Comment by LexiMax
20 days ago
You are 100% correct.
Such a shame that the Free Software Foundation has been such an awful steward of the GPL. The fact that the GPLv3 didn't close the network hole is a decision made either out of myopia or abject cowardice, you shouldn't need a separate license (AGPLv3) to ensure true freedom of the codebase.
Sure, but just the regular GPLv3 would have been good enough to prevent this particular abuse.
That's fair, but a more pervasive Free Software ecosystem might have possibly avoided this outcome entirely. And that failure is something we can lay directly at the feet of the FSF.
If RMS was going to piss off the entire industry with a new version of the GPL, the least he could do was close the network hole. What we got instead is a half measure that satisfies nobody.
More importantly, he completely missed the boat on App Stores. Why was there never any watered down version of copyleft that could be used as a wedge to try and pry open app stores over time? They did it for libraries with the LGPL, but apparently app stores werent worth specials casing.
"The fact that the GPLv3 didn't close the network hole is a decision made either out of myopia or abject cowardice, you shouldn't need a separate license (AGPLv3) to ensure true freedom of the codebase."
Google was successful in lobbying the FSF to have 2 licences (GPLv3 and AGPLv3) instead of 1 (GPLv3 covering web services).