Hacker News Reader

> If, when the GPL was first published, the world was cloud-hosted and SaaS-ful, the GPL would either have included some provision like the SSPL, or it would have had relatively little impact on the world.

Well, no on the first one. We know exactly what the GPL looks like to protect users against proprietary network hosted software: the GNU Affero General Public License.

View on HN

But SSPL is already a modification of AGPL, so its terms don't seem to have be sufficient.

The SSPL's network provision also requires SaaS companies to release the source of any other services and APIs they made the original software dependent on; hard to tell if that's still a valid copyright licence or more of a contract.

Contrast them with EUPL, which represents the strongest copyleft the EU commission thinks a licence, as opposed to a contract, could get away with under EU directives (ignoring its compatibility clause). I'm personally wary of AGPL/SSPL not because their terms, but because the viral claises are likely to be a legal fiction where I live.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com