Hmm, my naive summary of AGPL is "If you run AGPL code in your web backend you are obliged to offer the backend source to everyone using a web client". No wonder it's explicitly forbidden at Google.
What does that mean for a linker? If you ship a binary linked with an AGPL linker you need to offer the source of the linker? Or of the program being linked?
In practice I think it's pretty much equivalent to the GPL for a linker. But I can understand why people in commercial settings are wary of this license.
iirc the mold author wanted to make money off of it (and I dont blame him).
AGPL is avoided like the plague by big corps: same big corps are known for having money to pay for licenses and sometimes (yes, I look at you Amazon) being good at deriving value from FLOSS without giving back.
iirc AGPL was used so everyone can just use it, big biz is still compelled to buy a license. this has been done before and can be seen as one of the strategies to make money off FLOSS.
They probably wont NEED a license, but --as said-- big corps dont touch AGPL with a ten foot pole because legal. So it's just to shut up legal, most likely.
Corps want to be able to release and use tools that take away the freedoms that GPL-family licenses provide. Often this results in duplication of effort.
This is not theoretical; it happens quite frequently. For toolchains, in particular I'm aware of how Apple (not that they're unique in this) has "blah blah open source" downloads, but often they do not actually correspond with the binaries. And not just "not fully reproducible but close" but "entirely new and incompatible features".
The ARM64 saga is a notable example, which went on for at least six months (at least Sept 2013 to March 2014). XCode 5 shipped with a closed-source compiler only for all that time.
Corps don't want to have to release the source code for their internal forks. They could also potentially be sued for everything they link using it because the linked binaries could be "derivative works" according to a judge who doesn't know anything.
I'm wondering if you've ever actually asked a real corporate lawyer for an opinion on anything relating to GPL licenses. The results are pretty consistent. I've made the trip on three occasions, and the response each time was: "this was not drafted by a lawyer, it's virtually ininterpretable, and it is wildly unpredictable what the consequences of using this software are."
Hmm, my naive summary of AGPL is "If you run AGPL code in your web backend you are obliged to offer the backend source to everyone using a web client". No wonder it's explicitly forbidden at Google.
What does that mean for a linker? If you ship a binary linked with an AGPL linker you need to offer the source of the linker? Or of the program being linked?
In practice I think it's pretty much equivalent to the GPL for a linker. But I can understand why people in commercial settings are wary of this license.
Instead of spreading FUD you could go read the AGPL.
iirc the mold author wanted to make money off of it (and I dont blame him).
AGPL is avoided like the plague by big corps: same big corps are known for having money to pay for licenses and sometimes (yes, I look at you Amazon) being good at deriving value from FLOSS without giving back.
iirc AGPL was used so everyone can just use it, big biz is still compelled to buy a license. this has been done before and can be seen as one of the strategies to make money off FLOSS.
Under what circumstances would commercial companies be required to buy a license?! If they provide Linking as a Service?
They probably wont NEED a license, but --as said-- big corps dont touch AGPL with a ten foot pole because legal. So it's just to shut up legal, most likely.
Corps want to be able to release and use tools that take away the freedoms that GPL-family licenses provide. Often this results in duplication of effort.
This is not theoretical; it happens quite frequently. For toolchains, in particular I'm aware of how Apple (not that they're unique in this) has "blah blah open source" downloads, but often they do not actually correspond with the binaries. And not just "not fully reproducible but close" but "entirely new and incompatible features".
The ARM64 saga is a notable example, which went on for at least six months (at least Sept 2013 to March 2014). XCode 5 shipped with a closed-source compiler only for all that time.
So they donate money instead of code? The project somehow benefits from the switch to MIT?
Corps don't want to have to release the source code for their internal forks. They could also potentially be sued for everything they link using it because the linked binaries could be "derivative works" according to a judge who doesn't know anything.
They don't have to release source for internal forks.
They do if they're AGPL licensed and the internal form software is used to provide a user facing service.
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I think you should get new lawyers if this is their understanding of how software licenses work.
See for example https://opensource.google/documentation/reference/using/agpl...
> Code licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License (AGPL) MUST NOT be used at Google.
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I'm wondering if you've ever actually asked a real corporate lawyer for an opinion on anything relating to GPL licenses. The results are pretty consistent. I've made the trip on three occasions, and the response each time was: "this was not drafted by a lawyer, it's virtually ininterpretable, and it is wildly unpredictable what the consequences of using this software are."
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