On Tue, Mar 01, 2011 at 09:50:17AM +1300, John Rankin wrote: > Is it possible to have an option to download pmwiki under the Affero > GPL [1], as well as the GPL? > [...] > Our preference is to use the > AGPL, so that others who may build on our work are required to > distribute any changes they make, if their site is public.
This is a very interesting question. To me, offering PmWiki under both the GPLv2 and AGPL seems like it could lead to a whole lot of confusion. In particular, I'm not sure how we would enforce any of the AGPL provisions as long as a GPLv2 version exists. A "violator" could simply claim that their site is being built from the non-AGPL version of PmWiki, and thus they aren't required to distribute their changes. On the other hand, my reading of the FSF documents is that the source code your site would offer for download (containing PmWiki + PublishPDF + other components) could be licensed under the AGPL, even while PmWiki itself remains GPLv2. This is possible because PmWiki's license contains the "or any later version" clause of the GPLv2, which means that it can be treated like a GPLv3-licensed package and thereby be compatible with AGPL software. So, someone downloads and installs the PmWiki+PublishPDF software, makes some modifications, and starts using it on a site. You, as the package author, can request their modifications under the terms of the AGPL. This would include any modifications being made to PmWiki itself [1]. At that point we can figure out if we need any of those modifications merged into the upstream version of PmWiki and how to do that within the terms of the various licenses. (Ideally the author would permit them to be used in PmWiki under the GPLv2 or some other compatible license, and/or provide a copyright transfer.) > I do not think PmWiki ought to *require* use of the AGPL for public > hosted services, but perhaps this could be encouraged, and offered > as an option. I agree that PmWiki probably shouldn't require the AGPL. But if that's the case, I don't quite understand how providing an AGPL option would improve things, given that someone can just claim the GPLv2 source as the origin. Maybe I'm just not seeing the benefit (to either PmWiki or its users) of the dual-license. [1] http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#AGPLv3CorrespondingSource Pm _______________________________________________ pmwiki-devel mailing list pmwiki-devel@pmichaud.com http://www.pmichaud.com/mailman/listinfo/pmwiki-devel
