Re: GR proposal: the AGPL does not meet the DFSG (take 2)
* David Claughton <dave@eclecticdave.com> [091114 12:43]:
> I agree this makes the license problematic and might make developers
> choose to avoid working on AGPL code - however as I said above, all
> licenses put some limits on what you can modify, some more than others,
> at least if you want to distribute the result.
The problem is that with AGPL you do not need distribution, all that is
needed is running. Once you are no longer allowed to modify what
programs on your computer do, how can that be free?
> > Let's take this to some extreme: What about software with a license that
> > forbids you running it unless you published your changes in a
> > peer-reviewed scientific journal?
> > I hope we all agree that at least that would be non-free.
>
> Yes, that would breach DFSG 5 and possibly 6 as not everyone would be
> able to do that. However the AGPL does not limit who can make
> modifications so this isn't a good analogy.
If you phrase it that way, I start to think it is an good analogy.
Remembering how often I was told in AGPL discussions that having to run
some file server is no cost, as of course there will be enough people
out there ready to host your make-it-work-quickly patched versions and
garantee it will never go offline (so you will not have to monitor it
and stop your servers once it does), finding a journal that will take
your paper sounds easy in comparison...
Hochachtungsvoll,
Bernhard R. Link
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