Suppose the following scenario:
Someone gives you a CD with debian, and you install the weblog tool,
which happens to be agpl.
Your internet connection is two way satalite, 500mb/month, data both
directions costs, and it could be up to 25cents/mb over your quota.
Now imagine because the package you got from debian wasnt finished
(perhaps a typo leaves a path broken), you have to make a change to the
packages source.
This is a potential case, yes.
You just changed it.
You now have to make it available (with its dependancies? i'm not sure).
No. It is neither standard nor customary to re-release an entire package for a small bugfix. You could just upload a patch to the project's mailing list and refer to the URL of that patch in the list's archive.
The cost to upload that patch is small compared to the cost of web browsing.
What worries me is that the people in this situation *dont realise* what
they got themselves into (its on my debian cd, so i can use it for
personal use however ... right?).
It's not personal use when you have remote users, it's public use.
Private use is software on my own computer that nobody ever interacts with or uses.
I'm not worried about people who 'opt in' to agpl software, i'm worried
about people who *dont realise* what agpl means to them, and wind up in
a tricky legal corner.
What's tricky about it? Upload your changes somewhere. That's all.
You miss the license, someone emails you about it, you upload. No big deal.
The only way anyone is going to see a courtroom over this is if they intentionally fail to comply with the license terms.