In a conversation, the topic of licensing a software that can be running as a service came up.
While GPL is a powerful license when it comes to making sure that the source code will remain freely distributed, it has limitations.
GPL isn’t enough to make sure that the source code will remain freely distributed.
AGPL addresses that loophole.
A blog post from maintainer.s who chose AGPL, sums up why:
What’s the issue with the GPL license?
The problem with the GPL license is that it didn’t imagine cloud computing and how the cloud would come to dominate the world of software. Cloud companies download open source software, modify it, run it on their servers and resell it as a service.
They’re not actually “distributing” the software because users never have the software installed on their computers. It means that cloud corporations have no obligations to contribute their modifications back to the open source community.
AGPL is the answer to this.
What’s the GNU AGPLv3 license?
“If you make a derivative work of this, and distribute it or run it as a service on a server to others then you have to provide the source code under this license”
Full post: https://plausible.io/blog/open-source-licenses