Comment by hardwaresofton | Hacker News Reader

Comment by hardwaresofton | Hacker News Reader

> Affero General Public License version 3 with the addition of the Commons Clause (referred to in the case as the “Neo4j Sweden Software License”) was “free and open source” software. Unfortunately that case contains one more decision that is already raising concerns among the open source community.

I still think AGPLv3 is the future for open source[0], but not like this, this is pretty egregious as adding the commons clause removes freedoms.

This article contains the biggest confirmations I've seen of my long-held stance that the AGPL was never meant to prevent commercial use:

> That conclusion goes against the intent of the drafters of the AGPLv3. The GPLv3 Second Discussion Draft Rationale says in footnote 73 that the restriction was aimed at the copyright owners themselves: “Here we are particularly concerned about the practice of program authors who purport to license their works under the GPL with an additional requirement that contradicts the terms of the GPL, such as a prohibition on commercial use.”

I do wonder if a bunch of projects need to start considering a move to BSL or SSPL or something else.

[EDIT] clarify that the commons clause is causing freedom removal.

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30866724

> this is pretty egregious in that it removes freedoms

The AGPLv3 protects freedoms - the freedoms of the users and recipients of the Software and the License, including other developers. If you combine an Open Source license with the Commons Clause, that is no longer Open Source software, in my view. It's source-available, which is completely different. If a developer adds a Commons Clause to their Open Source license, they have removed freedoms more than any Open Source license ever could.

If you look at the OSI's Open Source Definition[0] it states:

> The license shall not restrict any party from selling or giving away the software [...]

That is completely incompatible with the Commons Clause and others who try to restrict commercial use.

> This article contains the biggest confirmations I've seen of my long-held stance that the AGPLv3 was never meant to prevent commercial use

Of course the AGPLv3 was not meant to prevent commercial use. It's an Open Source license - a requirement of such a license is that it must permit commercial use!

The AGPLv3 is very easy to comply with, it's just that so many are unwilling to do so, so people come away thinking the AGPLv3 was meant to prevent commercial use.

I'd recommend this article[1] which talks about this and several other the falsehoods people have come to believe about the AGPLv3.

[0] https://opensource.org/osd

[1] https://drewdevault.com/2020/07/27/Anti-AGPL-propaganda.html

> The AGPLv3 protects freedoms - the freedoms of the users and recipients of the Software and the License, including other developers. If you combine an Open Source license with the Commons Clause, that is no longer Open Source software, in my view. It's source-available, which is completely different. If a developer adds a Commons Clause to their Open Source license, they have removed freedoms more than any Open Source license ever could.

Sorry maybe it wasn't clear -- I'm not saying the AGPL removes freedoms, I'm saying adding the commons clause does.

> Of course the AGPLv3 was not meant to prevent commercial use. That would be incompatible with the OSI's Open Source Definition, making the AGPLv3 not an Open Source license. The AGPLv3 is very easy to comply with, it's just that so many are unwilling to do so, so people come away thinking the AGPLv3 was meant to prevent commercial use.

Well aware of this, didn't link to it directly but this was the main thrust of my article that I didn't link directly:

https://vadosware.io/post/the-future-of-free-and-open-source...

Freedom to sell commercially is indeed freedom, and one I support (selfishly, as I am working on building a cloud provider right now which is going to do so), and a bunch of startup/small software projects seem to be under the impression that AGPL is a magic ward against hosters of software.

We're in agreement. :)

> a bunch of startup/small software projects seem to be under the impression that AGPL is a magic ward against hosters of software.

I think much of this comes from the atmosphere of fear that anti-GPL activists have managed to create around the GPL.

Why did you think the AGPL was designed to prevent commercial use? I don't recall it ever being marketed that way.

It wasn't designed that way, but that's how various startups are using it.

Various startups thought that nobody company would touch AGPL code, assuming this meant that their code would remain essentially noncommercial. But nothing in the license actually intends this.

Sure, but if they modify the AGPL they need to disclose that prominently in the program or service covered under AGPL, similarly, if they incorporate such code in their own, possible non-AGPL code (e.g., GPL) the combined code base will become AGPLv3.

But sure, given that you upheld to the licenses rules, like the notice of any derivation/change, you can still provide commercial service just fine.

The "power" of the AGPLv3 is that no company can just "steal" your AGPLv3 licensed project, change it to make it seem like it's theirs, and provided it as a service without telling anybody about the actual origin of the upstream project nor laying the changes to contribute back to upstream; something that the GPL would allow (for SaaS like offerings); that can still be a huge advantage for startups; if it's the right choice depends a lot on the product and intentions of such a start-up.

(the quoted words are there for a) not a native speaker, so avoid reading too much into my wording and b) stealing is rather a harsh term I don't like to use in connotation with (free) software code)

From a commercial standpoint it's irrelevant what the license "intends." All that matters is what the legal department thinks will happen in the worst case, and for GPLv2 or v3 the "worst case" is all that proprietary software that the company wrote on top of it is now publicly available for free to any end-user.

The claim that GPLv3 is the future of open source licenses is laughable. There are going to be a few idealists licensing their software using GPLv3 but that software won't gain significant traction in any sort of commercial setting, outside of a few exceptions. Just take a look at the software libraries that get widespread use today: the vast, vast majority of it is Apache-, MIT-, or CC-licensed. GPLv3 is going to end up being a historical footnote at some point, because economics trumps ideology every time.

I don't think your comment is very relevant to this thread, but is rather a generic fulmination about GPL.

It was designed exactly for that case, Affero was a company selling web services.

As wmf said[0] -- it's not that I thought it was, this is just how a ton of software companies seem to think it works.

At present, those companies aren't wrong -- companies don't go near AGPL with a 100 ft pole (with the notable exception being AWS & MongoDB), but I think many more companies may catch on soon. This was partly the point of my post which I didn't link directly[1]!

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30953019

[1]: https://vadosware.io/post/the-future-of-free-and-open-source...

Availability of source code used on networked resources using upstream aGPLv3 licensed code.

https://redmondmag.com/articles/2007/11/28/affero-general-pu...

I can see that being interpreted as less friendly to commercialization, though the triggers really feel very reasonable an ask while still calling it open source. It's not preventing commercial use, but it is requiring commercial use triggering reciprocal sharing.

To clarify, MongoDB used to be FOSS under the AGPL, but now it's proprietary under the SSPL.

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