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0 pointsgeofft8y ago0 comments

> Scylla is AGPL for the OSS version though so testing it out would not be an option without getting a commercial license first.

Huh? The AGPL is not a non-commercial-use-only license.

If you have proprietary software that you would like to combine with AGPL code (i.e., not interact with as a service) and is available to the general public over the Internet, and you want keep your code proprietary, sure, you may not want to use the AGPL. But you could say the same thing about proprietary software you want to combine with GPL code and sell to the general public.

If you're either using the software through it's existing defined public interfaces, or you're okay releasing anything you modify or link into the software, the AGPL (and the GPL) are fine. Lots of people distribute proprietary products that include GPL code, like Chromebooks, Android phones, routers, GitHub Enterprise, etc. We figured out years ago that the Linux kernel is not just a non-commercial product. Why are we having the same misconceptions about the AGPL?

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kevindong8y ago

The exact interpretation varies from company to company. Some companies take the strict stance of "if you use this library in any way in your application, you must open source your entire application." I've found that some libraries explicitly state that requirement within their FAQs for their community/free edition as opposed to their commercially (and paid) licensed equivalent.

At the end of the day, it's not worth risking yourself (or your company) when the owners of the library claims a software license works a certain way and you disagree. Sure you might be right and you might even prevail in court, but the potential legal fees usually aren't worth the trouble.

I ran into this issue when I was selecting a library to generate PDFs for my internship over the summer: https://itextpdf.com/AGPL

nemothekid8y ago

FWIW, I’m pretty sure Facebook also uses mongodb heavily (or at least through its acquisition of parse) I don’t know if they have a commercial license or not, but they aren’t strangers to the AGPL

snuxoll8y ago

MongoDB also makes their interpretation of the AGPL pretty well known - unfortunately it’s at odds with established interpretation of the normal GPL.

Requiring GPL/AGPL software as a dependency even if you don’t link to it, but instead talk to it over the network does not mean you haven’t developed a derivative work in terms of the letter and spirit of the license. This is in-part why I steer 100% clear of MongoDB, there’s nothing stopping them from changing their view on the license and deciding to pursue legal action against people who use it in non-AGPL compatible manners down the road.

en4bz8y ago

I think you answered the question yourself [1].

The wording is ambiguous and as far as I know there have been no court cases yet that have yet to define what constitutes a connection between the end user and whether transitive connections count. If it's ambiguous to a software developer then corporate lawyers are definitely going to say no.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16523858

EDIT: I realize that AGPL is valid for commercial use but since its terms are so onerous, especially once the lawyers get involved, it effectively makes the AGPL unusable in a larger corporation.

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