And this is where open source goes downhill….

Allowing someone to use software that you host IS NOT distributing the software. So lets be real about the situation. This is no longer about sharing code and the great things that come from that model. Its about trying to rip down any and all parts of the “establishment” and the portion of the community that agrees with this should just say that.

Google hasn’t exploited any loophole because there was no loophole in the first place. This was the BENEFIT of open source. You can’t lock down and sell the code but you CAN make money by using it. The whole driving point was the ability to customize in-house and that is being taken away. People found a way to make open source softare profitable within the rules and now the community wants to change the rules and call it “closing a loophole”. The whinning about Google not giving up code is outright CHILDISH.

No company is going to use Linux if they have to give up their customizations. So you could begin to kiss the server market share for Linux goodbye and with good reason. You can also kiss government usage goodbye as well. I hope this license version does not catch on at all. I plan to release my own project this year that may very well be used for SaaS…in fact its geared for it. And I definitely want companies to feel comfortable being able to use and modify it to fit into my grand scheme.

The AGPL is worthless. I’m a huge supporter of GPLv2 and GPLv3, but the idea that allowing someone to access software over a network is the same as distributing it is nonsense. The user never gets a copy of the code, so no distribution happens. So there is no “loophole” to close.

I understand that the AGPL is simply another choice that people can use to license their code under, but I see absolutely no benefit in doing so. Since end users of network hosted software (such as a website) never get the code, they couldn’t possibly incorporate it into a proprietary program of their own, no matter what license it is released under.

As someone who runs several websites that run on Free Software, I can attest that it would be a huge hassle to have to release the full source code for my whole site every time I make a small change to the PHP backend (which happens about one a week). Even though the software I use is GPLv2, I still plan to release most of my changes anyway, but I won’t be doing so every time I change one line of code, because that would be a complete waste of time.

It’s very important that Free Software licenses only place restrictions on distribution of the code, not its use. The AGPL, sadly, restricts the primary use of most web-based software — using it on the web…

I think the tone of this article indicates that the GPLv3 is flawed for not “fixing this loophole”, as if it is a problem. I don’t think that the AGPL is useless, but I would argue that there is nothing wrong with the GPLv3. Unless your intention is to release network software in which use of it requires distribution of source, the GPL is perfectly fine.

I can see arguments for both sides, and there are two separate licenses. Win-win.

I just think that the GPL was written very carefully, and this supposed “loophole” wasn’t an accident. This article sure paints it as such.

Toney makes a good point about the problems with posting the source when you make trivial changes every week. Clearly the AGPL won’t be for him. I plan on taking advantage of this “loophole” for my own business, so the AGPL won’t be for me either. I can see how it would be useful for someone like Linden Labs, for instance, since they are intent on using open standards and open source for virtual worlds. Using the AGPL would guarantee that if anyone improves the source to the infrastructure, the improvements will be available for everyone.

The lack of the AGPL’s provisions in the GPL v3 is a “loophole” if you view it in light of the FSF’s goals. As many of the people at the FSF have pointed out, the goal of the GPL v3 was to promote user’s rights and the values of freedom, not to guarantee universal adoption or necessarily promote business profits. The fact that businesses can modify GPL v3 code and used it over a network in a distributed fashion, but don’t have to share their code with the rest of the world is a “loophole”. It goes against the intent of the GPL, if not it’s letter. Google understands that it is violating the spirit of the free software movement by using its software, by not giving anything back. I think that is part of the reason why Google finances the Google Summer of Code to pay students to work on free software projects and the Google Pack to download free software, so that it can improve its image in the free software community. (Maybe some fo the people at Google also have a social conscience as well.)

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