Hannes Hauswedell hannes@fsfe.org wrote: [...]
The AGPL is not about borrowing computers, or using some software at someone else's house, its about network access.
The differences between network access, physical access and terminal-server access aren't particularly significant.
If I develop this super-cool AJAX Web2.0 Future-Application and provide the source-code, THAN I WANT other poeple to have access to modifications. If you take that code and add some extra-features and get a deal with google that they integrate it with GMail, I WANT GMail-users to know, that they are using free software, I WANT them to get Source-Code access and I WANT them to have the right to offer those services themselves. The AGPL provides for this, the GPL doesnt.
The AGPL doesn't provide for this any more than the GPL does. The GPL provides for this as far as reasonable, with the show-terms requirements and so on. The AGPL's extras are circumventable and only hurt good people - evil people will still avoid them.
If you make your business of Application Services and don't want your users to get the code, than you are working against the common goal of software freedom and social solidarity.
Just as well I do want users to get the code, then!
I don't think output-marking restrictions are a good way to do that. By misleading people into thinking AGPL could, for example, force google to releasing source to any part of googlemail (it is not called GMail here), AGPL is being a massive distraction from fixing the fundamental problems of Software-as-a-Service.
Regards,