Comment by KolmogorovComp
3 days ago
yes, but that's not what happen here. this part of the AGPL is there to avoid people adding more restrictions, but here mattermost is loosening up the restrictions.
> > We promise that we will not enforce the copyleft provisions in AGPL v3.0 against you if your application ... [set of conditions]
I mean... I don't really see how they are. Technically they are but at the same time they aren't, because the set of conditions make the loosening of the AGPL a conditional thing. Which to me sounds like a violation of the AGPL because it's a further restriction: "We will (not) hold the AGPL against you... As long as you do these things..." I... Really don't think the AGPL was written to be... Abused? That way.
You can see the spirit of what they're going for also with the MIT binaries - that's also like saying the whole project is AGPL, but a loosening for using it as-is.
Given their goals seem to be
- Permissive use without modification, even in combined works ("MIT binaries"); but
- Copyleft with modification, including for the Affero "network hole", or commercial terms
could you suggest a clearer license option? AGPL triggers copyleft across combined works, LGPL doesn't cover the network hole, GPL has both problems. Their goals seem really reasonable, honestly, there should be a simple answer. It seems messy but I like it more than the SSPL/BSL/other neo-licenses.
I don't know anything more reasonable, but I would argue that this (isn't) reasonable precisely because it causes so much confusion due to the ambiguity and their refusal to clarify exactly what the terms really are.