On Fri, May 13, 2011 at 1:30 PM, Brian Bouterse <bmbou...@gmail.com> wrote: > Very few licenses guard against this > licensing gotcha: If the source is on the internet, I can download, > modify, and mash up your code to create some type of service based website. > Since I never actually distribute the code to the customer, I just sell a > service online all of the attribution, and the what is open stays open > arguments go out the window. Here I can take something open, modify it in > an awesome way, and since I never distribute it I never have to share my > derivative changes thereby preventing the GPL project from benefitting from > my extensions. That is a pretty easy way to sidestep any of these licenses. > Brian >
The AGPL specifically guards against this - it is the purpose of the license. It, like GPL, also taints the code that it is used with, specifically when used as a component in a website. The net effect of this is that a company like the one I work for would never use any AGPL code, where as we will happily use MIT/BSD/Apache/GPL/LGPL code, and in most cases contribute any changes back. This means we will always look for MIT/BSD/Apache licensed libraries in preference, GPL/LGPL if must, and write our own if it is AGPL licensed. Most companies that develop software, like us, are willing to contribute code back, since code that we contribute back no longer has to be maintained by us. Only code that directly pertains to our core business, or would allow our competitors an advantage, is kept back. Bostjan: The MIT license is largely equivalent to the BSD license, which is not outdated and is used by many important projects still (not least all the BSD variants!) Cheers Tom -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Django users" group. To post to this group, send email to django-users@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to django-users+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/django-users?hl=en.
