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

[Roland Turner]

On 17/6/24 00:08, Dirk Riehle wrote:
> Thanks for the answer.
>
> >> 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.
>
> This is the news for me. For the longest time, the AGPL was positioned
> as a network ("cloud") copyleft license.
>
> Do you have any pointers as the original intentions not being that?

We are perhaps speaking at crossed purposes.

I read your question as being about network effects in the usual sense 
of the demand-side equivalent of an economy of scale, of interest to 
for-profit entities because it drives vendor lock-in, which is very much 
what SSPL adopters are looking for. The idea of freedom seems marvellous 
to them when it looks like free programmer labour, but disastrous when 
it looks like for-profit competitors.

On re-reading, I suspect that you actually mean something like copyleft 
freedoms arising for users who access remotely (i.e. simply via a 
communication network, not in reference to economic network effects at 
all) software licensed to the remote operator under AGPL. There is so 
far as I am aware no serious controversy here. Not only does AGPL have 
this effect, several vendors have switched to SSPL specifically to 
escape it. Once they understand what freedom actually means, they want 
nothing to do with it.

I am wondering however whether I've still not really understood your 
question. It might be helpful for you to spell out what it is that 
you're trying to achieve, particularly including precisely what copyleft 
effects you have in mind. Relying instead on "effect as intended" or any 
other reference to definitions or history documented elsewhere requires 
that the reader understand what it is that you understood to be the 
intentions of the people who drafted AGPL, which is somewhat ambiguous 
at best.

- Roland