[HN Gopher] Why we picked AGPL
___________________________________________________________________
Why we picked AGPL
Author : philippemnoel
Score : 84 points
Date : 2024-08-12 17:39 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (blog.paradedb.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (blog.paradedb.com)
| karmakaze wrote:
| > Elasticsearch alternative built on Postgres
|
| Without horizontal scaling it's more like a hosted/queryable
| Lucene.
| grobbyy wrote:
| A key issue for me is API compatibility. It's nice to do simple
| and scalable, but you can't have both at once.
|
| API compatibility message I can run simple for small setups and
| scalable for large ones. That's nice and something I strive for
| in software I build.
| nsonha wrote:
| doesn't look like the case here as they don't even have an
| API (to be drop-in replacement for ES)
| philippemnoel wrote:
| We have some API-compatibility in faceted search. But yes,
| we are not (today) a drop-in replacement for ES. We have
| many migrations from ES/OpenSearch and users find that
| converting their code over is well worth the savings in
| maintenance, no-ETL and increased uptime, though.
|
| That said, we may one day add ES API compatibility if we
| can :)
| philippemnoel wrote:
| Blog author here. That's fair! We'll add horizontal scaling
| eventually, but for now, our customers (including some large
| brands!) have not needed it. Turns you single nodes are
| remarkably powerful nowadays
| iaaan wrote:
| Every so often I run through the common set of licenses to
| double-check which one I want to personally use for my projects
| (both commercial and for fun), and I always end up back at AGPL.
| For me, it just strikes the right balance between open-source and
| restricting corporations from disproportionately profiting off of
| my labor.
| aaron695 wrote:
| > and restricting corporations from disproportionately
| profiting off of my labor.
|
| This is anti the ethos of GPL [1]
|
| And that's fine, you choose a list or rules that fitted with
| your wants, you don't have to respect A/GPL.
|
| But time and time again we see most people on HN not respecting
| the A/GPL ethos they clam to follow and not understanding what
| A/GPL will mean in practice.
|
| > disproportionately profiting
|
| Off Topic to GPL. Corporations have provided more value to the
| world than any person. Which is almost a tautology since
| corporations are just groups of people working together.
| "Disproportionately profiting off of my labor" would mean they
| are providing amazing resources to people who need them.
|
| You sound like you don't want others to succeed. Which is
| different to you need to make money to live.
|
| [1] The legal/logical issues we see with AGPL are from trying
| to get the license to match the ethos. It's commendable they
| did stick it out.
| thelastparadise wrote:
| Do you intend for companies to _use_ your software, just not
| resell it? Or do you not even want them to use it?
| kazinator wrote:
| > _The AGPL license permits free use, modification, and
| distribution of software, provided that distributed, derivative
| works of the software are released under the same license._
|
| Here is the rub: free software permits unconditional use.
|
| The GPL without the A, or MIT or BSD licenses are not EULAs; they
| place restrictions or conditions on redistribution, not on use.
| (With regard to use, they have only certain liability disclaimer
| clauses.)
|
| The AGPL restricts use; it is an EULA: end-user license
| agreement. The antithesis of free software.
| dafelst wrote:
| Genuine question, how does AGPL restrict use? From my reading
| of it, it is only ensuring that any modifications to the source
| code must be made available if you "distribute" the software,
| where distribution now includes hosting it as a service.
|
| It seems more or less in the original spirit of GPLv2 but
| updated for a SaaS driven world. If you consider v3 restrictive
| then you must also consider v2 restrictive, just in a more
| narrow way.
| kazinator wrote:
| Running a program, as a service or not, _isn 't_
| redistribution. It is use.
|
| The original spirit of the GPL is about identifying people
| doing bad things we don't like and trying to prevent them.
| All those bad things have to do with redistribution, not with
| using the program.
|
| The AGPL is still about identifying people doing bad things
| we don't like, except now those people are just running the
| program.
|
| This is no different from Adobe, Apple, Microsoft, ...
| identifying people using their software in ways they don't
| like, and crafting their EULA terms to turn those activities
| into a license violation.
|
| A free software license simply cannot dictate uses, like
| where and how you run the program, and who can access it from
| where.
|
| A free software license can only use copyright law, and only
| be concerned with copying.
|
| EULAs go beyond coypright; they try to connect non-copying
| activities to copyright by the doctrine that if the user
| engages in the forbidden activities, their license is
| terminated (and thus it becomes copyright infringement for
| them to continue to have a now unlicensed copy of the
| software).
| dafelst wrote:
| I'm still not following - you're talking about restrictions
| on use, but what restrictions on use does AGPL apply? What
| can I not do with AGPL software? What are the forbidden
| activities you reference?
|
| The only caveat seems to be making the source code
| available to users of the software, which is also the case
| with GPLv2, just under narrower conditions.
|
| I have no dog in this race, nor any particular attachment
| to any particular license, I'm just trying to better
| understand what these restrictions are that you're
| referencing.
| kazinator wrote:
| > _which is also the case with GPLv2_
|
| No it isn't; under the GPLv2, the source code must be
| available to those to whom compiled code has been
| redistributed. Whether they are users doesn't matter.
|
| The restrictions are that if you violate the license,
| your use of the program is infringing.
|
| > _What can I not do with AGPL software?_
|
| You cannot change it and run it yourself, without hosting
| the source code.
|
| You cannot combine an AGPL program with proprietary code
| and operate it, because you cannot release the
| proprietary code.
| Avshalom wrote:
| >You cannot change it and run it yourself, without
| hosting the source code.
|
| Yes I can. It's only if I let other people use my changed
| code that they become entitled to a copy.
|
| >You cannot combine an AGPL program with proprietary code
| and operate it, because you cannot release the
| proprietary code.
|
| hmm, gotta say that sounds like the proprietary code is
| the thing infringing on my usage.
| kazinator wrote:
| Well no, someone combining the proprietary code with the
| AGPL code infringes if they run that code such that it is
| exposed to visitors.
| meiraleal wrote:
| >> What can I not do with AGPL software?
|
| > You cannot change it and run it yourself, without
| hosting the source code.
|
| So your point is that people should be free to take
| whatever they want for free and dont't contribute back?
| I'm glad there is a license made to put a limit on people
| like you then
| kazinator wrote:
| I've spent thousands of hours writing code which is under
| the BSD license. Nice try trying to make the argument
| about me.
|
| (I've not put anything under even the dubious GPL license
| in over 15 years, and never will.)
|
| Yes, a free software license must not require people to
| "contribute back", or anything of the sort.
|
| For instance, a "free for non-commercial use" license is
| not free. Even the people who came up with the AGPL
| understand this, and go to great pains to explain it.
|
| I understand the social problem that the AGPL is trying
| to combat, whereby visitors are held captive by saas
| applications over which they have no visibility or
| control.
|
| The AGPL approach is to use the power of a non-free
| license against the problem which makes it a cure worse
| than disease, and repugnant to developers of truly free
| software.
|
| It's almost certainly the case that the saas problem
| _cannot_ be engaged via software licensing terms, if
| those terms are to amount to a free software license.
|
| I don't have a better idea, either, but that doesn't
| change the fact that the AGPL is a non-free license which
| crosses over into governing use rather than just
| redistribution.
|
| Also one issue is that the AGPL doesn't actually solve
| anything. Visitors having the source code to my evil saas
| platform doesn't solve the problem that they're locked to
| it. It doesn't solve the problem that I can change the
| code at any time and they cannot. Or that I can shut it
| down and wipe out their data, or share it with third
| parties. An AGPL conforming application also need not
| provide visitors with any way to export their data.
| meiraleal wrote:
| > Also one issue is that the AGPL doesn't actually solve
| anything. Visitors having the source code to my evil saas
| platform doesn't solve the problem that they're locked to
| it. It doesn't solve the problem that I can change the
| code at any time and they cannot. Or that I can shut it
| down and wipe out their data, or share it with third
| parties. An AGPL conforming application also need not
| provide visitors with any way to export their data.
|
| Please enlight us about how the BSD license do it much
| better in this area. You first complain that AGPL is
| restrictive now complain that it should restrict even
| more? I agree with you, maybe it is time for another
| version of AGPL that includes data sovereignty. Let's
| make it more difficult for corporations to profit from
| FOSS free labor, not more easy.
| kazinator wrote:
| > _Please enlight us about how the BSD license do it much
| better in this area._
|
| It doesn't, but it's a starkly free license which lets
| you do almost anything you want, short of plagiarism.
|
| > _should restrict even more_
|
| Nope; I'm explaining that it's ineffective against the
| key harms that may be perpetrated by SaaS. No license is;
| licensing is the wrong tool.
| mattl wrote:
| > Yes, a free software license must not require people to
| "contribute back", or anything of the sort.
|
| This was in fact Stallman's original vision for Emacs.
|
| https://www.oreilly.com/openbook/freedom/ch06.html
|
| "It is distributed on a basis of communal sharing, which
| means that all improvements must be given back to me to
| be incorporated and distributed."
| sgarland wrote:
| > Running a program, as a service or not, _isn 't_
| redistribution. It is use.
|
| Hard disagree. You're redistributing the software in a
| manner for people to easily use it.
|
| If you rip a movie you own, there's no distinction that I'm
| aware of in copyright law between hosting the .ISO on an
| FTP server and hosting the .MKV as a stream. They're both
| redistributing, it's just that one is designed for
| ephemeral consumption.
| kazinator wrote:
| That's broadcasting. The recipient of a stream can
| capture the film to create their own .MKV they can
| further stream or pass on.
|
| Equating the running of a program with broadcasting is
| the kind of sophistry we might expect from Apple or Adobe
| or Oracle or their ilk.
|
| Certain portions of a service program may be broadcast,
| like for instance certain string literals carrying text
| that appears at the remote end point. The bulk of the
| software is not transmitted. It transmits and receives
| messages, which are mostly not that program. The remote
| end cannot recover a copy of the program from these
| messages. Some bits of literal data, but none of the
| code. (There are obvious exceptions, like programs
| transmitted to web browsers for local execution.)
| randomdata wrote:
| _> They 're both redistributing_
|
| Well, yes. While perhaps some metadata is lost, the
| content that is worth fighting for is captured in both
| cases. Practically speaking, there is no difference
| between the original source, an ISO rip, and an MKV rip.
| At least to the untrained eye, they are in every way
| equivalent. They both are redistribution, indeed.
|
| That is not the case for SaaS in question. What you
| download during use can in no way be reconstructed into
| its original form. You can't use the software for a while
| and then, from what you've collected, start running the
| software on your local machine. The artifacts of use are
| _very_ different from the software itself. To stick with
| your analogy, watching a movie on Netflix does not give
| you a copy of their server software. Distribution has not
| occurred.
| graemep wrote:
| > The AGPL is still about identifying people doing bad
| things we don't like, except now those people are just
| running the program.
|
| Its the same "bad thing" as distributing a modified binary
| without the source. Its a way of denying end users access
| to the source code.
|
| You can do whatever you like with AGPL code, as long as you
| make the source available.
|
| it is VERY different from saying "you cannot do this with
| your software". It is just changing the conditions under
| which make source available is required to keep up with how
| people use software has changed.
|
| AGPL is nothing like a EULA. It is a license, not a
| contract. It is very similar to the GPL
| kazinator wrote:
| The AGPL is absolutely a EULA.
|
| The user of a program is the one who installs it
| somewhere and runs it.
|
| Outside people interacting with the program are visitors.
| They don't have the source code because they don't have
| the program at all in any form. It has not been
| distributed to them.
|
| The source code to the program doesn't even do them any
| good. They cannot use that to prevent harms perpetrated
| by the operators of that application.
| graemep wrote:
| A EULA needs to be a contract. THe AGPL is clearly not a
| contract nor does it meet the basic requirements for an
| enforceable contract in common law countries. Can you
| show me where I am wrong about this?
|
| > The source code to the program doesn't even do them any
| good. They cannot use that to prevent harms perpetrated
| by the operators of that application.
|
| It does. It means they can run their own instance instead
| of being permanently tied to the operator of the service.
| It means they can modify and run the software.
|
| > They don't have the source code because they don't have
| to program at all in any form.
|
| That is sophistry. For the type of software AGPL is
| designed for the functionality provided is the same as it
| would if they had their own install. It is called
| "software as a service" for a reason.
|
| The reason the AGPL exists is because the rise of SAAS
| has made the distinction you are making meaningless.
|
| > They don't have the source code because they don't have
| to program at all in any form.
|
| Users of GPL software do not "have to program". The point
| is they can. The same is true with AGPL.
| kazinator wrote:
| Sorry that was a typo we should have said "do not have
| the program" (corrected).
|
| But no the same is not true of the user of the AGPL. The
| GPL user having the source code and being able to program
| or hire somebody is utterly meaningful. That user
| controls the installation of the program. They would like
| the program to do something differently, or not to do
| something unwanted. With the buildable source code they
| can achieve that.
|
| The visitor to the AGPL application have access to the
| source code has no meaning at all. They don't have the
| administrative access to replace the implementation (and
| even if they did, that was just create conflict with the
| other ivisitors).
|
| The ability to set up your own clone instance its
| completely meaningless. For example suppose that's some
| government service website is using AGPL software. What
| do you gain by downloading the software and running your
| own instance? That's not where your data is; you can't
| use that cloned instance to communicate with the service
| agency.
|
| It is the AGPL that's using outdated concepts in a new
| context where they don't make sense. (Licensing helped us
| win the open source war in the 1990s and 2000s, so it'll
| work this time too right?)
|
| You also may be thinking of the software of being
| something like a photo editor or word processing
| application that is hosted, but in which the visitor
| works with only their own files in isolation from other
| visitors, and from the site operators. I don't think
| that's the main target for the AGPL. That may be called
| "strawman AGPL". I tend to agree that the AGPL may be
| effective in this limited situation. But effective is not
| the same as free. A "free for personal use" software
| license is also effective at achieving the aims of its
| purveyor but isn't free.
| aeaa3 wrote:
| > The ability to set up your own clone instance its
| completely meaningless
|
| Isn't that the whole point?
| kazinator wrote:
| > _A EULA needs to be a contract._
|
| Nope. It can just be a piece of text you agree with when
| opening a classic mass-marked app in a shrink-warpped box
| ("shrink-wrap EULA") or a dialog box with text where you
| have to click that by using the software, you agree with
| the licensing terms.
|
| Exactly the same as when you deploy an AGPL program for
| visitors, you are agreeing to its EULA.
| fweimer wrote:
| The AGPL does not restrict running the program. Only if you
| run modified versions, things get complicated.
|
| That being said, I think the AGPL is only appropriate for
| programs that come with a built-in source redistribution
| mechanism that ensures that modified versions automatically
| comply with the source code redistribution requirement.
| remram wrote:
| > Running a program, as a service or not, isn't
| redistribution. It is use.
|
| This is not how I see it at all. The ones using it are the
| users, and if they sit across the network you are
| distributing it in a very tangible sense.
|
| The idea that the admin running a service is the one doing
| the "use" and not the users of your service is debatable to
| say the least.
| levkk wrote:
| > The AGPL restricts use; it is an EULA: end-user license
| agreement. The antithesis of free software.
|
| This is a common misconception about Free software. It's not
| about freedom of its users or authors, it's freedom of the
| actual code to be available for others.
|
| For example, MIT license allows users to take the code and
| modify it without releasing modifications. This traps the new
| version of the software, possibly forever, inside a single
| organization.
| xboxnolifes wrote:
| It's my understanding that the MIT license has no such
| restriction on publishing modifications. The only restriction
| is that existing code must stay MIT licensed.
| kazinator wrote:
| Firstly, GPLed programs with proprietary modifications can
| easily be trapped inside single organizations.
|
| The original MIT-licensed program continues to exist and be
| available regardless of the proprietary versions and
| embeddings.
|
| A copyleft license just asserts, using copyright power, that
| such things should not exist.
|
| MIT and BSD licenses just allow certain works to legally
| exist that copyleft advocates think should not exist. The
| copyleft is concerned with squelching the existence of
| things, whereas the MIT and BSD licenses mostly promote
| existence.
|
| (They are concerned with squelching the existence of
| plagiarism: an author's name and copyright notice removed
| from the source code work, and possibly replaced with
| another. Also, squelching the situation where the compiled
| work is accompanied by documentation which neglect to give
| attribution to the presence of that BSD-licensed code.)
| tivert wrote:
| > Here is the rub: free software permits unconditional use.
|
| I think you're wrong.
|
| > The GPL without the A, or MIT or BSD licenses are not EULAs;
| they place restrictions or conditions on redistribution, not on
| use.
|
| The GPL, at least, puts restrictions on use: you can't use the
| software in certain ways (e.g. use in a binary firmware blob)
| _unless_ you distribute it in source form to the end users.
|
| > The AGPL restricts use; it is an EULA: end-user license
| agreement. The antithesis of free software.
|
| The AGPL does exactly the same thing as the GPL, just with a
| stronger distribution requirement: if you distribute access to
| end users, you must distribute it in source form to the end
| users.
|
| The GPL was designed for the binary distribution age of
| software, the AGPL is the GPL for the SaaS distribution age.
| The GPL alone cannot satisfy Free Software goals in the new
| age.
| kazinator wrote:
| > _can 't use the software in certain ways (e.g. use in a
| binary firmware blob)_
|
| Yes, you can. You can combine a GPLed program with whatever
| you want; you just can't _redistribute_ the result if the
| combination runs afoul of the GPL.
|
| _redistribution_ is not use. Use is running the program,
| reading the program, trying changes and such.
|
| You can combine GNU Bash with proprietary code and let users
| remotely log in to your box to try it.
|
| > _if you distribute access to end users_
|
| There is no such thing. Copyright law does not recognize
| "distributing access". The program is not being redistributed
| when it executes and exchanges messages with remote stations.
|
| "Distributing access" also reminds me of the idea of someone
| hearing the sound of your coins jingling, or smelling your
| cooking: as in from the famous case of Ooka_Tadasuke that
| circulates as a popular parable:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ooka_Tadasuke#Famous_cases
| olavgg wrote:
| AGPL doesn't restrict use:
|
| "You are not required to accept this License in order to
| receive or run a copy of the Program."
| kazinator wrote:
| I would say that's an unhelpfully misleading statement in the
| license.
|
| There exist obvious circumstances of the program's use with
| which the license doesn't concern itself, and does not speak
| to, and so in those circumstances the user is not required to
| enter into the license.
|
| A redistributor must enter into the license because it's a
| derivative of the GPL, and so it has requirements related to
| distribution.
|
| A user who runs the program in such a way that visitors
| communicate with it from remote stations obviously is
| required to enter into the license also and comply with its
| requirements.
|
| The license is applied to programs for which this would be a
| typical use.
| rpdillon wrote:
| > The AGPL restricts use; it is an EULA
|
| It does not. You can absolutely host AGPL software as a
| service, you just have to share any modifications you made with
| those that use the service.
| remram wrote:
| Agreed. In other words, the terms restrict what you can do
| _when you modify_ not when you run. It is also not directed
| at end users (the "EU" of "EULA") but at the developer or
| sysadmin.
| purpleidea wrote:
| > The antithesis of free software.
|
| Those who oppose the GPL are precisely the people it was
| designed to protect against.
|
| I think we found a good example of your wishes here. You are
| against the GPL if you have an ulterior motive to make
| something proprietary and avoid contributing back!
| keskival wrote:
| The point of an OSS license in these kinds of situations is
| pretty simple:
|
| They need to pick a license which is salty enough so that big
| corporations cannot use it, but have to buy a special license
| from the authors.
|
| Meanwhile they can support and benefit from the open source
| community without bureaucracy, and get a maximal userbase to
| create content on the web about this stack, and have a maximal
| number of people who know this stack and want to use it.
|
| AGPL is perfect for this.
| zelphirkalt wrote:
| Where there is a will, there is a way. Big corporations could
| use the license and stick to its terms, but no, they don't want
| to. Better in their view to just take take take and never give.
| What they don't see however, and what is on no ones quarterly
| number sheet, is all the talent they don't attract.
| PhilippGille wrote:
| They looked at 4 licenses (Apache, Business Source License, AGPL,
| Elastic License) representing different categories.
|
| I think the Mozilla Public License represents another category
| and should always be evaluated as well. (or the Eclipse Public
| License or CDDL are similar)
|
| They are less permissive than Apache in that they require
| contributing back (as in open sourcing _changes_ under same
| license), but more permissive than AGPL in that you can
| _statically_ link an MPL licensed library into your project
| without having to open source your project.
| graemep wrote:
| LGPL also allows that.
|
| What MPL is missing AFAIK that AGPL does have is requiring
| making source/changes available when providing the software as
| a network service.
| PhilippGille wrote:
| No, LGPL has specific requirements for static linking. When
| your product is usually a Go binary that you can publish as
| is, using an LGPL library makes it tricky.
|
| And re network service, I don't see the MPL tying the
| requirement to making changes available to a method of
| distribution.
| graemep wrote:
| Good point. I am used to thinking in terms of thinks that
| are dynamically linked.
| michaelsbradley wrote:
| Static linking with LGPL is possible for proprietary
| software; the requirements are sometimes misunderstood:
| If you statically link against an LGPLed library, you must
| also provide your application in an object (not necessarily
| source) format, so that a user has the opportunity to
| modify the library and relink the application.
|
| https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-
| faq.html#LGPLStaticVsDynami...
|
| So, relinkability is the key. For some platforms and
| toolchains that may be impractical but for others not so
| much.
| JohannesSuenden wrote:
| I love the AGPL. I can't imagine it becoming popular for generic
| business functionality in library form, but for highly-
| specialized libraries (in my case scientific with industrial
| applications) it was everything I was looking for --- not least
| because automated license scanners flag it and scare potential
| parasites away. It's also a great choice for complete pieces of
| software (such as DBs, as in this case) to offer a free tier for
| communal benefit, provided you're genuinely willing to let the
| project develop a life of its own if the open source community
| finds reason to mobilize around it.
|
| For academic use AGPL compliance is a natural part of life
| anyway, for non-profits it's a little bit of effort but there's
| no fundamental objection, and when companies get involved it
| ensures that either my collaborators and I get a payout for SaaS-
| ification/proprietarization, or that it only gets used in
| internal tooling, which means that money gets redistributed to
| labor (often also to us via consulting fees or custom development
| arrangements anyway, since we know the code best).
|
| It's a model for software development that I can really get
| behind.
|
| Best of luck to you!
| philippemnoel wrote:
| Blog author here. I couldn't agree more. Thank you for your
| kind words and for sharing the academic perspective of using
| the AGPL - super interesting!
| Hamcha wrote:
| Correction: they chose AGPL with a poison pill (CLA) so they can
| benefit from it and take it away whenever they want more.
| tgma wrote:
| This.
|
| The AGPL deception is you brand yourself as community-minded.
| As long as you don't rely on external contributions that's
| fair. But what the AGPL startups don't emphasize is they
| require you to either assign your copyright to them or give
| them extra privileges to your contributions to be able to
| relicense it under non AGPL (if they don't they don't know what
| they are doing).
|
| AGPL is also not considered a very safe license by large
| organizations even if you want to run it internally unmodified,
| alongside the rest of your application. Many big companies have
| blanket bans on AGPL.
| jay_kyburz wrote:
| What happens if you (the contributor) fork the project, make
| a really great feature in your own fork, make it available as
| the license requires, then the startup integrates changes
| from the fork back into their own project. Does this then
| prevent them from ever changing the license away from AGPL?
| tgma wrote:
| Yes. If they do it they will be able to license the form
| back as AGPL but that wouldn't let them license the new
| thing under their commercial license (effectively useless
| commercially). At that point they are a peer with you.
|
| Some startups may not know this or knowingly violate this.
| gumby wrote:
| Their github repo just says AGPL 3.0. Can you point me to the
| other constraining terms are? This would be quite interesting
| (like the "Open Core" people). And when I say "interesting" I
| don't mean a positive feature.
| dns_snek wrote:
| The project is licensed under AGPL, but outside contributors
| have to sign away their rights with CLA if they wish to
| contribute to the main project. It's in CONTRIBUTING.md [1]
|
| > In order for us, Retake, Inc. (dba ParadeDB) to accept
| patches and other contributions from you, you need to adopt
| our ParadeDB Contributor License Agreement (the "CLA"). The
| current version of the CLA can be found here.
|
| https://github.com/paradedb/paradedb/blob/6b829681190684f241.
| ..
|
| > You hereby grant to the Company and to recipients of
| software distributed by the Company a perpetual, worldwide,
| non-exclusive, no-charge, royalty-free, irrevocable copyright
| license to reproduce, prepare derivative works of, publicly
| display, publicly perform, sublicense, and distribute Your
| Contributions and such derivative works.
|
| https://cla-assistant.io/paradedb/paradedb
| growse wrote:
| The duplicitous language is a bit slimy here.
|
| "In order for us, Retake, Inc. (dba ParadeDB) to accept
| patches and other contributions from you, you need..."
| makes it sound like their hands are tied, you must assign
| copyright, there's no other option.
|
| In reality, this is a (contributor-hostile) choice they
| made. They could have made different ones.
| mperham wrote:
| Like what? Be specific. If you are not a lawyer, please
| say so.
| gumby wrote:
| But you aren't assigning copyright, you're getting a
| license to bundle the contribution with the rest of the
| package.
|
| And they don't feel safe including a patch without a
| license to use it. Not an unreasonable position to take.
|
| The wording is explicit (italics mine):
|
| > You hereby grant to the Company and to recipients of
| software distributed by the Company a perpetual,
| worldwide, non-exclusive, no-charge, royalty-free,
| irrevocable copyright _license_ to...
| gumby wrote:
| TL;DR: my quick read is that they are trying to do the
| right thing.
|
| My not super-close reading is that this is actually
| reasonable (but note: I wrote the original GNU blanket
| assignment back around 1989 or 1990 so you may consider my
| perspective bogus).
|
| This assignment says that you confirm that you have the
| right to license your contribution (that what you wrote
| isn't actually your employer's), and that they can use it
| without restriction, even if there's something patented in
| the submission. It doesn't stop you from using the code for
| something else. But you can't come back later and say "hey,
| yank out these lines of code which I sent you long ago"
|
| If I were doing this, personally, I might add something to
| the effect of "btw if the company tries to change the
| license in a way incompatible with the AGPL 3.0 or later
| versions this license I have you becomes void" but that
| could implicitly be in there (if explicit, I missed it in
| my quick read).
| thisislife2 wrote:
| Note that they can't "take it away" completely. The AGPL
| ensures that the community AGPL licensed code will always have
| to be open source, and that anybody else can use it too. So a
| developer who has contributed to an AGPL codebase cannot be
| denied access to it. Due to the AGPL license, any code will
| always be open source and thus the CLA cannot claim exclusivity
| over the contributed code and prevent its (re)use by the
| developer in any manner.
|
| The only concern then is ethical - will the developer be
| monetarily compensated if the product makes money? I believe
| they should be. Other open source developers may disagree.
|
| Note also that for a commercial open source project, a CLA can
| offer some legal protection - by signing a CLA a developer
| declares that they own the copyright on the code, which reduces
| the liability of the commercial venture behind the open source
| product if someone contributes "pirated" code.
| trueismywork wrote:
| You don't need CLA for legal protection, Developer
| certificate of origin is enough. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/w
| iki/Developer_Certificate_of_Ori...
| philippemnoel wrote:
| We've looked into the DCO before. It turns out CLAs are
| more common and easier to deal with, thanks to a tool like
| cla-assistant.io. We ended up opting for it for the sake of
| simplicity.
| jay_kyburz wrote:
| I don't understand why they say
|
| "Future-Proof: Thanks to the copyleft provision, cloud vendors
| cannot easily resell our project without our consent. This gives
| us confidence in our ability to monetize without fear of
| predatory competition. ParadeDB just turned one year old, and
| we've already been contacted by four cloud providers who, had we
| not chosen the AGPL license, may have privately forked and
| distributed ParadeDB."
|
| Nothing in the license requires cloud vendors from reselling the
| project. They just need to make the source available?
|
| What am I missing?
| purpleidea wrote:
| The fact that they aren't mentioning their CLA which gives them
| extra rights that everyone in the community doesn't get means
| they're disingenuous in writing this article...
|
| As an analogy it's as if someone was selling you a new car, but
| neglected to tell you that it doesn't come with a steering wheel
| or tires.
|
| Be transparent and tell the whole story, don't be sneaky.
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