John Halton wrote:
1. One could argue that objections to the ASP "loophole" come down
to a reluctance to accept the implications of the "no
restrictions on use" aspects of free software: "How dare people
make money out of the software I've written?"
I don't know about the AGPL. I stopped trying to grok the entirety of
any FSF license, but I am still forced to read them now and then because
whether I like it or not, the GPL gave strength to the FOSS movement and
it still plays a very large role.
Anyway, I feel you miss the point where someone who licenses their
software under a license with an ASP-fix clause does not want to prevent
their consumers (the service providers) from making money, any more than
Linus Torvalds who uses GPL for his software wants to prevent Red Hat
and SuSE from making money. They only want the *software* to be open and
free. I am surprised you could have such a misunderstanding as stated by
you above.
But even if we take position #2, that still leaves the fundamental
problem as this: the AGPL makes it possible to add new and
incompatible licensing restrictions to GPLed software.
And I thought I was so careful in labeling this thread non-specific to
AGPL. AGPL was only an example. I mentioned it because it is poised to
becoming very widely used by virtue of being blessed by the FSF.
My question that started this thread was whether a simple ASP-fix clause
would make a work non-DFSG-free. The licensing terms *I* am presenting
for discussion is a Sleepycat+ASP-fix license which I have already
outlined on this list.
a de facto threat to the GPL software ecosystem, as we could see more
and more useful software moving from the GPL world into the AGPL
world.
Are you saying that many companies are now making money by not freeing
and opening the FOSS, private modifications and derivative works that
they ostensibly "privately use" and "not distribute" for their network
services and those companies could face financial troubles if they are
forced to free and open up their private modifications and private
derivative works ("private" meaning "non-distributed" in the pre-AGPL
sense of the term "distribute")?
If so, I agree, and seeing as the GPL v3 allows works under it to be
combined with works under the AGPL v3 and be combinedly distributed
under the *AGPL* only, the FSF is apparently in support of this
world-view. FOSS commerce will be redefined, I guess. But really, I
don't see the Linux kernel or many other GPL-ed apps going under the
AGPL, seeing as the pure-desktop usage market is still wide, and is not
going to disappear in the foreseeable future.
Shriramana Sharma.
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