Who wants you to think nobody uses the AGPL and why

by John Sullivan
At: FOSDEM 2019
video.fosdem.org/2019/UA2.220...
The GNU Affero General Public License (AGPL) is an important tool for
protecting user freedom on the network. Detractors have criticized it
for being both too weak and too strong/demanding. In 2018, it was in
the news more than ever. Are the interests of corporations that are
afraid of their free code being turned into network services run by
competitors starting to align with users losing their freedom to such
services? Historically, the AGPL has been the target of criticism from entities
that want to extinguish it. Some companies have banned it from their
premises, sowed fear about how it operates, and propagated a myth that
nobody is using it.
Others claim that the AGPL is being used primarily by companies
seeking to strong-arm downstream users into purchasing a proprietary
version of the covered software -- by catching those users being out
of compliance with the AGPL, and telling them that they must buy the
software under a proprietary license to avoid being taken to court for
copyright infringement.
A third group of companies is now claiming that the AGPL doesn't go
far enough to protect their software against being turned into
services that deny users freedom -- though freedom may not be their
primary concern.
In fact, the AGPL is being used today by a variety of interesting and
important projects, including ones started by governments, nonprofits,
and even businesses. I'll highlight some illustrative examples. I'll
also do my best to separate understandable concerns that people have
about using the AGPL from attacks on user freedom masquerading as
concerns, and see if there is any synergy between the concerns of the
third group above and those of individual users.
While not a full solution to the problems raised when users replace
software running on their own machines with software running on
someone else's machine, the AGPL is a tool that is being embraced and
should be embraced even more.
Room: UA2.220 (Guillissen)
Scheduled start: 2019-02-02 16:00:00+01

[@ijustsawthat]

Everybody is gangsta until the lawyers come in and start distorting the definitions and take everything from you.
The problem is not the ethics of the license, it's on its abstract terms using the wording of the license.

[@nobodynever7884]

That's not a bug, its a feature. Agpl is a legal Trojan horse.

[@Anthony-cn8ll]

Let's say I wrote an operating system driver under the AGPL. If a user is interacting with a website that runs on a system using that driver, does that trigger this clause? What exactly is interaction under this license? This may seem like an inordinate example, but databases are one common web technology not directly interacted with... Perhaps that was the foreshadowing for MongoDb changing to the SSPL.

[@thetechq]

Yep. I’m comparing two programs for internal use on a local network. The AGPL is vague to me, so I’m going to test the non-AGPL program first.
A network copyleft system is probably the best we can do if we are going to have electronic voting machines. Government has the compliance resources to make this happen. No election result should be trusted (even if “your side” wins) if there is even one line of unauditable code calculating the outcome.

[@nobodynever7884]

This sounds like a legal trojan horse.

[@acuteaura]

way to miss the actual criticism

[@TAELSDOLL]

how to be broke programmer