Why Every Linux Application Known To Man Will Be SaaS Soon

blog.jamesurquhart.com

10 points·nreece··11 comments

The problem with SaaS is that the GPL offers me no rights in that instance because they aren't distributing and the GPL only comes into effect when a copy is distributed. Whether or not you believe in free software, you can see how the effectiveness of the GPL to fend off close-sourcing is diminished by SaaS. Anyone can take GPL-licensed software, modify it and offer it as SaaS without opening up that changed code.

Congratulations, you've just understood Google's business model.

Affero GPL to the rescue: http://www.affero.org/oagpl.html

If this gets to be a problem I imagine people will just go with the affero gpl. GPLv3 and AGPLv3 are mutually compatible.

I remember reading some Eben Moglen & i think he mentioned that they didn't hardcode this into GPLv3 because the rights of someone using an ATM are (should be?) different from those of someone owning the machine with the code.

Oh, the ATM is a good example. For a user-oriented website though, I think the Affero licenses are a good idea if you care about Free Software. I personally don't see a whole lot of difference between logging into a mainframe system using a terminal, and logging into "the cloud" using my web browser.

This article seems like a big bubble of hype without much substance. Skip.

Which are the "every Linux application known to man" that could be offered as SaaS and get someone to pay for it? I can think of none.

I guess that means my startup idea of offering `ls` as a web service is bound to fail, then.

How about ed?

Hmmmm. Perhaps I should have been more clear. Not necessarily applications that are part of Linux, but the applications built to run on Linux.

- Mule - Sugar - Scalix - etc.

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