Isn't this just the AGPL but more hardcore?
> SSPL includes most of the AGPLv3 ... but modifies its provisions for software that is conveyed over a network—requiring that anyone who offers the functionality of SSPL-licensed software to third-parties as a service must release the entirety of their source code, including all software, APIs, and other software that would be required for a user to run an instance of the service themselves, under the SSPL. In contrast, the AGPL v3's equivalent provision covers only the licensed work itself.
I can't believe they made the AGPLv3 seem moderate.
SSPL is not.
AGPL has provisions that only apply when a remote user interacts with the program over a computer network. Those provision do not apply if a local user interacts with the program or if a remote user interacts with it by some means other than a computer network.
To meet the requirements of item 10 those provisions should apply when any user interacts with the program regardless of whether they are local or remote and regardless of what particular technology is used to carry the communications between the user and the program.
Or any of the 4 freedoms for that matter.
Marcan wrote it better than me https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30044019
At the end of the day, it does not prevent the four freedoms unless you're trying to curtail the four freedoms to begin with, much like the GPL and its clauses against patent-based workarounds or tivoization.
And it is still a license, the only thing allowing anybody to do anything with that code. The suggested workaround attempts would never fly in court. Even separate legal entities would be deemed conspirators.
Full disclosure: IANAL, and I do not like the AGPL at all, personally favoring MIT license.
OTOH, most of the world seems to consign licensing entirely into contract law - the license is always a civil contract nothing more, which already causes some issues between reading the text in various jurisdictions. And local "spirit of the law" that backs the license also differs.
Also pretty sure at least USA is place where strict reading are at least a viable court strategy, to my understanding.