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Comment by thayne | Hacker News Reader

> As Plaintiffs point out, however, the AGPLv3 defines “you” as the licensee, not the licensor. AGPL § 0 (“Each licensee is addressed as ‘you’”). Thus, read correctly, Sections 7 and 10 prohibit a licensee from imposing further restrictions, but do not prohibit a licensor from doing so.

I don't understand this argument at all.

Section 7 states

> All other non-permissive additional terms are considered "further restrictions" within the meaning of section 10. If the Program as you received it, or any part of it, contains a notice stating that it is governed by this License along with a term that is a further restriction, you may remove that term.

And since "you" means the licensee, wouldn't that mean the licensee can remove the additional terms added by the commons clause?

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I agree with you, it doesn't make any sense. AGPLv3 says it plain as day:

"you [the licensee] may remove that term."

The licensee, meaning me, or the defendants in this case, can remove any terms which impose further restrictions. The licensor (Neo4j) has given written consent to do so.

> And since "you" means the licensee, wouldn't that mean the licensee can remove the additional terms added by the commons clause?

No (the trial court has reasoned), because the Commons Clause was introduced by the licensor. Thanks to that provision in the license, licensees can remove clauses introduced by other licensees, but cannot remove clauses introduced by the original licensor.

The original licensor is Neo4J, the copyright holder for the software, which has made it available under the license in question.

That part of the license doesn't say only restrictions added by licensees can be removed, just that any added restrictions can be removed.

Wouldn't the pre-Commons Clause software still be soley GPL v3? I thought that software cannot be retroactively re-licensed, so I'm not following your (or maybe the court's) reasoning. I think you and OP can both be right, but in the context of this case, OP's point is not relevant, if I'm understanding correctly?

> And since "you" means the licensee, wouldn't that mean the licensee can remove the additional terms added by the commons clause?

That logically follows to me. I think that's why they call it the AGPL v3 "with Commons Clause," as if it's not a modifier to the original agreement, AGPL v3, but rather an additional agreement that you also must agree to in order to use the software. This seems contrary to AGPL v3, which says you should be able to remove any additional clauses. I don't see why the Commons Clause folks did it at all, but in any case, they failed in court, which is technically all that matters at this point.

I think it's interpreted as the licensor can add whatever clause they want and it has to be followed, and those terms say that a licensee cannot add additional clauses to that of the licensor when it redistributes the licensor's work or derivative work.

Basically, I wrote the code, I decide. I give it to you under my terms. You cannot go give the code to someone else under new terms, because I prohibited you from doing so when I gave you the code.

Section 10 only seems to mention further restrictions as restrictions added by "you", so a licensee. Doesn't this reference to section 10 mean that section 7 explicitly limits itself to further restrictions added by licensees?

Section 10 seems to state that licensees cannot add further restrictions, without saying whether the original licensor may add further restrictions. Section 7 says licensees may remove further restrictions, and does not require licensees to determine the provenance of any further restrictions they encounter.

The only mention of section 10 in section 7 is

>All other non-permissive additional terms are considered "further restrictions" within the meaning of section 10.

My reading of that is thay it is just referring to the definition of "further restrictions" in section 10, namely

> For example, you may not impose a license fee, royalty, or other charge for exercise of rights granted under this License, and you may not initiate litigation (including a cross-claim or counterclaim in a lawsuit) alleging that any patent claim is infringed by making, using, selling, offering for sale, or importing the Program or any portion of it.

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