Pierre BourdonAug 16, 2024

Hot take, don't @ me: AGPL should never have been an OSI approved license.

The license is basically a compliance trap, and I would posit that > 99% of modified AGPL software violates the license.

This leads to a world where license enforcement is entirely up to arbitrary decisions by the copyright owner. Any contributor to an AGPL software package (without CLA) can go and mass-send C&Ds and/or request $$$, kind of like the Creative Commons copyright trolls have been doing for CC-BY violations.

Show threadPierre BourdonAug 16, 2024

That's without even getting into the fact that really, the AGPL is GPL + a "usage restriction" clause camouflaging as not being one (because that would be against the FSF's principles).

I suspect most of the AGPL users would be better served with some of the more permissive source-available licenses. Unfortunately, people seem to have allergic reactions to non-OSI approved licenses, and AGPL being OSI approved even though it sucks means it gets regarded more highly than better alternatives.

Show threadGraham Sutherland / PolynomialAug 16, 2024
@delroth even bigger hot take: none of this matters because nobody ever enforces this shit, and people should generally stop paying attention to what's "officially" open source and just make stuff with licenses that let people get on with their lives. enforcing license violation against a company as an individual is prohibitively expensive and only something people with more free time and money than sense can take on. and enforcing it against individuals just trying to get shit done is silly.
Show threadPierre BourdonAug 16, 2024
@gsuberland I kinda disagree because most companies will actually comply with the terms of your license of choice, or rather "will make a decision to use or not use your software based on the costs of complying with the terms". There's a set of actors that will just not care (hi China), but they're usually not what people care about.
Show threadPierre Bourdon
@gsuberland (so yes, I agree, enforcement is futile, but that doesn't mean the license isn't useful preventively)
Aug 16, 2024 at 3:28amWeb