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Comment by RcouF1uZ4gsC | Hacker News Reader

> AGPL does not mean you have to share everything you've built atop a service, just everything you've linked to it and any changes you've made to it. If you're accessing an S3-like service using only an HTTPS API, that isn't going to make your code subject to the AGPL.

I am not so sure about that. Otherwise, you could trivially get around the AGPL by using https services to launder your proprietary changes.

There is not enough caselaw to say how a case that used only http services provided by AGPL to run a proprietary service would turn out, and it is not worth betting your business on it.

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> > AGPL does not mean you have to share everything you've built atop a service, just everything you've linked to it and any changes you've made to it. If you're accessing an S3-like service using only an HTTPS API, that isn't going to make your code subject to the AGPL.

Correct, this is a known caveat, that's also covered a bit more in the GNU article about the AGPL when discussing Software as a Service Substitutes, ref: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-affero-gpl.html.en

> you could trivially get around the AGPL by using https services to launder your proprietary changes.

This is a very interesting proposition that makes me reconsider my opinion of AGPL.

Anything “clever” in a legal sense is a red flag for me… Computer people tend to think of the law as a black and white set of rules, but it is and it isn’t. It’s interpreted by people and “one clever trick” doesn’t sound like something I’d put a lot of faith in. Intent can matter a lot.

(Regardless of how you see the AGPL)

> Computer people tend to think of the law as a black and white set of rules

I've never seen someone put this into words, but it makes a lot of sense. I mean, idealistically computers are deterministic, whereas the law is not (by design), yet there exists many parallels between the two. For instance, the lawbook has strong parallels to the documentation for software. So it makes sense why programmers might assume the law is also mostly deterministic, even if this is false

I'm an engineer with a passing interest in the law. I've frequently had to explain to otherwise smart and capable people that their one weird trick will just get them a contempt charge.

Even if that wasn't directly targeted at me, I'll elaborate on my concern:

That it's possible to interpret the AGPL both ways (that the prior hack is legal, and that it is not), and that the project author could very well believe either one, suggests to me that the AGPL's terms aren't rigidly binding, but ultimately a kind of "don't do what the author thinks the license says, whatever that is".

On the other hand the AGPL itself is trying to be one clever trick in the first place, so maybe it's appropriate here.

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