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Comment by adambrenecki | Hacker News Reader

I kind of wish there was a ALGPL; a license that works like the AGPL in terms of access over a network being considered use, but could be used unmodified as a library in non-GPL-compatible software like LGPL libraries can.

Sadly, I doubt the FSF will ever write such a license, given how they discourage use of even the LGPL unless absolutely necessary.

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Can you provide an useful case for that? I'm struggling to find an example.

The use case is when you want any and all modifications to be contributed back but not force anyone using the library to open source whatever is using it.

Isn't that the LGPL? I'm struggling to see how the network part would enter into it.

If the make a modified version and use it in a web app then they are under no obligation to release the changes with the lgpl but with agpl the would be.

So if you used a library in a webapp, you'd have to release the changes to that library to your users, but not the rest of the app? Ok, that makes sense.

The GPLs (excepting AGPL) only require release of source code if it is distributed outside the company/person modifying it. It comes from a pre-networked time when most software required distribution to be useful.

Setting up a web service with GPL code doesn't meet the bar for distribution, so that situation does not require the code to be made available. That's what the AGPL addresses, network use triggers the requirement to make the code available.

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