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https://github.com/minio/minio/issues/12143
It's pretty ironic that the person talking about commenters not contributing to open source responded directly after Drew Devault criticized the sudden nature of the change.
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> 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 contrib…
No, you cannot. The very page you've linked to makes this clear:
> Apache 2 software can therefore be included in GPLv3 projects, because the GPLv3 license accepts our software into GPLv3 works
This is precisely what I've written. You can also apply the AGPLv3, you cannot remove the Apache 2.0. The contributions made under Apache 2.0, are still under Apache 2.0. The Apache 2.0 allows sub-licensing, so any contributor who uses those contributions from now is accepting them under the AGPLv3 and Apache 2.0. The former does not supplant the latter.
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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.
In fact, I'd be quite surprised to see any ruling from a country that practices common law mention "re-licensing".
It's simply not a thing. These licenses are agreements you accept in order to be granted rights that you would otherwise not have, due to intellectual property law.
If the license doesn't explicitly grant you the ability to "re-license" (and explain what the heck that actually is), then you can't do it.
The Apache 2.0 does grant you some rights regarding licensing, but re-licensing isn't mentioned, because no such concept exists.
Why are most software engineers so terrible at basic comprehension? Licenses are just a set of instructions, how do we consistently fail to follow them? You can't relicense something that is Apache 2.0 as AGPL. You need explicit approval of every single contributor (whose code still exists in the project). You can also attach the AGPL, but it is not a superset of Apache 2.0, which for example contains constraints tha…
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…
> IANAL, but you're obviously not one either.
That ought to have been clear from the first two sentences of my comment.
> I can't imagine any court will care about 4b being on a per-file versus per-repo basis.
You can imagine all you like. I'll leave that to the courts themselves.
Suggesting people (even with a superfluous IANAL disclaimer) make legal decisions based on what you imagine courts will do is just poor advice; legal or otherwise.
> 2) Damages [...]
I haven't mentioned damages because it's not relevant. If you think the concept is new to me, you're quite welcome to peruse my recent HN comments.
Infringement and damages are unrelated concepts. Will someone have to pay substantial damages for infringing in the way described? Probably not, but that doesn't change the fact infringement took place. It also is going to vary wildly depending on the circumstances involved.
Some jurisdictions have minimum damages that are owed simply if an infringement takes places, irrespective of any other details of the infringements.
It's just outright poor advice to suggest people make legal decisions based on what they can imagine.
There's also a very big difference between what I'm suggesting and what you're suggesting. You're telling people to go ahead and do something. I'm telling them not to do something.
Perhaps I'm being overly conservative, but you're quite right, unless you're sitting down with a lawyer (which let's face most open source projects are not) then don't make assumptions. Just follow the license precisely to the best of your ability, until you've got specific legal advice (and insurance) to protect you if something goes wrong.
EDIT: This really shouldn't be relevant. Because honestly it shouldn't add any credibility to my statements.
No I don't sit down with lawyers every time I make decision that has legal implications - that's impossible. However, I do have first hand experience dealing with copyright/licensing lawyers specifically over IP infringement due to a third-party violating the license of software I wrote. No, it wasn't just a discussion. Lawyers took action, and infringement stopped taking place - it did not reach the courts.
Again, that shouldn't add any credibility to my claims. I have zero credibility here, as does mostly everyone else. Just read the damn license.
Let's say I use Minio in a SaaS app and allow my end users to upload directly to it. With this AGPL license change, is this now considered to be a form of distribution, that would then require me to open source the rest of my SaaS app?
If my layman's reading of the affero license is accurate (ha!), I think it only affects you if you run minio with (your) custom modifications, in which case you would have to make the source of your custom minio fork available. It shouldn't affect the source of other services on your system.
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…
AGPL is a poison pill license that creates a very distorted open source model - better example is "shared source" - you can look but can't really use it in you own ops.
The whole AGPLv3 / GPLv3 thing was such a mess - a big move towards trying to tell people how to use the code. I think long term GPLv3 and AGPLv3 die out.
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Just don't upgrade or don't modify the sourcecode.
See my first sentence. Can't not do something if you don't know the license changed.
its your responsibility to know that it has changed when you upgrade.
Let's say I use Minio in a SaaS app and allow my end users to upload directly to it. With this AGPL license change, is this now considered to be a form of distribution, that would then require me to open source the rest of my SaaS app?
If my layman's reading of the affero license is accurate (ha!), I think it only affects you if you run minio with (your) custom modifications, in which case you would have to make the source of your custom minio fork available. It shouldn't affect the source of other services on your system.
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And how does this prevent minio from re-licensing their project to AGPL? I still don't see the issue.
Because "re-licensing" isn't a thing. If you (or anyone else) can point me to a single piece of legislation in any jurisdiction that has a concept of "re-licensing" I'll be very surprised. In fact, I'd be quite surprised to see any ruling from a country that practices common law mention "re-licensing". It's simply not a thing. These licenses are agreements you accept in order to be granted rights that you would other…
1. Re-licesing the whole project is absolutely a thing. As authors of minio, the project has copyright over the combined work and are free to relicense code as long as they don't violate the Apache 2.0. Seeing that the AGPL does not violate this license. This is exactly what minio has done.
2. Unilaterally changing the license of files contributed under Apache 2.0 is not a thing without permission from the authors of said contributions. This is not what minio has done. If minio has tried to do this, they will be committing copyright infringement.
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> 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.