The Affero GPL (AGPL)

[Alex Rousskov]

On Thu, 22 Jul 2004, Michael Bernstein wrote:

> >>The one 'bug' I'm aware of in the license is the explicit mention
> >>of HTTP as the transmission protocol, but this shouldn't affect
> >>it's acceptability to OSI. I know it doesn't affect it's
> >>acceptability to me.
> >
> > The OSL does not restrict to a protocol, and protocol restriction
> > would be a violation of the OSD anyway, by making the AFL not
> > technology neutral.  Check thy tenth commandment "License Must Be
> > Technology-Neutral"....
>
> The AGPL does not restrict the software to any technology.

It does, in many ways, IMO. HTTP is technology. "Immediate
transmission" is technology. Under certain AGPL conditions, a
derivative work cannot, for example, substitute HTTP code with BEEP
code or delay responses. These are purely technical requirements that
might prevent a derivative work from being used on some computer
networks (e.g., those that do not support HTTP).

The AGPL requirement is also technically broken in several ways
(assuming I understand the intent correctly). For example, AGPL
requires certain derivatives to provide "an opportunity to request
transmission [...] of complete source code".  The license does not
seem to require the program to respond to that request or to respond
with complete source code. Responding with "403 Forbidden" or "499
Good Luck" seems to be acceptable, from technical point of view. Thus,
I would not use this license if your intent is to preserve "embedded
source download" functionality in derivative works.

Alex.

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