On Thu, Jun 13, 2024 at 6:30 PM Dirk Riehle <d...@riehle.org> wrote: > > If I believe various representatives (on Twitter and > elsewhere) of companies like AWS, they believe they can use AGPL > licensed code and the copyleft effect is wholly contained/doesn't affect > their tech stack at all. Those who pushed source-available seem to > agree; the SSPL was an attempt to a better copyleft license in the eyes > of their creators, irrespective of this list's conclusion that it was a > discriminatory license.
Yes, as I recall, that is how representatives of MongoDB publicly characterized the SSPL. In this respect at least SSPL is somewhat different from the other source-available, discriminatory licenses it is commonly associated with. > Why is that? I look at the definition of "modified code" in the AGPL > license texts and to me it seems to do the trick (copyleft effect). I > find the explanation of conveyance to users less clear i.e. how the > traditional distribution is defined. Of course there is a "copyleft effect" under the AGPL, the question is how extensive it is. Maybe 12 or so years ago there was, briefly, a fair amount of interest in AGPL as a topic of discussion among commercial-world open source lawyer types compared to today, perhaps in part because of the contemporaneous industry obsession with "cloud" with which AGPL was, somewhat incorrectly, associated. At the time, some lawyers advanced the view that the scope of the AGPL section 13 copyleft was potentially unexpectedly broad, sort of anticipating what was later made quite explicit in SSPL section 13. This view was generally anchored in a particular reading of the definition of "modify" under *GPLv3 and the usage of "modify" in AGPLv3 section 13. This alarmist theory of AGPL interpretation never really caught on after this brief period, possibly in part because no one wanted to contend what I think was implied, that either (1) the scope of copyleft under AGPLv3 section 13 was broader than the scope of conveying copyleft under *GPLv3, or (2) the scope of copyleft under *GPLv3 was generally broader than under GPLv2 (in contrast to what I think the FSF itself had said), or (3) the scope of copyleft under GPLv2 itself was broader than the commercial world (and community, including the FSF itself) had assumed by that time. I wonder if you are rediscovering the argument that was being made then. It helped that AGPL was pretty marginalized from the start, at least in comparison to its sibling license GPLv3. In the time frame I'm thinking of, I am not sure there was much commercially interesting (and technically interesting) AGPL software other than MongoDB. Some companies sophisticated enough to care about open source license compliance made a point of banning AGPL (Google is commonly brought up as an example, mainly because the Google OSPO commendably published a lot of their internal guidance on open source licensing). I don't think these companies should be seen as having seriously bought into the alarmist interpretation; I think this reaction to AGPL is better explained in other ways. But other companies determined that AGPL wasn't particularly more difficult to comply with than GPLv2, since, after all, the "copyleft effects" were supposed to be more or less identical, just with unequal triggering events. The most you could really say is that operational aspects of source code compliance for AGPLv3 section 13 situations were, in theory, a little more challenging. In truth, the small number of genuine community projects adopting AGPLv3 never seemed to really adopt a rigorous view of AGPLv3 source code compliance themselves. Some years later, MongoDB apparently realized that no one was really afraid of the AGPL -- actually predictable given the earlier trajectory of GPLv2, but for the relatively limited adoption of AGPL by communities and corporate projects. So, as I remember it, MongoDB published a statement of interpretation of AGPLv3 that suggested that, indeed, the "copyleft effect" extended somehow to the entire stack being used by providers of services around MongoDB. This is *not* the statement that Matt Wilson linked to, which originated much earlier; I haven't attempted to find a copy. This statement was condemned by many in the community at the time. MongoDB basically backed down and, a few months later, published the SSPL and shortly thereafter submitted it for OSI license approval. So the SSPL was basically an attempt to write a license that implemented the nonstandard interpretation of AGPLv3 that had been unsuccessfully put forward shortly before. > Is there any recognized published statement that explains whether the > AGPL achieves a network copyleft effect as intended or not? And if the > conclusion is that it doesn't what's the alternative if you want this > effect? I guess the question is, intended by whom? I myself don't believe the FSF Intended for AGPL to be interpreted as though it were the later-created SSPL. AGPL ought to achieve a network copyleft effect, but it's not the copyleft effect implemented in SSPL section 13, which violates OSD 9 and the important "mere aggregation" principle in the *GPL licenses (which OSD/DFSG 9 is clearly based on). Indeed, I think AGPLv3 section 13 has to be read in conjunction with, and is strictly limited by, the "aggregate" clause in *GPLv3 section 5. Richard _______________________________________________ The opinions expressed in this email are those of the sender and not necessarily those of the Open Source Initiative. Official statements by the Open Source Initiative will be sent from an opensource.org email address. License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@lists.opensource.org http://lists.opensource.org/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss_lists.opensource.org
