Comment by kube-system

They’re completely wrong about Section 7 § 3(b).

They’re mistakenly conflating “attribution” with “branding” or “trademark”. They’re different things. In the context of a copyright license, attribution is something like “// Copyright 2012 <whoever> Corporation” that you might see in a source file.

This use doesn’t violate trademark because you aren’t pretending to be them, you are attributing them as the source. Just like I can say “the Big Mac is a sandwich at McDonalds” and my comment is completely legal.

Even if “attribution” didn’t already mean something different — this reading of the AGPL is laughably stupid — first of all, you can’t compel someone to break the law in a contract anyway... and second, that’s an illogical interpretation of that section. Why would it be intentionally self contradictory? Clearly that isn’t right.

Requiring specific branding is not provided for in 7 § 3(b) and it is specifically forbidden by the the sentences that immediately follow:

> All other non-permissive additional terms are considered "further restrictions" within the meaning of section 10. If the Program as you received it, or any part of it, contains a notice stating that it is governed by this License along with a term that is a further restriction, you may remove that term.

What they should do is make sure they keep all attribution in source files and tell them to pound sand about their bogus branding claims.