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| ▲ | jraph 6 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Skimming your links, it seems you target the AGPL, but you take issue with CLAs. You should be vocal against CLAs, not the AGPL. CLAs with any license is a risk of seeing the code closed up. | | |
| ▲ | ezekg 6 days ago | parent [-] | | [flagged] | | |
| ▲ | jraph 6 days ago | parent | next [-] | | People saying wrong things about the AGPL isn't an AGPL problem, it's an issue of people saying wrong things. AGPL allows competition. Any free software license does. It's rule 0 of free software. > it's chosen to to be a non-compete. Well, too bad for them, because I can still fork this AGPL software and compete. So what's the issue? The issue would be for contributors contributing for to this code under CLA seeing their contributions closed up. If that's not your thing, don't contribute to software under such CLA. I avoid it myself. | | |
| ▲ | ezekg 6 days ago | parent [-] | | > Well, too bad for them, because I can still fork this AGPL software and compete. So what's the issue? No legal department will ever allow it due to the FUD. That's the whole fucking point. | | |
| ▲ | lexicality 6 days ago | parent | next [-] | | The AGPL is supposed to increase user freedom, not the legal department's freedom. The FSF have never cared even slightly about corporations being happy. Who cares if Google can't enrich themselves further? The point is to protect the users who are free to fork / host the software themselves. | | |
| ▲ | ranger_danger 5 days ago | parent [-] | | I think one of the big problems is that there are different definitions of freedom, and not everyone agrees. freedom TO vs freedom FROM |
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| ▲ | jraph 6 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | Sorry, but I won't cry for corps big enough to have legal departments because they elected not to benefit from my software. They have too much power for me to worry about looking to accommodate them and their fantasy. I don't mind them not using my code. They are doing themselves here. They have the human power to rebuild it anyway and I actually believe it should cost them. it's actually them who are spreading the FUD, because they don't like the AGPL. Meanwhile, my goal of providing software freedom to my users is fulfilled. | | |
| ▲ | ezekg 6 days ago | parent [-] | | My point is less about the AGPL license itself and more about the people who choose it. If the OSI came out and made a statement on the ambiguities in the AGPL, and cleared the FUD in such a way that all companies agreed and could reference it, I'd wager that the AGPL would over time become much, much less popular for commercial open source. But I'd wager that they won't do that, because they win when COSS wins. But if they did, we'd likely even see a move towards non-OSS licenses, ones that are clear as to their intent and rules -- rather than relying on ambiguity -- because there would no longer be an OSI-approved license that businesses could use to have their cake and eat it too. Very few COSS business/startup/w/e right now are choosing AGPL for altruistic reasons. This thread and every other COSS licensing thread here are evidence of that. Few of them care about software freedoms, or know why they chose the AGPL. They have a playbook that says AGPL lets them take advantage of the open source distribution flywheel, while largely protecting them from the risks associated with commercial open source, i.e. competition. They choose AGPL for this, not because it's the best license for users. I honestly don't get how people don't see the deception under the AGPL right now. | | |
| ▲ | jraph 6 days ago | parent | next [-] | | This point of view is new to me to be honest. Let's say I don't care about the intent of people choosing the AGPL (I do, I wish people did stuff for altruistic reasons, but the economical system in which we live makes it so we can't rely on this). You say people are choosing the AGPL because they think it lets them do effectively source-available while benefiting from open source washing. Fine. I don't like this. But the effect of this for me is that we actually get actual free software. What's so bad with this? I've reread your second text and didn't find what's actually bad with the AGPL. Now, I wish all the FUD around AGPL was cleared; the FUD is what's bad, but I don't wan't to wait for this to happen before picking the AGPL for my software. | | |
| ▲ | ezekg 6 days ago | parent [-] | | > What's so bad with this? It's lying. It's an open source project and a business model built on deceit. I guess I care about clear rules, clear intentions, and I care about integrity above all. The AGPL is ambiguity; unclear rules, veiled intentions. And these same people will relicense without a thought, too. I think we should care about these things, otherwise we repeat history over and over again. | | |
| ▲ | NoGravitas 5 days ago | parent | next [-] | | > veiled intentions The intentions behind the AGPL were never veiled. The intent was to close the loophole in the GPL3 that is opened by providing software as a network service. If you were to release software that provides a network service under the GPL3, someone else could use and modify it without sharing their changes, but while also providing it as a service. AGPL3 closes this loophole by ensuring that everyone who can use the software must have access to the source including any changes. I don't see any deceit, and I don't even see any anti-competitiveness. | | |
| ▲ | ezekg 5 days ago | parent [-] | | If you read the conversation higher up, instead of taking what I said out of context, you'd see that I was talking about the author veiling their intentions, i.e. using the AGPL as an effective non-compete while masquerading as "open source." They (the author aka the startup) wouldn't have chosen the AGPL if not for enterprises/bigtech/competition being scared of it. They didn't choose AGPL to increase freedom 0 (AGPL's purpose), they chose it to decrease it. Thus, veiled intentions. |
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| ▲ | jraph 6 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | > It's lying. I don't see how it can do this. The AGPL is a license text. It states what people can do with the licensed code. What is lying in this text? > I guess I care about clear rules, clear intentions, and I care about integrity Me too > The AGPL is ambiguity; unclear rules, veiled intentions That's where I don't agree: The rules are written in the license text and I see no ambiguity there. Where is the ambiguity in the AGPL text? What is not clear about it? What granted rights are we not sure about? > veiled intentions The original intent of the AGPL authors (the FSF) was clear and simple to me: ensure the end user's freedom. It was GPL, but address the SaaS situation where someone can modify networked GPL software, make users use it from the network, without having to redistribute the modification since the program runs remotely and not on the user's machine. And that intent is perfectly align with what I want for my code. Sure, people with bad intents will use the AGPL, and so what? People kill with knives, but I'll definitely keep cooking with mine. The AGPL is a tool. It doesn't, by itself, has intents, especially veiled intents. I'm not going to stop using the AGPL because someone wants to use it to trap users. This is all abstract, I'd appreciate concrete examples where: - people have done that, without a CLA (because yeah, I'm convinced AGPL+CLA can be bad). - the AGPL doesn't work well for someone using it with the original intent in which the AGPL was written. | | |
| ▲ | ezekg 6 days ago | parent [-] | | Here's a thread from a couple hours ago on X: https://x.com/_m27e/status/1962563736142565882. Read the images and follow the quoted posts. The example comes straight from the mouth of a COSS founder. | | |
| ▲ | jraph 6 days ago | parent [-] | | Sorry, but this yes-answered AI slop subtly makes no sense, it just reads comfortable to you. You should not delegate writing your opinion to the llm and even less use it to shape your opinion, this is my main takeaway from your screenshot. The AI answered your biased question in a way that pleases you, it's well known that they do this. This stuff is actually scary, and that clever people like you rely on this and don't notice the glaring issues is even more. The agpl is ambiguous because users may choose not to fully use the freedom they were given? Sorry but this is bullshit. I'm glad I haven't started using this stuff yet (for other reasons). I'm sure I wouldn't notice such issues in topics I'm not at ease with and I can see how easy one can be seduced by this stuff. Now, I'm convinced AGPL can be misused. What's more, I'm certainly quite happy that a side effect of the AGPL is that Google won't touch it, to mirror the comment you point to (whose author is wrong by the way, the intent behind the AGPL was not to exclude big tech, but to promote/protect user software freedom). All the fud around the AGPL actually comes from companies like Google, so respectfully fuck them all. Nobody could possibly have weaponised the AGPL against them had they not started spreading all the fud in the first place. But even considering that picking the AGPL to scare big tech away is bad and weaponizes it (which I can hear, and let's assume), I believe you are wrong that nobody chooses the AGPL for the user freedom genuinely. There are a lot of examples of software under AGPL in good faith seemingly to me. Examples: Nextcloud, Joplin, CryptPad, Overleaf, Passbolt, Univention... I doubt any of these commercial projects from friendly (?) companies choose the AGPL to fuck the world. I don't know the numbers, maybe it's a minority. You may not have numbers as well. Are you against the AGPL when used in good faith? If so, what to you suggest as an alternative? I'm with you with the wish people were altruistic. But the system we live in doesn't exactly help being altruistic. Not being altruistic is certainly not a trait of people using AGPL, it's virtually everyone in a commercial setting (although some of us try to do their best to be good humans and virtuous). If anything, the AGPL was born from a ideal and that was certainly driven by something like altruism. All this blame towards the AGPL because people are out there to make money really feels weird to me. Anyway, I don't think we'll reach an agreement here and that's OK. Thanks for the discussion, despite the strong disagreement it is/was stimulating. | | |
| ▲ | ezekg 5 days ago | parent [-] | | Fair enough, but the LLM said nothing incorrect (if it did, please point it out). Regardless, the screenshots don't even matter. You didn't seem to actually read the thread I pointed to, where a VC-backed startup founder admitted to using the AGPL to limit bigtech from using the software, a clear violation of freedom 0. They didn't choose the AGPL for altruistic reasons, rather, it's simply a part of the COSS startup playbook now -- because it works! -- they can use the term "open source" while protecting themselves from competition. Which is my entire point. Why do they get to use "open source" while effectively violating the freedoms but somebody using the Elastic License, or the Sustainable Use License, or the SSPL, or the BSL, or the FSL, etc. isn't allowed to? They're all doing the same thing, only the latter licenses are saying the quiet part out loud. Anyways, I agree we do seem to be talking past each other at this point. gl | | |
| ▲ | jraph 4 days ago | parent [-] | | > You didn't seem to actually read the thread I pointed to I had mentioned it so you could see I actually read it. I had actually made the effort to load this twitter link despite the PITA it is. > if it did, please point it out Already pointed out my main qualm, but Brandolini's law is particularly bad with LLMs, I won't have time to debunk in details each time I run into generated text. I'd rather argue with a human being. Let's forget this part of the discussion, it was not your point, I should have ignored it, I'm just losing patience with the LLM madness. > effectively violating the freedoms They don't. There's a fundamental difference between "the license permits something but someone elects to avoid benefiting from it" (someone = big corps) and "the license actually forbids something". The difference is quite major for the rest of us who are not big corps stupidly afraid of the AGPL, and we are the vast majority. Which resolves your question: > Why do they get to use "open source" while effectively violating the freedoms but somebody using the Elastic License, or the Sustainable Use License, or the SSPL, or the BSL, or the FSL, etc. isn't allowed to? The reason is the Elastic License, or the Sustainable Use License, or the SSPL, or the BSL, or the FSL actually forbid running stuff for some endeavors. AGPL doesn't. We only have big corps deciding they should stay clear from the AGPL. That's not the AGPL forbidding anything to anyone. It's not a feature of AGPL. It's a feature of big corps. Now, that some people choose the AGPL because they know big corps stay clear from it, okay. I understand you find this veiled. Fine. But that doesn't make AGPL non open source. Our main disagreement IMHO is that you would like that we qualify licenses depending on the intent of people using it or on the FUD corps who don't like it (and you too!) spread instead of what they intrinsically allow or not. I can't agree with this. I'll go further. "Sustainable" and "Fair" are terrible and intentionally misleading qualifiers for these non-free licenses that are sustainable and fair only to the authors of the software under those licenses. You just need to own the fact that you write proprietary software, and shouldn't bitch on people actually doing open source stuff and find them gotchas. They are not doing some anti-competitive stuff that's unfair to you. If you find AGPL gives unfair advantage because it gets called open source, nothing prevents you from adopting it. I suspect you won't because you know it actually gives more rights than you want to give, which also answers your question. You guys using proprietary licenses are the ones not respecting software freedom, and you trying to call out people who actually do is quite rich. This really doesn't look great. I'd suggest you quit doing this and focus on the positive things instead. I've asked you what harm the AGPL actually does and all you have to share is some tweet written in jest answering a low quality LLM generated text tickling the gafam. Not very convincing. Not sure you'll find deep meaning in such low quality interactions on such a low quality platform. Stop spreading the FUD and own your choices. |
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| ▲ | nothrabannosir 6 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | But why wouldn’t they change their minds if those big corporations actually changed their ways? Is there a similar sentiment against red hat? I now understand where you’re coming from but I am not sold on your prediction that the agpl would crater if Google started complying with it. It would mean that Google open sources everything which is derivative work. That sounds like it would buy a lot of good will amongst precisely those people who are mad about how Amazon screwed redis (to put it bluntly). |
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| ▲ | throwaway38477 6 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | > In COSS, it's almost never chosen for altruistic reasons, it's chosen to to be a non-compete Seems like the "COSS" grifters are the problem, not the AGPL or the average person who chooses AGPL. |
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| ▲ | jakelazaroff 6 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | What specifically is your problem with the AGPL? I read both of your links and while there are a lot of incisive statements ("But the truth is, the AGPL isn't used to increase user freedom — it's used to restrict it, primarily through its legal ambiguities") you never spell out why you believe them. | | |
| ▲ | torstenvl 6 days ago | parent [-] | | It is objectively true. AGPL does not meet the definition of free software, because it restricts the use of the software when modified. The FSF pretends this isn't true by pretending that some uses are actually redistribution. However, this is too clever by half. Redistribution has a well-settled meaning, and allowing interaction over a network—unless it involves downloading the software itself—does not meet that definition. | | |
| ▲ | jakelazaroff 5 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Let's grant your definition of "redistribution" for the sake of argument. How does the license restrict your use of any modified versions of the software? Like, what specifically are you forbidden from doing? | | |
| ▲ | torstenvl 5 days ago | parent [-] | | Your questions seem to be based on unspoken assumptions. Are you under the impression that a restriction can only take the form of a blanket prohibition? | | |
| ▲ | jakelazaroff 5 days ago | parent [-] | | No assumptions here! You said that the AGPL "restricts the use of the software when modified", so I'm just asking specifically what the restrictions are. | | |
| ▲ | torstenvl a day ago | parent [-] | | No... you asked "Like, what specifically are you forbidden from doing?" HN is for intellectual curiosity. Not gaslighting ideological battles. Conditions on freedom are restrictions. Something doesn't have to be an outright prohibition to be an impingement on freedom. It's dishonest to pretend like anything short of a prohibition is unrestricted freedom. |
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| ▲ | pabs3 5 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | The extra network clause triggers on modification, not redistribution. | | |
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| ▲ | happymellon 6 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > Author's note: the above thoughts are for how the AGPL is used in startup-land alongside a CLA — not for AGPL in general. The AGPL is a fine open source license for libraries and other infrastructure. The whole piece is about CLAs, the AGPL has absolutely nothing to do with signing over your copyrights. See Canonical for the same behaviour without the AGPL, the AGPL just requires that you allow your users to also see the code they are using, even if it is accessed over a network. > Many, like Google, have flat out banned the AGPL. Yeah, but that's because Google hates sharing what they have built on the shoulders of giants. | | |
| ▲ | 6 days ago | parent | next [-] | | [deleted] | |
| ▲ | ezekg 6 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | The first piece is about CLAs, yes, but the second is about the AGPL abuses in COSS et al. |
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| ▲ | tptacek 6 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | You might take that up with the FSF, which clearly disagrees with you about its "affront". | | |
| ▲ | arccy 6 days ago | parent [-] | | [flagged] | | |
| ▲ | drdaeman 6 days ago | parent [-] | | No offense meant, but what's wrong with y'all today, people? Why so many folks in the comments use words in a way that doesn't match their dictionary-intended meanings and even insist that doing otherwise is something... weird, in a bad way? Am I taking crazy pills? Save for The Church of Emacs and St. IGNUcius (obvious jokes), FSF is a political and social activism organization - not a religious one. They have foundational principles and manifestos, sure, but those aren't religious dogmas, but rather the views/desires how the society should work. Labeling FSF as religious implies that it's a cult and thus there's no talking reason to them. But they're no more religious than any other civil rights movement - the beliefs about software freedoms are no different than beliefs in any other social rights. |
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| ▲ | JoshTriplett 6 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Using a FOSS license and charging money for an alternative license is not abuse. And those blog posts appear to be FUD spread by a company whose own software is under proprietary licenses with source available. People are welcome to use and host AGPLed software under its own FOSS terms. If people don't want to do that, and want to pay for alternative terms, that is also a sign that the license is effective. There's no point in restricting things people don't want to do. The GPL restricts something people want to do: make proprietary software. The AGPL restricts something people want to do: host software without distributing the source at all. | |
| ▲ | account42 5 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | Gee I wonder why a proprietary software licensing company would want to disparage the AGPL. | | |
| ▲ | ezekg 5 days ago | parent [-] | | I've probably contributed more to open source than you [0]. I also contribute the source code of my entire company under the open source Apache 2 license via DOSP [1]. I wouldn't be so quick to judge. I love open source. But I also think words and intent matters. I don't really 'win' by attacking customers/users that use the AGPL. [0]: https://keygen.sh/open-source/ [1]: https://keygen.sh/license/ |
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