* Alfred M. Szmidt <a...@gnu.org> [2021-03-21 11:36]: > Saying something, and enforcing -- seeing that that offer is upheld -- > are two entierly different things. I can say that all non-free > software should cease to exist, but I have no means of enforcing it.
Sure, those are discussions on what I said, though not related to real problem. Real problem is that several companies were not satisfied with previous license, and have changed the license to something else, some making it more free than with AGPL, some making it non-free software. Problem related to GNU is when AGPL is not enough, so maybe there is need to update the AGPL, and allow the author to demand source code to be published, and not only offered to be given. Those new licenses are better to be updated on the GNU page about licenses, to tell if they are free software or proprietary non-free incompatible software. There many implications with the introduction of these new licenses. According to the article: 1. Confluent changed to new license: https://www.confluent.io/confluent-community-license/ they made software non-free by using the new license: "Excluded Purpose" means making available any software-as-a-service, platform-as-a-service, infrastructure-as-a-service or other similar online service that competes with Confluent products or services that provide the Software. 2. MongoDB: https://www.mongodb.com/blog/post/mongodb-now-released-under-the-server-side-public-license Remains free software with stricter demand than AGPL to publish the source code, not just provide an offer. Quote: The best current solution for an open source company is to license their software under the AGPL, which requires a management stack used to operate that software as a service to be made available under the terms of the AGPL. This approach was believed to be good enough, as most people understood their obligations to comply with AGPL. However, as AGPL-licensed software like MongoDB has become more popular, organizations like the international cloud providers have begun to test the boundaries of this license. We would prefer to avoid litigation to defend the AGPL but instead devote our time to build great products for the community and our customers. Since we own 100% of the copyright of MongoDB, one option available to us was to convert our open source license to a closed source license. We chose not to because we fundamentally believe in open source software. We believe an open source approach leads to more valuable, robust, and secure software, and it directly enables a stronger community and better products. We also could have licensed most of the code for the MongoDB server as AGPL while applying a closed license to some critical files. We chose not to do that because we believe that a uniform licensing approach, where all the code in a repository shares a single license, makes it easier to understand the obligations of using that code, leading to a stronger development community. The community needs an updated open source license that builds on the spirit of the AGPL, but makes explicit the conditions for providing the licensed software as a service. The SSPL is designed to make sure that companies who do run a publicly available MongoDB (or any software subject to the SSPL) as a service are giving back to the community. MongoDB thus remains free software with modified AGPL license where they demand that source code must be published. They have expressed clearly concern with the AGPL, so it may be time for update. 3. Cockroach DB: https://www.cockroachlabs.com/blog/oss-relicensing-cockroachdb/ Is making Cockroach DB non-free software: Why We're Relicensing CockroachDB Quote: "CockroachDB was conceived of as open source software. In the years since it first appeared on GitHub, we’ve tread a relatively typical path in balancing open source with creating a viable business. We’ve kept our core code under the Apache License version 2 (APL), launched a managed service, and gated some features for established companies under an enterprise license." Competitors have always been legally allowed to offer another company’s OSS product as a service. Now, we’re finally seeing it take place. We’re witnessing the rise of highly-integrated providers take advantage of their unique position to offer “as-a-service” versions of OSS products, and offer a superior user experience as a consequence of their integrations. We’ve most recently seen it happen with Amazon’s forked version of ElasticSearch, which Salil Deshpande neatly described in TechCrunch as both “self-interested and rational.” To respond to this breed of competitor, we’re introducing a change to our software licensing terms. The full details of the change are below and on Github, but the short version is this: Today, we’re adopting an extremely permissive version of the Business Source License (BSL). CockroachDB users can scale CockroachDB to any number of nodes. They can use CockroachDB or embed it in their applications (whether they ship those applications to customers or run them as a service). They can even run it as a service internally. The one and only thing that you cannot do is offer a commercial version of CockroachDB as a service without buying a license. 4. Graylog: https://www.graylog.org/post/graylog-v4-0-licensing-sspl Software remains non-free with the critical change compared to AGPL. Quote: The SSPL is designed to protect open source projects from international cloud providers that were testing the boundaries of the GPL, potentially harming the open source community. As a part of that community, we want to do our part to make sure those that benefit from open source tools like Graylog also give back. It should be noted that the new license maintains all of the same freedoms the community has always had with Graylog under GPL - they are free to use, review, modify, and redistribute the source code. The only changes are additional terms that make explicit the conditions for offering a publicly available Graylog as a service. The only substantive modification is section 13, which makes clear the condition to offering Graylog as a service. A company that offers a publicly available Graylog as a service must release the software it uses to offer such service under the terms of the SSPL, including the management software, user interfaces, application program interfaces, automation software, monitoring software, backup software, storage software and hosting software, all such that a user could run an instance of the service using the source code made available. Section 13 of the SSPL reads as follows: a. “If you make the functionality of the Program or a modified version available to third parties as a service, you must make the Service Source Code available via network download to everyone at no charge, under the terms of this License. Making the functionality of the Program or modified version available to third parties as a service includes, without limitation, enabling third parties to interact with the functionality of the Program or modified version remotely through a computer network, offering a service the value of which entirely or primarily derives from the value of the Program or modified version, or offering a service that accomplishes for users the primary purpose of the Software or modified version.” 5. Timescale: https://blog.timescale.com/blog/building-open-source-business-in-cloud-era-v2/ Rendering the software proprietary, as they forbid users to use it as a hosted database as a service: Quote: At the time, the TSL was a radical idea: a source-available license that was open-source in spirit, but that contained a main restriction: preventing companies from offering software licensed under the TSL via a hosted database-as-a-service 6. Redis database: https://redislabs.com/blog/redis-labs-modules-license-changes/ Rendering modules to be proprietary software: Quotes: Early in August 2018, Redis Labs was one of the first open source companies to realize that the current open source licensing scheme falls short when it comes to use by cloud providers. We wanted to make sure open source companies could continue to contribute to their projects, while still maintaining sustainable business in the cloud era. That’s why we changed the license of our Redis Modules from AGPL to Apache2 modified with Commons Clause. It was not an easy move for us, and we probably didn’t communicate the change clearly enough. This caused some confusion when some people incorrectly assumed that the Redis core went proprietary, which was never the case (see more here). However, over time, other respected open source companies, like MongoDB and Confluent, created their own proposals for modern variants to open source licensing. Each company took a different approach, but all shared the same goal — stopping cloud providers from taking successful open source projects that were developed by others, packaging them into proprietary services, and using their market power to generate significant revenue streams. RSAL is a software license created by Redis Labs for certain Redis Modules running on top of open source Redis. RSAL grants equivalent rights to permissive open source licenses for the vast majority of users. With RSAL, developers can use the software; modify the source code’ integrate it with an application; and use, distribute or sell their application. The only restriction is that the application cannot be a database, a caching engine, a stream processing engine, a search engine, an indexing engine or an ML/DL/AI serving engine. Now as conclusion to above quotes, in my opinion the AGPL shall be updated and help authors of software to easier enforce and demand their rights. Why? If the AGPL provides hyperlink to corresponding source code, then it is very clear and evident that license has been respected and users and author may verify it straight. The evidence is then easier given to courts and authors can enforce their rights in the courts. There will be less license changes. Authors have spoken, and have done actions and changed licenses, some software became proprietary. This tells that AGPL as of now is not enough, and has to be revised, to help authors easier enforce their rights. Jean
