Re: Do Debian's users care about the AGPL?
On Thu, Sep 04, 2008 at 10:35:16AM -0500, Christofer C. Bell wrote:
> On Thu, Sep 4, 2008 at 9:42 AM, Gregory Seidman
> <gsslist+debian@anthropohedron.net> wrote:
> > Consider an AGPL'd app that has some open file format download. Evil Inc.
> > takes said app, tears out the bit that sends the open format to the user
> > and has it write to (server side) disk instead, then provides a link to a
> > separate, closed source web app that reads the AGPL'd app's open format
> > from disk and converts it to a proprietary format for download. Evil Inc.
> > releases its changes to the AGPL'd app without exposing anything about
> > their proprietary format. You, as a user, lose, and the AGPL was no help at
> > all.
>
> If the modified AGPL application by Evil, Inc., is doing a conversion
> to a proprietary format as in your example, then the export functions
> for the format are part of the application and thus included in the
> source changes Evil, Inc. releases. This necessarily exposes the
> proprietary format to reimplementation.
You are incorrect. Reread the scenario I described. The AGPL'd web app
writes an open format to disk. There is an independent and closed codebase
that reads that open format, converts it to a proprietary format, and sends
it to the user. The AGPL'd code, which Evil Inc. will distribute, includes
the pre-existing open format export functionality (though no longer exposed
to the user) and the code to call that export and issue a 302 redirect to
the closed web app to actually serve the download. The AGPL'd code does not
include anything to read or write the proprietary format, even though the
site appears to the user to download it seamlessly, and the codebase which
does is closed and unavailable without violating the AGPL.
> Chris
--Greg
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