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FSF Releases AGPL License For Web Services
mako writes "The Free Software Foundation has released the Affero General Public license version 3. The license is essentially the GPLv3 with an added clause that requires that source code be distributed to users that interact with the application over a network. The license effectively extends copyright to Web applications. The new AGPL will have important effects for companies that, under the GPL, have no obligation to distribute changes to users on the Web. This release adds the license to the stable of official FSF licenses and is compatible with the GPLv3."
Unless I misunderstand the word "users", isn't this a complete defiance of the spirit of the GPL?
The GPL is and has always been passed to DERIVIATIONS of an application, not work created USING the application.
Are you saying that if I, say, use an AGPL-licensed currency converting web service on my ticket reservation site, I must release the WHOLE site under the AGPL?
That's like making a GPL paint program that forces users to release pictures created with that program under GPL. Or a compiler that forces you to release any code compiled with it under the GPL. Or a free paint brush given to me by Walmart on the condition that anything I paint with that brush becomes Walmart's property for kindly letting me use the brush.
The difference between protecting modifications of the software, and forcing WORK done with the software to be released under the GPL is HUGE. Its one thing to say that if I modify a free program I must make the modification free, and a COMPLETELY different thing to say that I lose the copyright to anything I create with the software.
Not to mention that it totally kills all of the FSF's wooing of the private sector by telling them to use Free software instead of proprietary. While the private sector, producing work using free tools, is usually not really interested in modifying (or holding copyright) on the modification of the tools they use, they DAMN WELL care about the copyright to the WORK they produced using their time and money, and if you tell them that they must release the rights to their work by virtue of using Free tools, they'll just laugh at your face and move to the next vendor, Free or not.
Yes, I know it's "just" for web services, but as the old saying goes, bad things don't become better online.
I'd be very glad if it was just me misunderstanding the license, rather than an outright attempt by Stallman to impose his Communistique vision of "freedom" upon the world.
If your "private development" in use on a public website, then it isn't really private.
1. Relicense your application under a compatible license. Again: this is completely up to you! Nobody can force you to relicense your software.
2. Remove any dependencies on the library in question, by rewriting (parts of) your code.
3. Ask the copyright holders of the library in question whether they'll grant you a commercial license, possibly for a fee. 4. Don't use any GPL'd software, ever. This is the simplest way, and why GPLv3 software will never gain adoption by any company actually interested in protection of their assets. The use of GPLv3 software opens any private company to possible liability for license violations; moreso than use of any other form of software licensing (including GPLv2).
GPLv3 software is useless to anybody working in any form of business.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
You seem to be overlooking the fact that your so called internal algorithms are actually derivative works.