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Grafana, Loki, and Tempo will be relicensed to AGPLv3

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Re: Grafana, Loki, and Tempo will be relicensed to AGPLv3

#361

Post by lacker »

cardanome wrote: post #162
lacker wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Three of the four are in fact outliers: Kubernetes and Android are both financially backed by Google. Is that really "outlier" behavior? More and more important open source projects are prominently backed by a single large tech company. React, TensorFlow, TypeScript, Go, etc. If you just look at the last decade, there has been more important work done as "single-sponsor open source" than under the GPL.

A few monopolistic corporations having dictatorial power over key technologies is a dystopian nightmare. Those projects have ultimately the interests of the corporations in mind not of the users. Ever wonder why overcomplicated technical solutions are hyped so much? Why does everyone and their dog need to run Kubernetes? Why is it all Maschine Learning instead of good old fashioned methods that would do much better?…

Debugging Kubernetes does often feel like a dystopian nightmare, but you aren't forced to use it. I think it's a really good thing that this open software is available. As frustrating as Kubernetes is, for companies with medium-size or large-size deployments, it's really nice to have this level of orchestration software, and it's far better to have the option to use open source software than to be forced to roll your own because you have no alternative.

TensorFlow and Pytorch are similar. Yeah, people end up using machine learning a lot when they don't really have to. But researchers and developers can achieve a lot more when they don't have to reinvent the wheel, and machine learning has provided some really great things.

Re: Grafana, Loki, and Tempo will be relicensed to AGPLv3

#362

Post by [deleted] »

watermelon0 wrote: post #147
blendergeek wrote: post #38

I applaud this decision. I would like to see all major SaaSS projects be AGPLv3. End users still have freedom to user, modify, and distribute the software. Cloud providers must share contributions. This is how I like it.

I have a question regarding AGPL, that I couldn't answer by Googling or reading the license. Let's say that Postgres server is licensed under AGPL, and I modify it to my needs. I have a closed source web application, that is publicly accessible, and uses Postgres for storing data. a) Do I need to publish source code of my version of Postgres? b) Does my application (which relies on Postgres, and my patches) need to a…

[deleted]

Re: Grafana, Loki, and Tempo will be relicensed to AGPLv3

#363

Post by lacker »

mikepurvis wrote: post #174
lacker wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Three of the four are in fact outliers: Kubernetes and Android are both financially backed by Google. Is that really "outlier" behavior? More and more important open source projects are prominently backed by a single large tech company. React, TensorFlow, TypeScript, Go, etc. If you just look at the last decade, there has been more important work done as "single-sponsor open source" than under the GPL.

So TypeScript is Microsoft, and React is Facebook, but all the rest of those are Google. Shouldn't we be a bit concerned about that? Like, it seems like it should be fine, given that TensorFlow is part of their core AI mission, and they're heavily invested in Go, and Android probably isn't going anywhere. But people once thought that Java and MySQL were safe in the hands of Sun, too.

I could add in Pytorch, VSCode, and Swift too. But yeah it's reasonable to worry a bit. It's great that competitors to Java and MySQL arose, and pretty much everything listed except Android (kind of a weird case) has a strong open source competitor.

Re: Grafana, Loki, and Tempo will be relicensed to AGPLv3

#364

Post by jrochkind1 »

nopzor wrote: post #228
jrv wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, which is why typically those companies make external contributors sign a CLA that allows for copyright assignment and relicensing. Which is annoying if you contribute to a company-owned project under a permissive license to help make it big and successful, and then they change the license under you. But yeah, then they could switch it around in both directions if they get all the rights signed away to them.

you realize that if you contribute to a company apache project without a CLA, they can change the license out from under you to _any_ license that they want, right? [note: am co-founder/ceo of grafana labs]

How do you figure?

The way I've understood it is part of the point of CLA's is to allow license changes, and that without them no license changes are possible to community projects. Because all the contributors own the copyright to the code they contributed, which they licensed under the existing license. To change the license you'd need to contact all the contributors and get permission (so okay, not impossible, just infeasible). The CLA is getting that permission in advance, to let some controlling body change copyright later.

Re: Grafana, Loki, and Tempo will be relicensed to AGPLv3

#365

Post by Paul-ish »

LukeShu wrote: post #328
pavon wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only difference between GPL3 and AGPL3 is what constitutes distribution. With GPL3 you have to provide source to anyone you provide binaries. With AGPL3 you also have to provide source to anyone who uses the software remotely (eg a web app). Everything else, including the scope of what must be included in the source (modifications, linked software, but not software that talks over IPC, etc), is identical between…

To expand on that, you have to offer to provide the source to "all users interacting with it remotely through a computer network". If you're using Grafana for monitoring your SaaSS app, then your users aren't interacting with Grafana, so you're fine.

If your SaaSS app surfaces a few small things from Grafana to the user, do you only have to open source the glue code, or the entire SaaSS application?

Re: Grafana, Loki, and Tempo will be relicensed to AGPLv3

#366

Post by sneak »

pritambaral wrote: post #353
sneak wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I don't consider it a problem at all. Nothing is being used improperly or against the spirit of free software when software freedom is exercised (by a service provider) - that's the whole point. I really think the whole AGPL is simply sour grapes, because most GPL-using businesses have not figured out how to become profitable. ("open source is not a business model.") The anti-corporate, anti-business types see pe…

> I don't see a license that forbids the generation of revenue ... The AGPL does not "forbid the generation of revenue". There exist revenue-generating services powered by AGPL software. > Nothing is being used improperly or against the spirit of free software when software freedom is exercised (by a service provider) If that exercise of software freedom hampers an end-user from exercising their software freedom, the…

I wrote:

> forbids the generation of revenue by selling access to a service API using a private fork

That's the thing - "software freedom" is being applied to software that you have no reasonable expectation of having access to:

1) you didn't write it

2) it hasn't been provided to you

3) it's running on someone else's computer

There is no reasonable basis for claiming that you have the "freedom" to access information in someone else's computer that you have nothing to do with. That's actually a privacy violation.

Re: Grafana, Loki, and Tempo will be relicensed to AGPLv3

#367

Post by sneak »

cyphar wrote: post #352
sneak wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I don't consider it a problem at all. Nothing is being used improperly or against the spirit of free software when software freedom is exercised (by a service provider) - that's the whole point. I really think the whole AGPL is simply sour grapes, because most GPL-using businesses have not figured out how to become profitable. ("open source is not a business model.") The anti-corporate, anti-business types see pe…

Consider an extreme example -- someone takes LibreOffice and many other GPL-licensed programs and creates a business where you can only access them through the internet. They make massive (useful changes) to LibreOffice to the point that a vast majority of users switch to the online version because it is objectively better. However, because you can only access their fork of a GPL project over the internet, there is n…

Well, where the software is running changes the whole fact of the matter.

Something entirely different is happening when I'm running software on my computer, using it to provide i/o services to you, and when I provide software to you to run on your own computer.

One is a service, the other is a product. The hypothetical LibreOffice fork, with their private modifications on their own private computer, is entirely within the bounds of reason to keep those modifications private and generate revenue with it, if people want to pay them for the services they provide with it.

It's no different than me using LibreOffice to produce private documents, which I then use to generate revenue for my business. My customers have no right to access my private documents that I use to provide that service: source code is no different.

Re: Grafana, Loki, and Tempo will be relicensed to AGPLv3

#369

Post by josephcsible »

sneak wrote: post #366
pritambaral wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't see a license that forbids the generation of revenue ... The AGPL does not "forbid the generation of revenue". There exist revenue-generating services powered by AGPL software. > Nothing is being used improperly or against the spirit of free software when software freedom is exercised (by a service provider) If that exercise of software freedom hampers an end-user from exercising their software freedom, the…

I wrote: > forbids the generation of revenue by selling access to a service API using a private fork That's the thing - "software freedom" is being applied to software that you have no reasonable expectation of having access to: 1) you didn't write it 2) it hasn't been provided to you 3) it's running on someone else's computer There is no reasonable basis for claiming that you have the "freedom" to access information…

I disagree that "it hasn't been provided to you". Imagine a regular desktop program that you can only use through RDP or VNC. Is that not provided to the user either?

Re: Grafana, Loki, and Tempo will be relicensed to AGPLv3

#370

Post by ternaryoperator »

sneak wrote: post #264
blendergeek wrote: post #38

I applaud this decision. I would like to see all major SaaSS projects be AGPLv3. End users still have freedom to user, modify, and distribute the software. Cloud providers must share contributions. This is how I like it.

I view the AGPL as a nonfree license; I think more permissive licenses are better, because I believe in software freedom. Companies are right to avoid the AGPL.

"Companies are right to avoid the AGPL"

This was never an issue until Google was pinched on it five or six years ago and started a massive campaign to get the OSS movement to disfavor the AGPL. Google uses tons of GPL software that they don't pay for (Linux, Java, etc.) but once it became exterior-facing and the license applied to their software, then rather than pay to license the software, the world's fifth most valuable company decided they'd rather stiff the developers by a campaign to convince other companies of what you just posted.

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