Comment by jzb
3 years ago
If you read the minio blog, they give very detailed instructions on how to check that they are using the software. It shouldn’t be super difficult to figure out if any of the software being distributed today is post license switch.
So what we have here is a very detailed description of what they are claiming is a violation, then a refutation that is very strong, but also doesn’t actually address some of the claims in the other blog, as far as I can tell.
There is a blog from minio that says they switched to AGPLv3 in 2021. It’s unclear to me from the screenshots whether the software is later than that or not.
I hope someone takes the time to do an independent analysis, and a more neutral take.
Note that Weka redacted the language from the Apache license that says “subject to the terms and conditions,” which (not a lawyer) seems to allow a copyright holder to deny permission if they’re not meeting the conditions of the license. Whether they are or not is another question.
> they give very detailed instructions on how to check that they are using the software
It's not that detailed; it just says "there is a minio binary, and that's our minio". Okay, but what version is that? This is the crucial part, because Apache vs AGPL license makes a world of difference.
The Apache attribution requirement seems satisfied; perhaps not as prominently as minio would like, but there is no "prominence requirement". It fails to demonstrate any AGPL code is used, although according to some other comments the monio people have a unique and interesting interpretation of relicensing where they think they can retroactively relicense Apache code to AGPL. The claim that backporting any security fixes would trigger the AGPL is also suspect; typically many security fixes are simple in terms of code changed, and tend to be fairly easy to re-implement independently once you know the description of the problem. Either way, "it's likely that [..]" doesn't really demonstrate much of anything and is certainly not "very detailed".
In short, the minio post is vague and full of assumptions; even without this rebuttal I wouldn't put too much stock in it as it seems borderline FUD.