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Why we picked AGPL

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Re: Why we picked AGPL

#251

Post by lmm »

tgma wrote: post #127
lmm wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The AGPL deception is you brand yourself as community-minded. As long as you don't rely on external contributions that's fair. But what the AGPL startups don't emphasize is they require you to either assign your copyright to them or give them extra privileges to your contributions to be able to relicense it under non AGPL (if they don't they don't know what they are doing). There's nothing specific to the AGPL or s…

The model is equivalent. Everything else is different. FSF's structure, purpose, history and guardrails against non-hijacking make it distinct from a startup whose purpose is to claim "open source" but preclude Amazon and keep their revenue stream. Nothing against them or their business model; it's their prerogative, of course. So is the community and customer's read on their future actions. To claim you should assum…

Organisations that start by claiming to be open-source and rug-pulling are something to be wary of. But neither AGPL nor CLAs are a particular red flag for that. Plenty of well-behaved organisations use CLAs or copyright assignments, and plenty of badly-behaved organisations use licenses other than the AGPL (e.g. Redis had a 3-clause BSD-style license but still did the same thing).

Re: Why we picked AGPL

#252

Post by tgma »

lmm wrote: post #251
tgma wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The model is equivalent. Everything else is different. FSF's structure, purpose, history and guardrails against non-hijacking make it distinct from a startup whose purpose is to claim "open source" but preclude Amazon and keep their revenue stream. Nothing against them or their business model; it's their prerogative, of course. So is the community and customer's read on their future actions. To claim you should assum…

Organisations that start by claiming to be open-source and rug-pulling are something to be wary of. But neither AGPL nor CLAs are a particular red flag for that. Plenty of well-behaved organisations use CLAs or copyright assignments, and plenty of badly-behaved organisations use licenses other than the AGPL (e.g. Redis had a 3-clause BSD-style license but still did the same thing).

Can’t really refute a hypothetical. Is there a polymarket bet for that? I will categorically take the under on your position for any company doing CLA with AGPL. The intent is so glaringly obvious.

Re: Why we picked AGPL

#253

Post by jillesvangurp »

Vegenoid wrote: post #194
sangnoir wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you are happy to contribute code and then have them take it and sell it under a closed source license; or at a later stage just decide to relicense the whole thing as closed source; go for it. Isn't this a core feature of the "unrestrictive" licenses you're a fan of? If you don't like freeloaders, BSD-/MIT-style licenses are even worse because they allow anyone, not just the maintainers, to sell your contributio…

Yes. I think what makes some people unhappy is the perceived inequality: you can do whatever you want with my contributions, but I can't do whatever I want with the software. But there simply has to be control and restrictions over the use of software for it to be commercially viable (in almost every case).

If you want a closed source license, use a closed source license. Nothing wrong with that; many companies do that. This particular license combination just creates the illusion of openness without most of the benefits for would be contributors.

> But there simply has to be control and restrictions over the use of software for it to be commercially viable (in almost every case).

That's the view of a single company that wants exclusive control, not the view of a company that wants to create a healthy OSS community. Healthy OSS communities tend to have more than one company involved and a diverse group of contributors. That's why OSS licenses exist that protect their mutual rights. It's a necessary compromise to prevent any contributor having that kind of power and allow them to collaborate and share code. This is the opposite; and it cannot create a healthy OSS community.

Which raises the question of what the point is of using this kind of licensing? I don't think it's about soliciting outside contributions as this kind of actively discourages that. And why else would you open source something?

Re: Why we picked AGPL

#254

Post by Vegenoid »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #253
Vegenoid wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. I think what makes some people unhappy is the perceived inequality: you can do whatever you want with my contributions, but I can't do whatever I want with the software. But there simply has to be control and restrictions over the use of software for it to be commercially viable (in almost every case).

If you want a closed source license, use a closed source license. Nothing wrong with that; many companies do that. This particular license combination just creates the illusion of openness without most of the benefits for would be contributors. > But there simply has to be control and restrictions over the use of software for it to be commercially viable (in almost every case). That's the view of a single company tha…

> And why else would you open source something?

It's nice to know when you're building something on top of other tech that if you need to, you can dig in to the code and fix issues. If the company folds, and you rely on their tech, you can continue to maintain it. If you want to look at their code to see how something works, you can do that. If you want to hire somebody to do a security audit on it, you can do that. If you're picking software to build with, having the source code be open or available is a positive.

And there's no downside to companies doing this. I see this happening frequently: people getting upset at companies that do some kind of sort-of-open-source/source-available thing, because they think the company is just out to get their free labor. If you don't want to give them free labor, then don't.

And besides, they are using AGPL! OSI-approved! What more can you ask for? That the company either dissolve completely, so that their software may become a garden on their grave, tended to by a community of free engineers, or else must remain cloistered and strictly closed? You don't need to celebrate it, but I just don't see the point in pooh-poohing this.

Re: Why we picked AGPL

#255

Post by seba_dos1 »

JohannesSuenden wrote: post #24

I love the AGPL. I can't imagine it becoming popular for generic business functionality in library form, but for highly-specialized libraries (in my case scientific with industrial applications) it was everything I was looking for --- not least because automated license scanners flag it and scare potential parasites away. It's also a great choice for complete pieces of software (such as DBs, as in this case) to offer…

AGPL is great; CLAs are not.

Re: Why we picked AGPL

#256

Post by camgunz »

pimeys wrote: post #236
camgunz wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Aren't they? So, if I want to use a GPL library, all I need to do is write a little wrapper program that does RPC over a socket, and boom, I can use a GPL library in my closed source program? Yep. This is how MySQL/MariaDB work, for example.

What about when running a wasm component in an AGPL host? Can the compiled wasm file be proprietary? They share the same memory space, but the wasm component is not compiled with the host.

Interesting; this sounds to me like linking, but I'd email licensing@fsf.org to be sure.

Re: Why we picked AGPL

#257

Post by camgunz »

dspillett wrote: post #246
camgunz wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well that's not Op's question. They're asking "if I use Minio in my stack without modifications (as a file server that my other services interact with via an API), do I have to AGPL all the stuff the touches Minio or not?" (Minio is basically a FOSS S3) [0]. You're asking about linking, which is covered in the FAQ [1]: "You have a GPLed program that I'd like to link with my code to build a proprietary program. Does t…

I'm not sure that interpretation is correct. I don't read the intention that way (but I'd have to reread the licenses on detail to refresh myself before speaking more definitively). Having said that, the fact that minio's documentation answers the question with a shrug and says "lawyer up" (see https://github.com/minio/minio/blob/master/COMPLIANCE.md ) seems quite telling.

I mean, they have a strong incentive to get you to buy a commercial license. I'm not surprised they're uninterested in giving you free legal advice in service of not paying them.

Re: Why we picked AGPL

#258

Post by camgunz »

dspillett wrote: post #241
franga2000 wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "any coupling" logic would also make anything running on Linux GPL, which is definitely not the case. Using background service such as Minio as an unmodified black box for data storage as part of your app is unambiguously not derivative work. If you were to write something like a management UI for Minio and offer it with your hosted Minio service, then I can at least see the argument, although it still doesn't co…

The "or very definite answers to the question" is important there. Linus has explicitly answered the question, and if you use any of the Linux headers then yes you should release that software under the GPL. Under this circumstance your "which is definitely not the case" is incorrect. [EDIT: after reading the information in the link provided by actionfromafar, I'm pull that back a bit: headers marked appropriately ca…

> That is certainly the case for LGPL, but by my understanding it isn't for GPL nor by extension AGPL.

If you don't modify, you have no obligations. Easy.

Re: Why we picked AGPL

#259

Post by awesomeMilou »

camgunz wrote: post #179
mrbluecoat wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the length of this HN discussion is evidence enough that AGPL isn't clear. In my experience, organizations that use AGPL do so to 1) ward off an active non-paying community with its associated support cost, 2) claim open source to help convince you to buy their software/service, 3) hire skill-vetted programmers, 4) allow third-party security audits, and/or 5) avoid being jaded by someone that can market or ho…

It can also be evidence that HN posters have a poor understanding of GPL licenses. Pretty much all these questions are answered in the FAQ [0]. Your guess is as good as mine as to why people continually post random, uninformed, needlessly conservative takes on them instead of just doing a small amount of reading. [0]: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html

That's the GNU project's interpretation of the license. I don't see how a court couldn't reach a different agreement on what the often discussed "derivative works" section means.

The FAQ also has interesting takes, where depending on the jurisdiction you're in, I'm sure such views would differ:

    Q: In an object-oriented language such as Java, if I use a class that is GPLed without modifying, and subclass it, in what way does the GPL affect the larger program? (#OOPLang)

    A: Subclassing is creating a derivative work. Therefore, the terms of the GPL affect the whole program where you create a subclass of a GPLed class.
Thats... a really weird and technically inept take on an issue that is not broadly applicable to all object oriented languges, but going with this argument, I'd argue that "subclassing" essentially constitutes just using an interface (in the general sense, not in the Java sense) to some existing software, so in Minio's case, using their API would constitute a similar usage pattern -> my "derivative" work must now be GPL licensed.

Re: Why we picked AGPL

#260

Post by 1ilit »

sneak wrote: post #245
1ilit wrote: post #171

I totally get this. I recently changed the license on my project from MIT to AGPL after getting a dm from someone interested in buying the project. I make absolutely no money at the moment, if anything I'm paying out of pocket for the domain, and don't think will any time soon. My only goal was to protect the project from getting commercialized by someone else. I've gotten questions about it and have been questioning…

“protect”? What harm is done by more people using your software?

None. I made it for people to use and open sourced for people to see and contribute. I just don't want someone else to sell it. That's it.
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