical device which could endanger human lives if modified. Things were locked down. But generically? I'm batting maybe 75% with open source in…

ITAR? Any contract work under an NDA? Sensitive government work? Any code that implements trade secrets? Any custom enterprise software with hard-coded exceptions for controlled data? You can certainly use open source in regulated industries -- the question is, can they risk the legal possibility of being forced to open source the rest of their stack if the a court determines AGPL requires it.

I'm not saying everything done is open source. I'm saying it's less common in regulated industries.

NDA / sensitive government work -> FOIA makes restrictions tough. I can request government source code.

Trade secrets -> The government can't really keep trade secrets. I guess if I were working with classified code?

Hard-coded exceptions -> Not specific to regulated industries but bad design.

Legal possibility -> This is not a legal possibility. A legal possibility is paying damages. It's the same if I break a proprietary license too (for example, accidentally ship out a copy of a library I paid for just one license with my product).

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

#300

Post by teddyh »

yencabulator wrote: post #275
teddyh wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Being wrong about AGPL, you have to release a lot of code That is also false scaremongering. You always have the option to simply cease distributing until you have re-implemented the AGPL code yourself.

I doubt "turn off Google Maps until we reimplement it from scratch" is an acceptable business continuity risk.

Google could certainly afford to implement a stub replacement library as a contingency plan, in case they really would be that worried about it.
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