Comment by dingnuts | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dingnuts | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

No, the Affero GPL is not "FOSS". It is Open Source but it is NOT libre because of the additional requirements (forced upstream contributions even on unreleased modified versions of the upstream software) imposed on potential forks of the project.

Affero GPL is the premier tool of "open source" corporations to confuse potential contributors into THINKING that the project is FOSS and in order to trick them into giving up their labor for free.

Don't fall for it! If someone wants you to contribute to an AGPL project, you should ask: how much will you pay me for my labor?

The AGPL is the single best example of the difference between Open Source and Libre software. The AGPL is so restrictive and grants so much power to the original rights holder that it is really a source available proprietary license.

Stop giving your labor to for-profit companies for free! It screws all of us!

HEY DOWNVOTERS SHOW ME WHERE I'M WRONG IN THE LICENSE

I quit a job over this stance, because I won't contribute to this farce. But Element lovers downvote because they like being exploited and won't even comment to show me why I'm wrong about this

> forced upstream contributions

No open source licence I am aware of, including AGPL forces upstream contribution. They force you to make the source code available to anyone who asks. It is very different. Upstream contribution typically requires a significant investment, there is usually some process to follow, quality requirements, sometimes a bit of politics. Here, you only need to go to the dev machine, make a big zip file of the "source" directory and put it on a server somewhere. And you may even ask to get paid for the hassle, as long as it is reasonable.

As for what you will gain by contributing to an AGPL project. You gain the contributions of all the other contributors. And the original rights holder has no more and no less rights on your contribution than you have on the entire project. They can't take your contribution and make it proprietary unless you explicitly allow it, in the same way that you can't use the project and make it proprietary. It is the base principle of free software licenses (incl. AGPL), everyone has the same rights.

Now, the rights owner had the additional rights of being able to release the software under any license, including commercial licenses. But that's only for the code they own, not external contributions, unless they made a separate deal with the contributors. And once it is released, they can't go back, it can live its life as an AGPL project forever, get forked, etc...

As a contributor, if you don't want to be exploited, just don't sign the CLA and stay with the AGPL license.

> They force you to make the source code available to anyone who asks.

That’s not precisely correct. It requires that iff the person asking is a user of the code in question (including over a network for AGPL).

I can take AGPL code, modify it, run it privately for my own purposes, tell you that I’ve done that, and still turn down your request for the source code.

From the FSF:

> The GNU Affero General Public License is a modified version of the ordinary GNU GPL version 3. It has one added requirement: 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.

I don't understand how this corresponds with anything you are saying.

It says if you modify the code you must distribute it. That means if, for instance, I wanted to modify Synapse to satisfy my users, for instance a bespoke authentication backend, I would be FORCED to release and distribute that change.

This is NOT the way the GPL works, because the AGPL forces you to make your change available to the parent corp so that they can benefit for free from your labor. The GPL only forces you to make your source code available if you plan to distribute it. The AGPL makes that requirement for even USING server software. It is not the same, at ALL!

And it's right there in what you quoted -- what part don't you understand about "must make available for download the source code"?

Oh, so modifying and releasing source code automatically makes you sign the CLA and contributes those changes back to the parent project? I'm not seeing how forcing modifications to libre software be published as libre software is a bad thing.

It's GPL3 with a server technicality loophole closed. If you think that's intolerable, I think it just did it's job in protecting the authors and everyone else from you.

> the AGPL forces you to make your change available to the parent corp so that they can benefit for free from your labor

I think you're missing a crucial nuance here. You have to make your change available under the AGPL. So the parent corp cannot use your modifications in proprietary offerings unless you separately and voluntarily sign a licensing agreement.

This grants you power over the parent corp: if they want your changes, they either need to keep them equivalently open, or they need to come to an agreement with you.

> It says if you modify the code you must distribute it.

It doesn't. It says if you modify the code and make the modified binary available as a service, then you must share the modified code with users of the service.

You're not obliged to let the parent corporation use your service, so you're not obliged to give them its source code.

I almost went there myself in my response, but I don't think that's the strongest argument since any of your users could request the source and then hand it over to the parent corporation, albeit only under the terms of the AGPL.

Yeah but then you have non CLA-ed code in the original codebase which in the context of an AGPL+CLA project, now it's just AGPL and their upstream has to be maintained separate from their proprietary offering.

So in that sense, it's no different than if the maintainers was just a collection of open source contributors rather than a corporation. They can integrate your changes as long as they comply with the license but they can't meaningfully profit off of them outside of any service you yourself code be providing as well.

You are completely correct, but I think it's worth clarifying one part.

>> they can't meaningfully profit off of them

To be clear that can absolutely profit off the code, as long as they do do under the same license. ("Meaningful" being in the eye of the beholder.)

Implying that you can't "meaningfully profit" from an AGPL license is not technically true (although, of course, finding examples that do is tricky.)

Yeah I intended that note as one unit like below.

> they can't meaningfully profit off of them outside of any service you yourself code be providing as well

i.e. They can't do anything with your contributions that any random user or contributor would be able to do under the rights of the license.

I cannot speak knowledgeably about the original (non-GNU) Affero GPL v1, but about the GNU AGPL v3 I can say:

It does not require "forced upstream contributions". What it requires is that users who use the program over the network can get a copy of the source code. Your statement sounds a lot like the FUD about the plain GPL requiring forced upstream contributions; no, it only requires you give the source to those who get a binary from you; the AGPL only requires that you give the source to those who have access to your server instance.

Now, there is a cogent argument that applies everything you said not just to the AGPL but the GPL as well; but that does not appear to be the argument that you're making. So I will proceed with the assumption that you consider the GNU GPL v3 to be acceptable (possibly with the exception of the AGPL-compatibility clause in section 13).

The only non-name-change-related/reflective difference between the GNU GPL v3 and the GNU AGPL v3 main license text is that the AGPL adds the following paragraph to section 13:

> Notwithstanding any other provision of this License, if you modify the Program, your modified version must prominently offer all users interacting with it remotely through a computer network (if your version supports such interaction) an opportunity to receive the Corresponding Source of your version by providing access to the Corresponding Source from a network server at no charge, through some standard or customary means of facilitating copying of software. This Corresponding Source shall include the Corresponding Source for any work covered by version 3 of the GNU General Public License that is incorporated pursuant to the following paragraph.

Now, if you're giving your contributions to a for-profit company that can re-license your work to a non-copyleft license... yeah, stop doing that.

Following up,

> I cannot speak knowledgeably about the original (non-GNU) Affero GPL v1

The only non-name-change-related difference between the GNU GPL v2 and the Affero GPL v1 is the addition of the following item to section 2:

> * d) If the Program as you received it is intended to interact with users through a computer network and if, in the version you received, any user interacting with the Program was given the opportunity to request transmission to that user of the Program's complete source code, you must not remove that facility from your modified version of the Program or work based on the Program, and must offer an equivalent opportunity for all users interacting with your Program through a computer network to request immediate transmission by HTTP of the complete source code of your modified version or other derivative work.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com