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Why we picked AGPL

blog.paradedb.com

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Re: Why we picked AGPL

#281

Post by sfink »

jay_kyburz wrote: post #128
sfink wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if the (CLA-owning) organization changes the license, the last version available under the AGPL will always be available under the AGPL. > If you can't use the AGPL version now, you can't use it later either. Right. But you can use it now and later. > And I don't see how it prevents "Cloud Vendors" from using it, but not everybody else as well. Cloud vendors can use it. What they can't do is fork it and start ma…

So I guess what you are saying is that the business model is that cloud vendors will buy a license, but only if they they want to make changes to the code, but not release those changes. So not just small changes, big changes that have a significant value-add, and not easily replicated. It assumes cloud vendors will want to start building a business on top of this critical dependency. It doesn't sound like a great de…

> So I guess what you are saying is that the business model is that cloud vendors will buy a license, but only if they they want to make changes to the code, but not release those changes.

That, or the cloud vendor does not buy a license and uses it anyway, with or without changes. And existing customers of the originator continue to be their customers, rather than switching to become customers of the cloud vendor instead.

> So not just small changes, big changes that have a significant value-add, and not easily replicated. It assumes cloud vendors will want to start building a business on top of this critical dependency.

It doesn't assume that, it defends against issues caused by that.

> It doesn't sound like a great deal for the cloud vendor.

Exactly! But that's the point.

> I assume we are really only talking about Amazon, Microsoft and Google, and the developer hopes to just get bought rather than messing around with licenses.

The canonical case is where the original author does want to sell licenses and/or support and/or development contracts to various random companies, most of them not giant cloud companies. They do not want to be acquired. Their customers are most likely also customers of some large cloud company, and the original author most of all does not want to compete with the cloud company. The author will want the software to work well in the context of a cloud offering, and will not want their version to work worse than the cloud company's own version. If a big cloud company comes up with a way to make the software work better when using their cloud, then the original author wants to incorporate that improvement, preferably alongside improvements made by or for the other big cloud companies.

But you are correct about the importance of selling something, whether it is a license or support or development services. As a sibling comment to yours mentions, that's where the CLA (contributor license agreement) stuff comes in, where in order to be able to sell a proprietary license, they need to own all the code. This is where it can get ugly. Not everyone wants to hand over ownership of changes they make, so that the originator can make money off of them. And nobody has to. The AGPL only forces people to make their changes available, not to give them away; it's up to the originator to make people want to get their changes upstream.

Re: Why we picked AGPL

#282

Post by philippemnoel »

PeterZaitsev wrote: post #269

First title is a bit misleading. ParadeDB is Open Core, which uses AGPL for Open Source version. When you talk about traction I wonder how many external contributors are you getting ?

We've had 35 contributors in total on ParadeDB thus far, with 5 of them being core team members.

That said, we measure traction in terms of users of the product rather than in terms of contributors to the project. We welcome contributions but understand that this is primarily a project led by our company and don't expect any external contribution.

Re: Why we picked AGPL

#283

Post by the_mitsuhiko »

thisislife2 wrote: post #263
the_mitsuhiko wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The AGPL ensures that the community AGPL licensed code will always have to be open source, and that anybody else can use it too. That's true in the sense that there will always be an AGPL version, but it's not true that "anybody else" can use it to. In many situations you need to acquire a non AGPL license from the original copyright holder to be legally able to use the software in certain environments. That's why…

If your business depends on some form of closed-source codebase, than yes, an AGPL codebase will not suit your need. But from an opensource developer perspective it doesn't matter. For example, if you release your source code under the more freer license (like BSD, MIT or Apache), you can indeed close source your code. But so can others. I can use your source code, add more features to it, and close source it. I woul…

Unless you define Open Source developer as Hobby only licenses matter. I’m an Open Source developer and I want to be able to use software no matter the situation.

Re: Why we picked AGPL

#284

Post by thisislife2 »

dns_snek wrote: post #122
gumby wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TL;DR: my quick read is that they are trying to do the right thing. My not super-close reading is that this is actually reasonable (but note: I wrote the original GNU blanket assignment back around 1989 or 1990 so you may consider my perspective bogus). This agreement says that you confirm that you have the right to license your contribution (that what you wrote isn’t actually your employer’s), and that they can use…

Interesting. I think concerns about legality of contributions are completely understandable. But doesn't this CLA in particular (and most CLAs out there generally) assign the company behind it a license to distribute all contributions under any license they wish? Specifically the part that I quoted where contributors give them an "irrevocable copyright license" to "sublicense" their contributions? As far as I underst…

> But doesn't this CLA in particular (and most CLAs out there generally) assign the company behind it a license to distribute all contributions under any license they wish?

Yes. CLA requirements for commercial AGPL open-source projects actually highlights an important feature of the AGPL - you need explicit permission from the developers to use their code in a proprietary codebase.

Codebase under a permissive open-source license like BSD, MIT, ZLIB etc. can be used by anyone and even packaged into a closed source codebase (with a proprietary license) even without a CLA. All that such license demand is that you do not deny public attribution to the developers and highlight the original license (here's an example from the old Opera Presto browser which was a proprietary closed browser with open source components in it - https://imgur.com/a/KDavWLd ). On the other hand, an AGPL codebase cannot be packaged into a proprietary codebase because the license requires not only attribution but also the requirement that the all source code, even the non-AGPL parts, has to be compulsorily shared if you link it with an AGPL codebase (i.e. it forces all code to be always open source).

The underlying philosophy of the xGPL license is the right to repair the software you use. And you can only do that if you have access to the source code of the software. Under AGPL it is illegal to close-source an AGPL codebase. But, AGPL also recognizes the rights of a developer on the code they created. It thus doesn't prevent the original developer from re-licensing their own code or even transferring the rights to another. Thus, in some way, AGPL actually forces the CLA requirement (if you want to distribute a software under proprietary license) and let's the developer decide if they want their code to be reused in a proprietary codebase.

Re: Why we picked AGPL

#285

Post by kazinator »

kazinator wrote: post #249
tivert wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, I'm getting the impression you're too being too rigid with definitions: anchoring too strongly in the incidental specifics of GPL as being "free software" while ignoring its goals.

The GPL promotes the four essential freedoms posted on the GNU/FSF website. They are not incidental. There is a lengthy article by RMS "Why programs must not limit the freedom to run them". https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/programs-must-not-limit-freed...

Nowhere does RMS say that, oh, if the user modified the program, it's okay to limit their freedom to run it in some ways, as long as it's via a license blessed by the GNU project and the FSF, the ultimate arbiters of what is free who can change their minds at any time.

However, in this article, RMS is cheerfully recommending Affero:

https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/who-does-that-server-really-s...

Re: Why we picked AGPL

#286

Post by kazinator »

rpdillon wrote: post #227
kazinator wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's triggered on use of the modified software. Not just any use but use in such a way that network visitors interact with the software. If you don't use the software that way, the requirement doesn't apply even if you modified it. If you've not modified the software, interested visitors can just get the source code from the same upstream, so why would it be required of you to host it. However the following situation…

Nope. Section 10: > Each time you convey a covered work, the recipient automatically receives a license from the original licensors, to run, modify and propagate that work, subject to this License. You are not responsible for enforcing compliance by third parties with this License.

Right, but suppose you disappear. The third parties are using code with your modification. Do they have to host anything? They did not modify anything themselves, but there is no upstream any more for the exact code they are using.

Re: Why we picked AGPL

#287

Post by max-privatevoid »

keskival wrote: post #135
dgb23 wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought the point of copyleft was mainly to protect the freedoms of users. But apparently it’s also used as a filter of who can interact and benefit from it. But I don’t really understand all of it. One thing I always wondered about selling separate licenses alongside GPL: Can the authors (holding the copyright) distribute code under a different license when there were external contributors under GPL?

By default the contributors also hold copyright and need to consent to the separate licensing. However, this is typically solved by using a contributor licence agreement (CLA) where all contributors click through a form before submitting a PR where they declare that they own the copyright for the PR and they give a license for the organization to relicense the work and derivatives. Sometimes the whole copyright is tr…

Spreading copyright among as many entities as possible to make relicensing more difficult is not a problem you should "solve". It's a feature of the license. A CLA ensures that contributors will be treated unfairly, and I hope it deters many potential contributors.

Re: Why we picked AGPL

#289

Post by lmm »

teddyh wrote: post #267
lmm wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Firstly, you are wrong. The FSF does not require copyright assignment. It is up to the individual software projects to decide if they require them or not. The FSF requires copyright assignment for many (possibly no longer all?) of their own projects, e.g. GnuTLS. Of course it's up to an individual project whether it requires it (how could the FSF possibly control what some unrelated project does?), but on those pro…

> The FSF requires copyright assignment for many (possibly no longer all?) of their own projects The FSF requires nothing of the projects; the FSF leaves the choice of copyright assignment up to the project and its maintainers. Which is what I wrote. The fact that many projects do choose to require copyright assignment does not make you be less wrong when you said that the FSF requires it. > They cannot change the GP…

> The FSF requires nothing of the projects; the FSF leaves the choice of copyright assignment up to the project and its maintainers.

And in the case of their own projects, the projects where the FSF is the project/the maintainers, what is it they do? They require copyright assignment.

Re: Why we picked AGPL

#290

Post by bigstrat2003 »

mrwyz wrote: post #215
baggy_trough wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using code that is freely given is not in any sense stealing.

Only if you think taking the work of others and profiting from it without contributing anything back is fine.

I am not going to debate whether it's "fine", but it's certainly not stealing. If I make someone a beautiful necklace and they sell it in an auction, I might wish they hadn't done that with my gift - but they haven't stolen anything either.
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