Enterprise crippleware is obnoxious. So are restrictive and radioactive licenses like AGPL. What bugs me are those who speak out of the sides of their mouth how it's not with different flavors of rationalized BS.
Bug fixing priority, tech support, and integration consulting are the proper places to monetize, not features for-profit express turnpike or telling me what I can't do with code.
The licence in terms says you must give Corresponding Source to users "interacting with it remotely through a computer network". Does it suffice if I initiate a connection to a public $bigCorp server (and receive "access denied")? Or must I be able to successfully connect?
Maybe $bigCorp could put a proprietary authentication proxy in-between to avoid me "interacting with" the software. So, let me narrow my comment to address what you've said.
If $bigCorp wants to rent me access to improved versions of my software, they should give me the changes.
Not sure about your questions since IANAL but I guess it depends on the details of how $bigCorp's server setup works. If they have some other software that controls access to the AGPLed software, then maybe they don't have to give non-customers source code. If the login form comes from the AGPLed software, but non-customers don't have a login, then maybe the non-customers do interact with the software in a limited way, so source code obligations may come into play.
While I would like to voice a general protest against the AGPL FUD, it's also somewhat strange to do it in the same breath as "Much respect" for Citus here.
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Yeah ... the problem is, you can't charge a corporate millions of dollars for that off the bat, but you sure can charge the millions of dollars for software licensing. And they are happy to pay it. In fact, they want to pay to it, it makes them feel more secure and they have a budget to use.
I know this is a widespread business model, but it's always seemed backwards to me.
Having my customers pay me more when I produce more bugs and lower usability? That sounds like a reward for doing a bad job.