Re: Is AGPLv3 DFSG-free?
2008/9/3 Don Armstrong <don@debian.org>:
> On Wed, 03 Sep 2008, Jordi Gutiérrez Hermoso wrote:
>
>> I swear I'm not being purposely dense, but I honestly don't understand
>> how this is any different than the way Debian handles distributing
>> source for all other packages.
>
> We only distribute source at the instant we distribute the binary. We
> (generally[1]) don't distribute the source after we've stopped
> distributing the binary. The AGPL requires distribution of source at
> any time that the application is used. The GPL does not.
At any time Debian provides a webserver with modified AGPLed software
for its users.
It's not that Debian's users are going to download the AGPLed software
which most of them are not going to modify, and Debian is responsible
for always keeping a copy of the source available for all the users.
If the user modifies the software *and* conveys it over a network, it
is that user's responsibility to keep distributing the modified
sources, not Debian's.
> This is part and parcel of the ASP loophole that the AGPL is trying to
> close, and the very reason that the AGPL exists in the first place.
>
>> Are you saying the burden is going to be in updating those links
>> that say where to get the source, making the patchwork for packaging
>> AGPL software more tedious? The GPL says three years, right?
>
> No, the path through the GPL that we use says "equivalent access." (We
> distribute binaries under 6d precisely so our mirror operators do not
> have to deal with the tedious bookkeeping of satifying 6c.)
Okay, I understand. Sorry about this one.
- Jordi G. H.
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