161–170 of 304 posts
[flagged]
And now they are -more- open. Did you misread their post? AGPL is just forced open source.
That isn't more open to me.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
From the FSF: > The GNU Affero General Public License is a modified version of the ordinary GNU GPL version 3. It has one added requirement: if you run a modified program on a server and let other users communicate with it there, your server must also allow them to download the source code corresponding to the modified version running there. I don't understand how this corresponds with anything you are saying.
It says if you modify the code you must distribute it. That means if, for instance, I wanted to modify Synapse to satisfy my users, for instance a bespoke authentication backend, I would be FORCED to release and distribute that change. This is NOT the way the GPL works, because the AGPL forces you to make your change available to the parent corp so that they can benefit for free from your labor. The GPL only forces y…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
From the FSF: > The GNU Affero General Public License is a modified version of the ordinary GNU GPL version 3. It has one added requirement: if you run a modified program on a server and let other users communicate with it there, your server must also allow them to download the source code corresponding to the modified version running there. I don't understand how this corresponds with anything you are saying.
It says if you modify the code you must distribute it. That means if, for instance, I wanted to modify Synapse to satisfy my users, for instance a bespoke authentication backend, I would be FORCED to release and distribute that change. This is NOT the way the GPL works, because the AGPL forces you to make your change available to the parent corp so that they can benefit for free from your labor. The GPL only forces y…
I think you're missing a crucial nuance here. You have to make your change available under the AGPL. So the parent corp cannot use your modifications in proprietary offerings unless you separately and voluntarily sign a licensing agreement.
This grants you power over the parent corp: if they want your changes, they either need to keep them equivalently open, or they need to come to an agreement with you.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I thought Element was founded after the Matrix Foundation, and thus Element has been using the Foundations code all along? Yes, they have continued to voluntarily contribute to the Foundation, knowing that it was in their own best interests to grow the Matrix community.
No, the rough timeline is this: * 2014: Matrix core team creates Matrix, writes Synapse and other implementations, starts writing the Matrix spec * 2017: Matrix core team wants to be able to focus on this exclusively as their dayjob; creates New Vector (aka Element) to fund their work. * 2018: Matrix core team establishes the Foundation as a neutral custodian of the standard on behalf of everyone in the ecosystem. El…
So AGPL+CLA: > The benefit of switching to AGPLv3 is that it obliges downstream developers to contribute back to the core project - either by releasing their modifications as open source for the benefit of the whole Matrix ecosystem, or by contacting Element for an alternative license. Future code contributors to Synapse will need to sign a contributor license agreement (CLA) This makes it clear that they intent to s…
I agree with most of your comment, but not that.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I wouldn’t consider any of this open source any more. Stallman's term is "free software", this said "open source". I use OSD to define it, so I consider it technically open source, but to me it's open source that isn't under an acceptable license.
The term you're looking for is "permissive". It is open source, but it is no longer as permissive as it was.
There's no shortcuts to making a nuanced topic much more clear.
However, it is a frequently used term, so it's useful for quickly referring to these licenses. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permissive_software_license
I also didn't say that this type of license is the only kind that is acceptable to me. I like copyleft, including AGPL, and for me it depends on the context. In this situation, I want a vendor neutral federated chat tool. There already is one, XMPP, and Matrix has long been putting itself forth as the successor. However, they just made the reference implementation non vendor-neutral.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
From the FSF: > The GNU Affero General Public License is a modified version of the ordinary GNU GPL version 3. It has one added requirement: if you run a modified program on a server and let other users communicate with it there, your server must also allow them to download the source code corresponding to the modified version running there. I don't understand how this corresponds with anything you are saying.
It says if you modify the code you must distribute it. That means if, for instance, I wanted to modify Synapse to satisfy my users, for instance a bespoke authentication backend, I would be FORCED to release and distribute that change. This is NOT the way the GPL works, because the AGPL forces you to make your change available to the parent corp so that they can benefit for free from your labor. The GPL only forces y…
It doesn't. It says if you modify the code and make the modified binary available as a service, then you must share the modified code with users of the service.
You're not obliged to let the parent corporation use your service, so you're not obliged to give them its source code.