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Minio Changes License to AGPL

github.com

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Re: Minio Changes License to AGPL

#31

Post by cygx »

rytill wrote: post #6
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…

Would it be possible to simply fork an MIT-style license and relicense the new fork as AGPL? The pre-fork version can continue with its old license, but the new fork is AGPL.

You can't just change the license of code contributed by someone else without approval. But you can relicense your own contributions, which - unless that code can be trivially ripped out - would basically have the same effect as placing the whole thing under the AGPL.

Re: Minio Changes License to AGPL

#32

Post by bluefox »

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…

I'm not sure it's "illegal"... but according to [0] the Apache license is subsumed by AGPL3, so I think this means they can add AGPL3 code freely and the result still makes sense to lawyers. They may also relicense code fully authored by themselves as AGPL3. Perhaps it may be even possible to relicense contributor code given these specific licenses? I don't know. They can push to that repository, so it's their prerogative to add whatever. Of course, people could use their own forks without these commits, not upgrade, etc.

[0] https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-compatibility.en.html

Re: Minio Changes License to AGPL

#33

Post by henvic »

lillecarl wrote: post #25
monocasa wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, this is a go project, not a rust project.

What's the difference between the languages got to do with the license?

Not sure about what he means, but I've written this https://medium.com/@henvic/opensource-and-go-what-license-f6... in the past mostly about the impact of permissive vs. non-permissive licenses on Go code (because Go programs are statically linked; not sure about Rust).

Re: Minio Changes License to AGPL

#34

Post by rad_gruchalski »

jabo wrote: post #23
rad_gruchalski wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You only have a problem if you modify anything in the source code of minio that you host.

Based on [1] it sounds like even if you "link" to AGPL licensed code over a network, unmodified or not, it would require you to also license your own code as AGPL? That sounds pretty far reaching, if I'm reading it correctly. [1] https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/a/107931/28221

I didn’t downvote you. No, that’s not the case. Here’s a better explanation: https://writing.kemitchell.com/2021/01/24/Reading-AGPL.html

Basically, if you ever need to use agpl stuff, do not embed or add your proprietary ip to a modified version. Use a sidecar. Only embed features you don’t care about.

Re: Minio Changes License to AGPL

#36

Post by enriquto »

temp667 wrote: post #29
jabo wrote: post #7

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?

Correct - you would need to open source your entire app (or at least a strong arguement can be made that you must do so). "The primary risk presented by AGPL is that any product or service that depends on AGPL-licensed code, or includes anything copied or derived from AGPL-licensed code, may be subject to the virality of the AGPL license. " Almost all larger places have very strict bans on evening touching AGPL - htt…

> you can look at the code, but can't use it in your own projects unless they are open source too or pay for the commercial license.

Please, stop spreading ridiculous FUD.

You can use copylefted code in your own projects without any restriction. It is only when you distribute this copylefted code (e.g., by letting users run it in your computer) that you need to publish your modifications to it. And then, this is only relevant when you have modified the copylefted code; otherwise you just need to distribute code that is public elsewhere, which is a non-issue.

Re: Minio Changes License to AGPL

#37

Post by [deleted] »

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

[deleted]

Re: Minio Changes License to AGPL

#39

Post by sdesol »

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…

> 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 see that of the 41 contributors, there was 1 frequent contributor, 3 occasional contributors and 37 seldom contributors.

I can't tell how many of the contributors are Minio employees, but I'm guessing in the worst case scenario, they could look at re-implementing contributions by non Minio employees, since the vast majority of code changes were by Minio employees. I know re-implementing previous contributions is a strategy that some use when they change their license, but I'm not sure how practical this is for Minio.

As a side note, do not install my tool as the docker image has expired license that I need to update.

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