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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

#381

Post by pritambaral »

sneak wrote: post #371
josephcsible wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

No, only the outputs of the software are provided. The software remains wholly within the confines of the computer executing it. There's a clear distinction between sending someone a file that represents computer software (source or object code) (a product) and sending someone the output of a calculation you have been requested to perform (a service).

> There's a clear distinction between ...

The distinction is meaningless to the user in the example your parent cites.

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

#382

Post by crazypython »

clusterfish wrote: post #346
josephcsible wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with the substance of what you said, but I'm going to nitpick a bit of wording: what you call "developer freedom" isn't freedom at all, and is more rightly called power. http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/freedom-or-power.en.html

That seems like splitting hairs for ideological gain. You might as well describe freedom of movement as power to take someone else's job in another town, or freedom of speech as power to manipulate masses, or freedom to do an abortion as power over the unborn child. Which way the issues are framed says more about the author than the issue. Software has leverage (one developer, many users at low marginal cost) built-i…

> freedom of movement as power to take someone else's job in another town

Freedom of movement is the power to exchange goods and services with anyone.

> freedom of speech as power to manipulate masses

Freedom of speech is only a freedom if it is accompanied by a potential hearer's freedom to block speech. Modern platforms do not let you choose what or who you want to hear. Freedom of speech without freedom to choose your censor is anarchy.

> Lack of competition is what lets developer's exert power over users, and while copyleft licenses help with that, they're neither required nor sufficient to prevent abuse of power.

You are ignoring the freedom to modify/fork, plus the requirement of free documentation.

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

#383

Post by chii »

jrv wrote: post #183
josephcsible wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO, the ideal end-state from a software freedom perspective is that all software becomes AGPL. This change is a step in that direction, not only with the directly affected products, but for the reasons you mentioned, an additional pressure for more things to switch to it. Do you not like that end goal, or do you just think the side effects of the change outweigh the benefits of getting closer to it?

I think it's both a completely unrealistic end goal (we live in the real world), and I also think that the AGPL puts you into a hole where you can never get out of again if you decided that you now need different constraints. So I really much more prefer permissive licenses. Funnily just before you wrote this comment, I also tweeted just that :) : https://twitter.com/juliusvolz/status/1384599249082626052

> a completely unrealistic end goal

and so is world peace. Yet, it's a worthy goal.

> if you decided that you now need different constraints

and if you own the copyright, you can always relicense it to suit. How _other_ people chooses to use this software is not under your control, even though you're the copyright holder. This is exactly what it means to have freedom.

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

#384

Post by crazypython »

ezrast wrote: post #379
jordigh wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> projects now cannot use They can, they just don't want to because they want to ensure other people can produce non-free work. Remove the desire to produce non-free work and you can perfectly legally put copylefted code into weakly-licensed free code. Weak licenses don't forbid this. Copyleft licenses don't forbid this. There's no need for anyone to change the license or copyright to combine weak licenses with copyl…

On the contrary, AGPL (and GPL) cannot be combined with any other license. See section 5c: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.en.html

AGPL can be combined with GPL and vice versa. GPL does not require open-sourcing if it stays on your computer or the computer of your company and its employees. This makes AGPL a much weaker copyleft when on a server.

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

#385

Post by caniszczyk »

yawaramin wrote: post #310
caniszczyk wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that for sure is false... Google helped start CNCF but now plays a small part in its governance, they are just one board member like the 30+ others... they have no special voting rights... https://www.cncf.io/people/governing-board/ they still do quite a lot of heavy lifting though in contributing to a variety of CNCF projects if you look at the numbers: https://all.devstats.cncf.io/d/5/companies-table?orgId=1

What happens to CNCF if Google backs out of it tomorrow? Including all funding?

you can see our finances here in the annual report: https://www.cncf.io/cncf-annual-report-2020/

fiscally the impact would be a membership fee which is a small percentage of revenue

The organization is fairly well diversified in terms of members and revenue sources but we appreciate Google's continued support in helping the organization grow, we think it's benefited them in projects like Kubernetes where the work is done by a larger community all working together: https://www.cncf.io/cncf-kubernetes-project-journey/

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

#386

Post by zokier »

gqewogpdqa wrote: post #292
zokier wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If I use S3 to store data for my Mongo SaaS, do I need to call Bezos and buy the complete source code of S3? Yes.

That doesn't make sense as far as I can tell. You would need to release the source code of the managed service you built around MongoDB.

In SSPL you need to release sources for all software you use to build your service.

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

#388

Post by zokier »

clankyclanker wrote: post #360
zokier wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=495721 might be good background reading

The FTP masters’ message (from 14 years ago!) is pretty convincing: https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=495721#17 The follow on questions on that thread seem to be fairly hypothetical handwringing, and something I’d expect the FSF to submit an amicus brief, giving their fairly reasonable FAQ answers, if it ever did show up in court. Given that the GPLv3 (and its derivative, the AGPLv3) allow for up to t…

Sure, I think its mostly settled now. But it definitely was debated at the time.

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

#389

Post by goodpoint »

SAI_Peregrinus wrote: post #182
watermelon0 wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

IANAL, but as I understand it: a) Yes, if Postgres is exposed to users for some reason. Your changes to Postgres are a derivative work of the original, and thus covered under the AGPL. b) No. Your application is not a derivative work of Postgres, any more than it's a derivative work of whatever OS you're using.

a) is wrong: users are not connecting directly to PG

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

#390

Post by pritambaral »

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…

You forgot a point in your numbered list:

4) You're using it.

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> access information in someone else's computer that you have nothing to do with.

1. "nothing to do with" is an absolute claim. Your line of argumentation has been heavily reliant on absolute statements, refusing to understand nuance.

2. If the user truly had "nothing to do with" some information on some computer, the AGPL places no requirement for them to be provided access to that information.

3. Interacting with a service provided by a software != having "nothing to do with" said software.

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> ... claiming that you have the "freedom" to access information ...

For the last time, that is not how the AGPL works. I strongly urge you to go and actually read it, or even https://writing.kemitchell.com/2021/01/24/Reading-AGPL.html

Now, on to the specific rebuttal: The AGPL does not _force_ a user upon you, the service provider. It does not grant the user any "freedom" to access any information, let alone arbitrary information. It cannot even be used by a user to force themselves on you.

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> That's actually a privacy violation.

By your line of reasoning, you have violated my privacy by way of your writing showing up on my computer. Do you see the absurdity in that?

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