People seem to get really salty when companies change their license further down the line to prevent this.
I think a lot of people get salty when a company changes their license to a source available license but still try to call it open source and free ride on the goodwill that open source software engenders.
Don't call a license open source if it isn't and reasonable people will be fine with it.
People get salty because those license changes are from open source to source available (like the BSL).
Some of us (myself included) even consider licenses like the AGPL to be nonfree.
Free software can be used for any purpose, including competing with the original authors. If you can’t do whatever you want with the software, it’s not free software.
If you want to open source your software but you want to put restrictions on what people can do with it, then, well, you don’t want to open source your software (and IMO the free software community would be better off without your free software cosplay).
Depending on the software, I agree it's not as good for me as free software, but it's not worthless.
Being selfish isn’t a good look, especially when starting out as free software (Docker Desktop, I’m looking at you).
I even strongly dislike actual free software releases with companies that have proprietary stuff alongside (so-called open core). It means that the people doing it don’t give a shit about software freedoms, otherwise they’d never consider releasing nonfree software. Mattermost is in this category (and further demonstrates their disdain for software freedoms by shipping nonconsensual spyware in their foss stuff and closing PRs that remove it).
It’s really shady to position yourself as an open source company and then release any proprietary software.
I imagine it's tricky (or at least unstable) to earn ones living working only for entirely open source companies, but maybe there are more opportunities out there than I'd realized.
I’m currently looking for a new SWE position and I prefer places that have active open source projects.
I’d take less pay to work at somewhere that maintains and releases free software.
I am personally responsible for at least 3-4 startups never making/releasing anything but open source stuff. I advocate for the basic idea of software freedom in all contexts.
Usually “business guys” try to interfere, but it’s almost always from the misguided idea that the code is somehow valuable. People get this weird idea that their source is worth money (it never is). Most companies are valuable because of their ability to execute, not their code (which is rarely reusable outside their org anyway, and even if it is, not in their market).
Think about it: if your code were valuable, how is it that a few people were able to make it from scratch in a few months? It’s obviously your staff who are valuable, not the code (which someone else could also make from scratch for low cost if they needed to, just like you did).
It’s the same misguided emotion that makes people think startup ideas are inherently valuable. It’s the ability to execute, not your so-called “intellectual property” that is where the value is.
I don't agree with you on that code isn't valuable – it varies by product complexity, essentiality of the software as part of the business, etc. – but in of itself is the distillation of solved problems, which generally takes years (not months) to work out.
Still, I appreciate you taking the time to break it down, and it's something I'll think about.
I haven’t found a reason to deploy one yet. One use case I have seen is to have some sort of commercial/AGPL double distribution, perhaps with the AGPL release lagging behind.
But with AGPL, you now have to. Ensuring compliance is costlier.
previously on HN, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31713525
Maybe the joke swoshed by me. :)
In either case you don't have to pay for the software, can modify it however you'd like, and run it wherever you want. You just have to share the modified source code.
Stallman already carved out exceptions for "appliances" that had computer chips, like microwaves. Stalllman wanted is own general purpose computer to be libre, not freedom to control other people computers (Cloud).
I have two thoughts on what you bring up, the first is a story I remember about Stallman being really frustrated with firmware on a printer (not drivers on a “general computing” device). I think reading this story[0] should be reasonably self-explanatory and not require additional exposition or warrant in this HN thread.
My other thought is that increasingly, our “general computing” applications are moving to web apps / cloud apps, and not stored on our devices. So while you may be correct about RMS, and maybe he wouldn’t have cared today about the concerns AGPL addresses, I personally wonder that he would, and think its at least reasonable for many people to generalize his FSF philosophy to cover general computing experiences that aren’t hosted locally but are still part of the primary computing interface that we use to interact with our current general computing devices.
0: https://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/201cthe-printer-story201...
AGPL is an EULA that is additionally really badly written, especially compared to clarity of GPLv2-only.
> 13. Remote Network Interaction; Use with the GNU General Public License.
> 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.
> Notwithstanding any other provision of this License, you have permission to link or combine any covered work with a work licensed under version 3 of the GNU General Public License into a single combined work, and to convey the resulting work. The terms of this License will continue to apply to the part which is the covered work, but the work with which it is combined will remain governed by version 3 of the GNU General Public License.
Section 13 only states that someone/something interacting over a network is considered a user (and that you can combine GPLv3 and AGPLv3 works). That is the only change compared to GPLv3. It does not otherwise change what rights the user has or what is considered a corresponding source (i.e. what the licensed work contaminates). Those are word for word identical between the GPLv3 and the AGPLv3.
If you have an issue with what rights/restrictions the AGPLv3 provides a user of the software, that issue is with the GPLv3, not the AGPLv3.
Yes, the AGPL was essentially intended to plug the SaaS (maybe it was still being called application service providers at the time) loophole seen by some whereby delivering a network service wasn't considered distribution--and therefore didn't trigger copyleft provisions--with the GPL (either v2 or v3).
A lot of work went into GPLv3 and a lot of legal niceties were added as well as the watered-down TiVoization language but really isn't a lot of practical difference between GPLv2 and v3.
I was with you up until this point.
- being able to just read the source to figure out what's going on
- being able to fix bugs
- being able to add features I need
- being able to upstream those changes so others can profit and help maintain them
- being able to self-host the software
Open Source ticks all those boxes, whether it's on the "laissez-faire" end of the spectrum (BSD) or the "Stallman" side of the spectrum (AGPL). (though the more "Stallman" a license is the fewer situations where I can use it). But the BSL also ticks all those boxes. I get it's not as ideologically pure, but it still meets most of the ideals of the original open source/libre software movements.
What the BSL prevents me from doing is offering paid hosting for others, or offering a product that competes with it (e.g. if postgres would be BSL, supabase couldn't use postgres under the hood since the products kind of compete with each other).
Here are some others: https://github.com/search?q=%22Business+Source+License%22+%2...
So the ability to self-host BSL code depends a lot on the chosen Additional Use Grant. I don't mind Hashicorp's, but the one publicly offered by MariaDB is pretty restricting.
I'm coming more from a "build a company and feed your family" point of view but everyone has to balance their own priorities/ethical positions.
I guess at least if the license is set at the outset people can choose to engage or not, rather than having what they may percieve as a "rug pull".
Which definition of free do you use?
You may have valid criticism against AGPL but non-free isn't one. It's free according to the free software definitions and the open source definition. It's recognized as free by the two organisms providing relevant definition (OSI and GNU) and by all the relevant actors, including Linux distributions and even big proprietary companies (including GitHub).
I think you are misunderstanding the meaning of "for any purpose". It only applies to what you do with it when you run it. It does not mean you can do anything you want with the source code. It is very important to understand this aspect correctly when developing software or for a free software / open source enthusiast.
The only real limitation on the AGPL compared to the GPL is section 13 which states that you need to make the sources for said AGPL program available to any user who interacts with it. Otherwise the license is practically identical. Otherwise the license is essentially identical to the GPL.
If you diff the licenses, you'll see that other than section 13 and s/GPL/AGPL/g, the actual license terms are identical (if you diff sections 0-12, only the addition of the word Affero to the first line of section 0 will come up). The preamble and afterwords are different but they aren't actually part of the license (only the sections between the lines `TERMS AND CONDITIONS` and `END OF TERMS AND CONDITIONS`). As for the differences in those sections, the preamble provides context for why the license exists compared to the GPL and the afterwords provide a recommendation as to how to provide source access.
So in effect the AGPL is identical to the GPL with the addition of requiring that you make sources available to any user "interacting with it remotely over a computer network". Contrary to popular belief this doesn't mean you need to provide sources for everything that touches it over a network, just that anybody/anything that interacts with it over a network be granted access to the AGPL source (and corresponding sources). The requirement for what is considered part of corresponding sources is exactly identical.
That requirement:
> The "Corresponding Source" for a work in object code form means all the source code needed to generate, install, and (for an executable work) run the object code and to modify the work, including scripts to control those activities. However, it does not include the work's System Libraries, or general-purpose tools or generally available free programs which are used unmodified in performing those activities but which are not part of the work. For example, Corresponding Source includes interface definition files associated with source files for the work, and the source code for shared libraries and dynamically linked subprograms that the work is specifically designed to require, such as by intimate data communication or control flow between those subprograms and other parts of the work.
TLDR: The only practical change in the licenses for a piece of hosted software is that under the GPL the user is the server operator/host and under the AGPL the user is the actual user/client. Whether a given piece of software gets "contaminated" by a AGPL work is no different than if said AGPL work was licensed under the GPL instead.
That's like saying a free society can only be free when individuals are free to do anything they want including harming/limiting freedoms of other individuals. Well, no, most free society limits your freedom to harm other people or bans you from limiting other people's freedom. The AGPL prohibits you from limiting other people's freedom.
Mastodon et al prove it works.
Each tool has its use and serves its specific purpose. What works for Mastodon might not work for others trying to advance different goals.
In the end, the AGPL is huge but not a silver bullet.
Honestly, for considerable portion of its use, it works mainly because nobody looks too closely or trieso actually enforce it.
The other considerable portion was/is bait&switch schemes involving dual licensing and having developers sign copyright transfer forms to parent org, which benefits from selling commercial license when someone runs afoul of compliance.
The only real drawback is ensuring any outside contributions can be utilized this way, such as with a CLA.