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Comment by tveita | Hacker News Reader

I doubt many people really want to copy/paste a piece of AGPL 3 licensed code into their website.

Is people "stealing" this code really that much of a concern?

So that license was suggested by someone at FSF and I ran with it because I don't know enough about licensing.

Can someone who does make a suggestion and I'll change it? We do use snippets in the code from other GPL/Apache licensed code in main.js for example, but we specify the sources and licenses for each snippet in the code.

My original thought was to use http://unlicense.org/. Would that work? Do I need any other language in there to clarify that the licenses of the snippets we use stand?

(Feel free to submit a pull-request with fixes)

Edit: Made an issue for this -> https://github.com/tfrce/thedaywefightback.js/issues/31

Don't use the Unlicense: https://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/147111/what-....

>We do use snippets in the code from other GPL/Apache licensed code

If you include in your JavaScript code any code that is licensed under the GNU GPL you most likely have to release your code (the files with the GPL snippets) under the same -- at least that's an assumption you don't want to bet against. As for your other JavaScript code, the situation is less than clear and there's debate on the matter. See, e.g., http://stackoverflow.com/a/1239727/3142963 and read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_General_Public_License#Lin....

Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer.

The first thing anyone should know about licensing is to ignore advices that says "use license X". The only exception is the advice to use known and established licenses.

Ask instead yourself under what conditions you would accept having your code used. Is it acceptable if a commercial company take the software, say Google or apple, using it in products and do major secret modifications and changes without contributing anything back? If no, AGPL is the license of choice.

If you are acceptable of that, do you want direct distributors of the software to contribute secret modifications? If no, use GPL.

Do you want companies to be able to take your code, distribute it and then try and take you out with patents? If no, use apache.

Else: MIT/BSD. For-profit companies prefer the lower end of the list because it gives them the most options in order to create revenue. As such, you might get more users if you can live with the consequences. In the end, only you can answer what you want the license to say.

use Apache or BSD or MIT. simple

This is the right answer. These licenses are all heavily vetted and can be safely used in almost any kind of project. The attribution requirements (when present) are straightforward and easy to resolve.

You don't want people to have to think or worry about anything before using this library. Because if they do they often won't bother. These licenses align with that philosophy.

I was about to post this myself. We don't want anyone to worry about "does this make me legally liable to open source my companies code..." or issues like that.

I'm a fan of open source, but you should stay focused on the issue of helping take down government surveillance, otherwise you won't make a dent in it.

What he said. For javascript, i'd use MIT and be done with it.

As a lawyer, i would tell a client never to use AGPLv3 javascript code on a website. The bounds of what it impacts are just way too unclear.

I don't see any GPL code in main.js - only MIT, and dual MIT/GPLv2.

What am I overlooking?

Someone from the FSF suggested the FSF's current license? There's a surprise!

> So that license was suggested by someone at FSF and I ran with it because I don't know enough about licensing.

Disclaimer: I care a lot about software licenses and have used pretty much every free software license around. If you can name a free software license, I've probably released some code under that license.

You can use the regular GPL and it will be fine here (it will not require anyone to release any code from the rest of their website).

If you use other GPL-licensed software in your project, you should use the GPL[0] for this project too.

Do not use the Unlicense - it's legally shaky (and not compliant with GPL-licensed software you incorporate).

[0] You can use the AGPLv3 if the GPL software is all GPLv3, but I would not recommend doing so.

I certainly want to use AGPL code. I imagine that many others want to as well.

I was actually about to look at putting this up until I saw the license, GPL-family licenses (aside from the LGPL) are viral and affect the project as a whole, the AGPL on this would then require the source for my entire site would need to be licensed under the AGPL.

Please look at moving to a less cra^H^H^H restrictive license like BSD, MIT, Apache, etc.

The GPL is not viral. It doesn't spread on its own like a virus. Please stop perpetuating this.

I fully agree. Comments with derogatory terms should be downvoted always and with few exceptions. Do HN viewers really want to have "BSD is immoral/evil" and "GPL is viral" kind of comments everywhere? If not, please use the downvote button.

I had the same reaction. I believe using AGPL code within a website requires that the entire website be open sourced as AGPL. For nearly any company or non-AGPL project this is a huge barrier to using your project. Maybe someone with more legal knowledge can weigh in on if my understanding is accurate.

What counts as "linking against a library" for JavaScript code?

That's exactly the kinds of questions that this library shouldn't be raising.

Lots of people won't want to take the risk of not knowing what the answer is.

If the result count as a combined work that requires copyright permission (ie, copyright law), then you must have a license. The question about linking is always about this question.

If you are creating a combined work, AGPL would then provide permission under the condition that all users interacting with it are given an opportunity to receive the source code.

Is running a small piece of AGPL3 code on your website that much of a concern? Especially for only one week or so, and then it will be gone for good?

Yes, it is.

AGPL requires you not only to release your changes to that code, but to release any code that talks to AGPL'ed code over the network.

Citation needed!

Really, your statement is simply completely made up. If you read the license, it says:

  your modified version must prominently offer all users
  interacting with it remotely through a computer network...

Users are not code, nor should they be owned. If they are not already released, release them now.

Remember, this is Javascript, so it's not an unreasonable reading of the license that merely serving it counts as "Conveying" it, per the terms of the AGPL. To wit:

To "convey" a work means any kind of propagation that enables other parties to make or receive copies. Mere interaction with a user through a computer network, with no transfer of a copy, is not conveying.

Thats a question regarding when a combined work is created (not about code communicating over a network...).

Its not that difficult question to look into. Imagine that I would "convey" a photo by using img tags and "link" proprietary photos inside advertisement banners. Would the banner count as a combined work, or as two separate and disconnected works?

I would lean towards the single combined work, because thats how I think a non-technical judge would look at it.

Don't listen to these fear-mongering selfish people. There's nothing wrong with AGPL for what you are going to use and it does not force the whole site to be AGPL. All that is nonsense.

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