https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34773891
https://www.getlago.com/blog/open-source-licensing-and-why-l...
>Case 1: You fork our code to build your own billing system at your company. It’s awesome and we would be grateful if you could take some time to share your code as well, as it could help other companies. This is _strongly encouraged but not required_, as we understand not all companies can afford to do this.
And later in the quoted explanation of AGPL:
> "If you run a modified program on a server and let other users communicate with it there, your server must also allow them to download the source code corresponding to the modified version running there."
If you fork the project, your company's customers are communicating with your forked code. So are you required to publish your forked changes? Only required to share the fork with paying customers? Or as your desired case states, not required?
(In any case, Lago looks very cool. Thanks for pushing forward the conversation on open licensing!)
I think what matters more is how the creators of the software intend the license. In case of Lago it's clear they want you to use it this way, and AGPL is only really meant to restrict businesses that want to fork it and start a proprietary billing service.
That is - offer your code to your customers under the agpl, not necessarily back to Lago or the community. But, since your customers get the code under AGPL, they in turn are free to distribute it. So, in practice, going that way - it generally makes sense to just open it up, and contribute back directly.
(imagine your only customer is IBM, or some other big company - they might not care/have an interest in re-distribution of the AGPL code - so you could be compliant (offer source to IBM) - but effectively closed off from the community).
Restricting your usage tracking to your users is fine until you start shouting to them directly on their phones.