Re: AGPLv3 Compliance and Debian Users

[Ansgar Burchardt <ansgar@debian.org>]

On 07/11/2013 14:15, Paul Wise wrote:
> On Thu, Jul 11, 2013 at 6:29 PM, Lars Meyser wrote:
>> No I did not miss that, but I'm not entirely sure of the implications. So if I
>> use a packaged version of a program which has been modified (e.g. by Debian
>> patches) I am not obliged to make the source available?
> 
> I'm no expert but that would be my interpretation. Also when I asked
> about the basis of the network part of the AGPL during the GPLv3 talk
> at DebConf10 in NYC, Bradley said the AGPL was specifically based on
> modification, _not_ on public performance or other use.

You have to make the source available in this case. Otherwise it would
be a trivial way around the AGPL (just have a third party modify the
program and give it to you).

Section 13 (Remote Network Interaction) requires modified version to
offer access to the source. If you modify the software, but do not
provide this, you violate this license requirement and lose the right to
modify and distribute the covered work under section 8 (Termination).

And with open source software you often deal with "modified" versions,
so claiming this is a special case ("[...] was specifically based on
modification, _not_ on public performance or other use") seems a bit odd
to me.

Anyway, this discussion seems more appropriate for -legal than -devel.
CC'ed and set Reply-To accordingly.

Ansgar