Grafana, Loki, and Tempo will be relicensed to AGPLv3

Post by sokoloff » Wed, Apr 21, 2021, 8:28 AM UTC

ternaryoperator wrote: post #428

throwaway2037 wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand your concern. After Google started the negative press about AGPL, some companies I worked also followed suit. It felt like blind following, as almost none of my software faces the public -- it's mostly internal. In that case, AGPL is no concern. But internal training made a big point about "avoid AGPL... even Google avoids it!" Truly, it was F.U.D. nonsense. You also wrote: > While that statement may be…

I don't know, but I expect that Google uses the OpenJDK release, which is identical to the Oracle JDK except it does not receive paid support from Oracle. I strongly doubt Google which has been fighting Oracle for years about a Java license would be paying Oracle for support. But stranger things have been known to happen!

Post by p_l » Wed, Apr 21, 2021, 8:54 AM UTC

rlpb wrote: post #380

btown wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is a misunderstanding of how vague the AGPL actually is. The key clause is "your modified version must prominently offer all users interacting with it remotely through a computer network (if your version supports such interaction) an opportunity to receive the Corresponding Source of your version." Would putting AGPL software behind a reverse proxy change the fact that you're a user interacting with it r…

This kind of hand-wringing is what the naysayers were doing with GPL software in the 90s. That the GPL would never fly in business because lawyers would get hung up in "what if" interpretations that were never the intent or spirit of the GPL in the first place. It turned out alright.

Post by sokoloff » Wed, Apr 21, 2021, 9:04 AM UTC

peterbonney wrote: post #146

jabiko wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Your first post is about the one time and perpetual operational overhead associated with operating under the prior FOSS license My first post is about the fact that even though the planned use case would be 100% compliant to the AGPLv3 license the fear that is associated with that license could prevent such use. > That makes zero business sense Purchasing a license in that case while not strictly necessary might be…

> In the end though I highly doubt that's whats going to happen. The most likely outcome is that we just get told to get rid of Grafana and use something else. Whatever you replace it with will have the same licensing overhead. Again, this makes no sense. If you said we can’t afford to pay for it, fine. But you explicitly said you don’t think cost is an issue. Maybe I’m making the wrong inference, but it sounds like…

Post by kavalg » Wed, Apr 21, 2021, 9:09 AM UTC

jeffbee wrote: post #286

gpanders wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is absolutely FUD. https://drewdevault.com/2020/07/27/Anti-AGPL-propaganda.html

On the one hand you have a large department of battle-hardened IP lawyers who say that AGPL virality is overbroad and poorly defined, and on the other hand you have a FOSS advocate who says it's fine, so I guess we'll never know for sure!

Post by kavalg » Wed, Apr 21, 2021, 9:14 AM UTC

nopzor wrote: post #67

jononor wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Q&A suggests that "unmodified" distributions are not an issue. But if I distribute dashboards, custom configurations, etc - is that a "modification" ?

nope, that wouldn't be a modification to the AGPL-licensed grafana. you are free to do that. plus, dashboards and configuration are inherently ("source available"), so even if one were to consider them to be modifications (which they're not), you are already distributing them in source form ;-) [note: am co-founder/ceo of grafana labs]