Re: DFSG-freeness of any license that fixes the ASP loophole

[John Halton <johnhalton@gmail.com>]

On Sun, Nov 11, 2007 at 11:59:49AM +0100, Francesco Poli wrote:
> I'm not convinced that there actually is a problem.

I'm inclined to agree (though open to persuasion otherwise). 

There seem to be two main positions one could take on this:

1.    One could argue that objections to the ASP "loophole" come down
      to a reluctance to accept the implications of the "no
      restrictions on use" aspects of free software: "How dare people
      make money out of the software I've written?"

2.    Or one could argue that the AGPL and similar efforts are founded
      on a visionary understanding (equivalent to RMS's insights of
      the early 1980s) of how computing is going to develop over the
      next few years, and a fear that without the AGPL a proprietary
      software world could be rebuilt by default as more and more
      software is used remotely.

But even if we take position #2, that still leaves the fundamental
problem as this: the AGPL makes it possible to add new and
incompatible licensing restrictions to GPLed software. It is therefore
a de facto threat to the GPL software ecosystem, as we could see more
and more useful software moving from the GPL world into the AGPL
world.

John