Re: Is AGPLv3 DFSG-free?
"Jordi Gutiérrez Hermoso" <jordigh@gmail.com> writes:
> 2008/9/10 MJ Ray <mjr@phonecoop.coop>:
> > "Jordi Gutiérrez Hermoso" <jordigh@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> What's so non-free about requiring the same network that's
> >> providing the interface to somehow and vaguely facilitate the
> >> conveying of the source?
> >
> > It's an extra required cost on top of one's use of the software.
>
> One's modification and distribution over a network of that software,
> let's be explicit.
As I pointed out in another post, the unfortunate use of the word
"use" here leads to confusion.
I think MJ Ray's point (and, if not his, then a point made by others)
is that "distribution of the software over a network" is exactly the
additional cost being discussed. That cost is required, by the AGPL,
over and above the cost of making the program available for
interaction by others.
> And I argue that this extra cost is no greater than the cost of
> providing the network interface that's triggering this clause in the
> first place.
This is plainly false: There is, at minimum, additional cost of
storage, additional cost of bandwidth, additional cost of modifying
the interface to support such an offering, and additional cost of
maintaining those modifications over time.
That's before we even get to the question of whether the AGPL allows
the corresponding source to be unavailable at a given point in time
when an person who interacts with the program at time T and then at
time T+X requests the corresponding source.
--
\ “I fly Air Bizarre. You buy a combination one-way round-trip |
`\ ticket. Leave any Monday, and they bring you back the previous |
_o__) Friday. That way you still have the weekend.” —Steven Wright |
Ben Finney
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