[License-discuss] What's wrong with the AGPL?

[Roland Turner]

On 14/6/24 06:29, Dirk Riehle wrote:

> Hello everyone,
>
> I wrote this email three times and discarded it; I simply don't know how
> to ask.
>
> Final try. If I believe various representatives (on Twitter and
> elsewhere) of companies like AWS, they believe they can use AGPL
> licensed code and the copyleft effect is wholly contained/doesn't affect
> their tech stack at all.

I wouldn't phrase it that way but, sure, apart from the additional 
obligations created to remote users, AGPL's scope is limited to 
derivative works under copyright law. It was a narrowly crafted 
extension to GPL to address a particular ability of service providers to 
limit user freedom. It sits awkwardly alongside GPL (which is built on 
the assumption that you should ideally be free to do what you like on a 
device that you own, not on devices that other people own), but was seen 
as a worthwhile option for preserving user freedom in a SaaS environment.


> Those who pushed source-available seem to
> agree; the SSPL was an attempt to a better copyleft license in the eyes
> of their creators, irrespective of this list's conclusion that it was a
> discriminatory license.

Yes. The reasoning is identical to proprietary licensing: deny licensees 
more freedom, extract more cash. This is built on a perversion of the 
idea of copyright that is now well entrenched. Copyleft was designed in 
the first place to turn this perversion against itself in order to 
preserve and extend user freedom.


> Why is that? I look at the definition of "modified code" in the AGPL
> license texts and to me it seems to do the trick (copyleft effect). I
> find the explanation of conveyance to users less clear i.e. how the
> traditional distribution is defined.

The obvious boundary created by device ownership is difficult to project 
onto a SaaS relationship.


> Is there any recognized published statement that explains whether the
> AGPL achieves a network copyleft effect as intended or not? And if the
> conclusion is that it doesn't what's the alternative if you want this
> effect?

AGPL doesn't intend a "network effect" — at least not as VCs would see 
it —indeed as a copyleft license it's intended to prevent this.


- Roland