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Minio Changes License to AGPL

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Re: Minio Changes License to AGPL

#101

Post by jefftk »

Benjamin_Dobell wrote: post #97
wegs2 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IANAL, but you're obviously not one either. A lot of what you said is false. You don't read legal text like a piece of code. Contracts and licenses don't work like that. It took me a long time to wrap my head around this. Contracts and licenses are built on: 1) Things need to be substantially the same. If I offer to build a house for you with Brand X super-plywood flooring, and it's sold out, I can build it upgraded…

> A lot of what you said is false. I'm not interested in sea lioning. So I'll just ask for one specific claim that is false.

"You can't relicense something that is Apache 2.0 as AGPL. You need explicit approval of every single contributor" is false.

Anyone can take an existing Apache 2.0 project and change the license to AGPL 3.0. This does not require the approval of any prior contributor. Of course people can continue using versions released under Apache 2.0 under the terms of that license, but even then "approval of every single contributor" is irrelevant. See https://www.apache.org/licenses/GPL-compatibility.html

The situation where you do need the approval of past contributors is when you want to switch between incompatible licenses. For example, if they had previously released it as AGPL 3.0 and wanted to move to Apache 2.0.

(also not a lawyer)

Re: Minio Changes License to AGPL

#102

Post by hda2 »

wegs2 wrote: post #89
jchw wrote: post #57

I don’t necessarily think AGPL is the best license, but I am very glad it’s AGPL catching on and not SSPL and friends. I’ve spoken my piece in recent threads already, but I just think this is more friendly to the FOSS community even if it’s not perfect.

I don't think AGPL is a perfect license, but I do think it's the best. The flaws it has are things like the poorly-written patent clause, verbosity, ambiguity on concepts like linking, and general lack of elegance. It runs into a lot of corner cases around where code looks like data or data looks like code; there isn't a clean separation. GPLv2 was a brilliantly-drafted license. For all those failings, AGPL seems lik…

> The flaws it has are things like the poorly-written patent clause ...

Isn't the AGPL based on the GPLv3? I thought the GPLv3 had a very clear stance on patents.

Re: Minio Changes License to AGPL

#103

Post by gsich »

yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #68
gsich wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not an issue. If you modify the source you'll notice if you try to keep upstream. If not (as in you don't modify) then it doesn't matter anyway.

I've seen companies automatically patch software (there was a CI pipeline that would clone upstream, automatically apply a patch file, and ship the result), so it's certainly possible to pull+patch without looking at specific changes, let alone watching for a relicense.

Sounds like a leftpad disaster.

Re: Minio Changes License to AGPL

#104

Post by hda2 »

koolba wrote: post #44
sdesol wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I noticed that they have a large number of contributors yet seem to have no contributor agreement with ownership assignment. I did a quick analysis of the project and there were 41 contributors in the last year that contributed more than 10 lines of code churn to go files. See the following for an analysis: https://public-001.gitsense.com/insights/github/repos?q=file... If you switch to the impacts view, you can se…

How does “reimplement contributions” work in practice? For trivial changes there’s often no alternate implementation (e.g. correcting a typo) and for anything substantial anybody currently involved in the project would be tainted with exposure to the implementation.

> trivial changes there’s often no alternate implementation (e.g. correcting a typo)

IANAL, but simple changes like these likely don't meet the threshold of copyrightablity.

Re: Minio Changes License to AGPL

#105

Post by hda2 »

Benjamin_Dobell wrote: post #74
papercrane wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not seeing an obvious license issue here. Apache 2.0 is GPLv3 compatible (but not V2 compatible.) Both Apache and the FSF agree on that, and the AGPLv3 is compatible with GPLv3. So I don't see why they'd need explicit approval to use the AGPLv3 going forward.

Please see the EDIT.

I read your edits and still don't see a problem. You can still "pluck" out Apache code from minio and use that under that license. The license for Apache code hasn't changed.

What you can't do is use the minio without adhering to the terms of the AGPL (and Apache 2.0).

Re: Minio Changes License to AGPL

#106

Post by seoaeu »

bgwhn wrote: post #20
slaymaker1907 wrote: post #2

IANAL, but this may be illegal. I noticed that they have a large number of contributors yet seem to have no contributor agreement with ownership assignment. This generally means that any license change would need the agreement of every past contributor (as it should). There are good reasons (for the primary author(s)) to enforce copyright assignment for contributions. Besides legal issues, I consider changes like thi…

What's more concerning IMO is that despite the fact that I can't find a CLA, their pricing page claims that if you buy their support contract that they'll give you the software under a "Commercial" license: https://min.io/pricing

Imagine if the only APGL enforcement action on this was by contributors against MinIO. Not exactly the intended outcome of this re-licensing...

Re: Minio Changes License to AGPL

#107

Post by hda2 »

Benjamin_Dobell wrote: post #80
yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As of 2021-04-24T00:14:57Z, your edits don't appear to answer what problems you have with Apache 2.0? You've only said that people should read it and talked about its interactions with AGPL.

I asked people to read the license, it's all explained in the license. There's no ambiguity, it's really clear cut. Seems as that's apparently an unreasonable expectation, I'll quote a previous HN comment I've made in regard to Apache 2.0: > I think this is a common misconception. The Apache 2.0 license isn't all that similar to simpler licenses BSD/MIT/X11. > Apache 2.0 has some clauses which (most people tend to ig…

And how does this prevent minio from re-licensing their project to AGPL? I still don't see the issue.

Re: Minio Changes License to AGPL

#108

Post by hardwaresofton »

tpxl wrote: post #99
hardwaresofton wrote: post #85

Remember, AGPL does not stop you from self-hosting or running a business on the software! It only requires you to share changes if you modify the software , which is a very reasonable requirement. I'm planning on launching a managed S3-alike service later this year and Minio is going to be what I use, it remains to be seen if they'll go to SSPL/BSL or anything else when enough people do this (maybe most wouldn't beca…

> - Start permissively F/OSS project > - Entice the community to contribute/produce content/market > - Change the license of the project You can't really do that without every contributor agreeing or using a compatible license (unless people sign CLAs, but even then you can only re-license further work).

True, but who's going to sue you? Developers? More likely the EFF, but they can't go after everyone. Legal recourse is increasingly becoming only possible for the most motivated or well endowed participants.

Also CLAs are pretty common these days, the legalese is written in a very non-offensive manner, and the youngsters that are new to open source probably don't think twice about signing it (assuming you should think twice about signing it in the first place, of course, some people may not agree with that).

Free bootstrapped money-printer startup idea for someone -- software for managing CLAs (projects, signatures, revocation, etc) would probably be a no-brainer for most of the companies looking to get into OSS. Making this easier for companies may damage the ecosystem (essentially enabling more of the behavior I've outlined), but it could also be good because it brings sunlight, if you know the playbook (and it's obvious when someone asks you to sign a CLA), then the community as a whole can avoid those companies' projects, or know what they're buying into, and the shift between Free software, open source software, and source-available software will widen.

Re: Minio Changes License to AGPL

#109

Post by comex »

hda2 wrote: post #102
wegs2 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think AGPL is a perfect license, but I do think it's the best. The flaws it has are things like the poorly-written patent clause, verbosity, ambiguity on concepts like linking, and general lack of elegance. It runs into a lot of corner cases around where code looks like data or data looks like code; there isn't a clean separation. GPLv2 was a brilliantly-drafted license. For all those failings, AGPL seems lik…

> The flaws it has are things like the poorly-written patent clause ... Isn't the AGPL based on the GPLv3? I thought the GPLv3 had a very clear stance on patents.

There is an AGPLv2 and an AGPLv3, but most recent adopters are using AGPLv3.

Re: Minio Changes License to AGPL

#110

Post by Benjamin_Dobell »

hda2 wrote: post #105
Benjamin_Dobell wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please see the EDIT.

I read your edits and still don't see a problem. You can still "pluck" out Apache code from minio and use that under that license. The license for Apache code hasn't changed. What you can't do is use the minio without adhering to the terms of the AGPL (and Apache 2.0).

Spot on, this is precisely what I've written.
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