Re: Affero General Public License
On Mon, Feb 06, 2006 at 11:53:22PM -0500, Benj. Mako Hill wrote:
> I don't think that issue is a closed one. As you and others have
> mentioned in other threads, the GPLv3 will probably have a Affero-type
> clause.
The GPLv3 having such a clause has no relevance to its freeness. A non-
free restriction doesn't become free because the FSF decided to use it.
That said, the draft does not have such a clause; rather, it says something
like "Affero-like clauses are not incompatible". That's unfortunate, and
encourages people to do probably non-free things, but it's not non-free
itself.
> Several people, at least, have spoken up in favor of this sort
> of clause being both in the spirit of the GPL and the DFSG.
I've seen it said that its *goal* is to protect against behavior that is
against the spirit of copyleft. Worthy goals don't make non-free things
free. This means that we might be willing to accept a restriction that
does this, if they get rid of the collateral damage, but nobody has yet
offered an approach to this that does so.
> Even if there was some sort of rough consensus on the AGPL in the past,
> I think that we need to *at least* discuss this a bit more and and a bit
> more widely before we risk writing off some large future subset of GPL
> works as being non-free.
It was just re-discussed recently, around the GPLv3 draft, I believe.
--
Glenn Maynard
Reply to: