6 ms·

That sounds nice in theory, but the reality is also that a lot of more permissively licensed (BSD / Apache) projects now cannot use (most) parts of Grafana / Lo

by jrv 5y ago

That sounds nice in theory, but the reality is also that a lot of more permissively licensed (BSD / Apache) projects now cannot use (most) parts of Grafana / Loki / Tempo anymore, since realistically they won't be able to or want to switch to the AGPL as well (because of all the pain that would incur on others, in turn). That means that basically the whole free code sharing idea goes out of the window, at least in one direction – Grafana can of course still integrate code from more permissively licensed projects into their codebase.

Seirdy 5y ago
That's kind of the point. The purpose of MIT/BSD is to enable nonfree derivative works; the purpose of the AGPL is to only allow free derivatives. AGPL maximizes freedom by prohibiting further restriction of it; it's a local maxima of "user freedom" as a function of "developer freedom". If you want to use AGPL software in your project, you're free to relicense under AGPL.
- josephcsible 5y ago
  I agree with the substance of what you said, but I'm going to nitpick a bit of wording: what you call "developer freedom" isn't freedom at all, and is more rightly called power. http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/freedom-or-power.en.html http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/freedom-or-power.en.html
  - m4rtink 5y ago
    Well, GPL is about freedom for the users, not necessarily for the developers.
    - goodpoint 5y ago
      Every developer is also an user. And "user" freedom is more important because we use tenths of millions of SLOC and do development work on a small fraction.
      - tremon 5y ago
        The copyright holder is never a user in a discussion about distribution rights, though.
        goodpoint 5y ago
        ...in a very narrow sense where one person or organization owns all the copyright on a codebase. This can be true for a small program on a microcontroller, but 99.9% of FOSS is deployed as part of a big ecosystem. For each line of code I deploy on production there's 1000 lines of kernel, libraries, daemons, firmware. As developers, we are 0.1% developers and 99.9% users.
    - moron4hire 5y ago
      How does freedom for the user-who-is-not-a-developer to change the source work, then? The FSF fundamentally assumes the user is a developer. Hell, look at the vast majority of the GNU software. I wouldn't say it's at all targeted at not-developer users.
      - erik_seaberg 5y ago
        The user could hire any developer, he doesn't have to live within the original author's roadmap.
  - clusterfish 5y ago
    That seems like splitting hairs for ideological gain. You might as well describe freedom of movement as power to take someone else's job in another town, or freedom of speech as power to manipulate masses, or freedom to do an abortion as power over the unborn child. Which way the issues are framed says more about the author than the issue. Software has leverage (one developer, many users at low marginal cost) built-in, but that doesn't make developing non-(A)GPL or even proprietory software a projection of developer's power. Lack of competition is what lets developer's exert power over users, and while copyleft licenses help with that, they're neither required nor sufficient to prevent abuse of power. At the same time, copyleft doesn't come free (ha), as developers who need to earn a living will choose to work on problems where they can actually extract some profit to compensate for their effort. Not everyone is keen to work for free, or work as much / as hard for free as they would if they could make a living off it. So yes you might get free-er software, but less of it.
    - crazypython 5y ago
      > freedom of movement as power to take someone else's job in another town Freedom of movement is the power to exchange goods and services with anyone. > freedom of speech as power to manipulate masses Freedom of speech is only a freedom if it is accompanied by a potential hearer's freedom to block speech. Modern platforms do not let you choose what or who you want to hear. Freedom of speech without freedom to choose your censor is anarchy. > Lack of competition is what lets developer's exert power over users, and while copyleft licenses help with that, they're neither required nor sufficient to prevent abuse of power. You are ignoring the freedom to modify/fork, plus the requirement of free documentation.
      - clusterfish 5y ago
        Quite a quantum leap there from proprietary licenses to "modern platforms". You're free not to use Facebook, Twitter, et al, you know. There are other, open, platforms. And other closed ones that are decent. Use any of them if you want more control over what you read. Don't fucking shame people for earning money writing good software. Most of us aren't building evil monopolies.
    - 5y ago
  - spoonjim 5y ago
    Arguing over which one is “freedom” is a petty exercise in trying to claim the moral high ground. Instead, it’s more objective and accurate to say that GPL and BSD represent two different ideologies, and that the AGPL is definitely designed to promulgate the “GPL” ideology, so that it’s inability to be incorporated into BSD-licensed software is a feature and not a bug from the perspective of the people who choose to license their code as AGPL.
    - quadrangle 5y ago
      I think you misunderstand the GPL ideology (to use your words). The idealogy is that proprietary software is wrong, bad, unethical. Software freedom should be available to all. The copyleft terms of the GPL are a tactic a means to defending software freedom. And to that extent, all the incompatibility with other free licenses are indeed a bug a downside, a hampering of freedom in practice. That downside is accepted because of (and only when it is) the judgment that it is a net gain for software freedom anyway because it frustrates the development of non-free software. There does not exist any ideology that wants incompatibility between free software licenses. It is a price that some feel should be paid sometimes in order to be incompatible with non-free licenses which are the actual problem.
- Proven 5y ago
  > AGPL maximizes freedom by prohibiting further restriction of it I've never heard such a nonsense justification for restricting freedoms. You can't even prove or possibly know if the MIT/BSD licensed source code used isn't shared with downstream users. Second, thinking that you're entitled to define freedom for your users says a lot about the value of this freedom (it's worthless). > If you want to use AGPL software in your project, you're free to relicense under AGPL. No. You're free to use AGPL software, but in turn you are forced to relicense it under the same license.
- open0 5y ago
  > If you want to use AGPL software in your project, you're free to relicense under AGPL. And this condition is the reason that the answer will be "no" every time to using copyleft. Why would anyone ever choose a piece of software which, however you want to twist words, is actually less free in the sense of what it permits and will have less adoption as a result? I run some websites without ads used by thousands of people and I never intend to monetize them, but I would still avoid these projects solely due to their licensing.
  - josephcsible 5y ago
    What do you think the word "free" means exactly, in the context of software freedom?
    - ms4720 5y ago
      Without cost or encumbrance, just like I would expect for a physical free book. The book would not be free if I paid nothing for it and now the author has the right to sleep on my couch legally.
      - q3k 5y ago
        An AGPL license gives you more freedoms than the personal use rights you get from having bought/gotten a book, though.
        rocqua 5y ago
        An AGPL license comes with more obligations for the one publishing the code, and for others re-using that code. Against that are more rights for the users of the final code. GPL is predicated on advocating for users' rights over developers. But that comes at the right of developers to re-use as they want. Which one is more free is very much a matter of perspective. Claims that GPL is a more free license because it is better for users are therefore subjective, or at least subject to a very specific semantic context.
jordigh 5y ago
> projects now cannot use They can, they just don't want to because they want to ensure other people can produce non-free work. Remove the desire to produce non-free work and you can perfectly legally put copylefted code into weakly-licensed free code. Weak licenses don't forbid this. Copyleft licenses don't forbid this. There's no need for anyone to change the license or copyright to combine weak licenses with copyleft licenses. Copyleft licenses forbid proprietary code. And proprietary licenses forbid a lot of other things.
- ezrast 5y ago
  On the contrary, AGPL (and GPL) cannot be combined with any other license. See section 5c: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.en.html https://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.en.html
  - crazypython 5y ago
    AGPL can be combined with GPL and vice versa. GPL does not require open-sourcing if it stays on your computer or the computer of your company and its employees. This makes AGPL a much weaker copyleft when on a server.
  - jordigh 5y ago
    That doesn't say you cannot combine it. It's saying what you have to do when you do combine it. It's not a restriction against combining it.
    - ezrast 5y ago
      I don't understand the distinction you're drawing. It sounds like you're saying that "cannot be combined with code under a different license" is meaningfully different from "can be combined with code under a different license, so long as you immediately relicense that code so it's not under a different license anymore". What am I missing?
      - jordigh 5y ago
the8472 5y ago
> but the reality is also that a lot of more permissively licensed (BSD / Apache) projects now cannot use (most) parts of Grafana / Loki / Tempo anymore Doesn't that depend on how they use it? They're only AGPLing their backends. The tools still follow open protocols, so the client libraries can be permissive. I.e. the rest of their project won't be "infected".
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
533474 5y ago
I suggest you read more deeply into the legal interpretations; it is not so clear cut as you put it. A more permissive license is simply incompatible with this project's ideals - they are willing to sacrifice developer convenience for user freedom and prevent corporate theft and bastardization of the codebase into competing products
- 533474 5y ago
  *Correction: My comment is a reply to Seirdy's answer

by jrv 5y ago

Seirdy 5y ago

That's kind of the point. The purpose of MIT/BSD is to enable nonfree derivative works; the purpose of the AGPL is to only allow free derivatives. AGPL maximizes freedom by prohibiting further restriction of it; it's a local maxima of "user freedom" as a function of "developer freedom". If you want to use AGPL software in your project, you're free to relicense under AGPL.

josephcsible 5y ago
I agree with the substance of what you said, but I'm going to nitpick a bit of wording: what you call "developer freedom" isn't freedom at all, and is more rightly called power. http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/freedom-or-power.en.html http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/freedom-or-power.en.html
- m4rtink 5y ago
  Well, GPL is about freedom for the users, not necessarily for the developers.
  - goodpoint 5y ago
    Every developer is also an user. And "user" freedom is more important because we use tenths of millions of SLOC and do development work on a small fraction.
    - tremon 5y ago
      The copyright holder is never a user in a discussion about distribution rights, though.
      - goodpoint 5y ago
        ...in a very narrow sense where one person or organization owns all the copyright on a codebase. This can be true for a small program on a microcontroller, but 99.9% of FOSS is deployed as part of a big ecosystem. For each line of code I deploy on production there's 1000 lines of kernel, libraries, daemons, firmware. As developers, we are 0.1% developers and 99.9% users.
  - moron4hire 5y ago
    How does freedom for the user-who-is-not-a-developer to change the source work, then? The FSF fundamentally assumes the user is a developer. Hell, look at the vast majority of the GNU software. I wouldn't say it's at all targeted at not-developer users.
    - erik_seaberg 5y ago
      The user could hire any developer, he doesn't have to live within the original author's roadmap.
- clusterfish 5y ago
  That seems like splitting hairs for ideological gain. You might as well describe freedom of movement as power to take someone else's job in another town, or freedom of speech as power to manipulate masses, or freedom to do an abortion as power over the unborn child. Which way the issues are framed says more about the author than the issue. Software has leverage (one developer, many users at low marginal cost) built-in, but that doesn't make developing non-(A)GPL or even proprietory software a projection of developer's power. Lack of competition is what lets developer's exert power over users, and while copyleft licenses help with that, they're neither required nor sufficient to prevent abuse of power. At the same time, copyleft doesn't come free (ha), as developers who need to earn a living will choose to work on problems where they can actually extract some profit to compensate for their effort. Not everyone is keen to work for free, or work as much / as hard for free as they would if they could make a living off it. So yes you might get free-er software, but less of it.
  - crazypython 5y ago
    > freedom of movement as power to take someone else's job in another town Freedom of movement is the power to exchange goods and services with anyone. > freedom of speech as power to manipulate masses Freedom of speech is only a freedom if it is accompanied by a potential hearer's freedom to block speech. Modern platforms do not let you choose what or who you want to hear. Freedom of speech without freedom to choose your censor is anarchy. > Lack of competition is what lets developer's exert power over users, and while copyleft licenses help with that, they're neither required nor sufficient to prevent abuse of power. You are ignoring the freedom to modify/fork, plus the requirement of free documentation.
    - clusterfish 5y ago
      Quite a quantum leap there from proprietary licenses to "modern platforms". You're free not to use Facebook, Twitter, et al, you know. There are other, open, platforms. And other closed ones that are decent. Use any of them if you want more control over what you read. Don't fucking shame people for earning money writing good software. Most of us aren't building evil monopolies.
  - 5y ago
- spoonjim 5y ago
  Arguing over which one is “freedom” is a petty exercise in trying to claim the moral high ground. Instead, it’s more objective and accurate to say that GPL and BSD represent two different ideologies, and that the AGPL is definitely designed to promulgate the “GPL” ideology, so that it’s inability to be incorporated into BSD-licensed software is a feature and not a bug from the perspective of the people who choose to license their code as AGPL.
  - quadrangle 5y ago
    I think you misunderstand the GPL ideology (to use your words). The idealogy is that proprietary software is wrong, bad, unethical. Software freedom should be available to all. The copyleft terms of the GPL are a tactic a means to defending software freedom. And to that extent, all the incompatibility with other free licenses are indeed a bug a downside, a hampering of freedom in practice. That downside is accepted because of (and only when it is) the judgment that it is a net gain for software freedom anyway because it frustrates the development of non-free software. There does not exist any ideology that wants incompatibility between free software licenses. It is a price that some feel should be paid sometimes in order to be incompatible with non-free licenses which are the actual problem.
Proven 5y ago
> AGPL maximizes freedom by prohibiting further restriction of it I've never heard such a nonsense justification for restricting freedoms. You can't even prove or possibly know if the MIT/BSD licensed source code used isn't shared with downstream users. Second, thinking that you're entitled to define freedom for your users says a lot about the value of this freedom (it's worthless). > If you want to use AGPL software in your project, you're free to relicense under AGPL. No. You're free to use AGPL software, but in turn you are forced to relicense it under the same license.
open0 5y ago
> If you want to use AGPL software in your project, you're free to relicense under AGPL. And this condition is the reason that the answer will be "no" every time to using copyleft. Why would anyone ever choose a piece of software which, however you want to twist words, is actually less free in the sense of what it permits and will have less adoption as a result? I run some websites without ads used by thousands of people and I never intend to monetize them, but I would still avoid these projects solely due to their licensing.
- josephcsible 5y ago
  What do you think the word "free" means exactly, in the context of software freedom?
  - ms4720 5y ago
    Without cost or encumbrance, just like I would expect for a physical free book. The book would not be free if I paid nothing for it and now the author has the right to sleep on my couch legally.
    - q3k 5y ago
      An AGPL license gives you more freedoms than the personal use rights you get from having bought/gotten a book, though.
      - rocqua 5y ago
        An AGPL license comes with more obligations for the one publishing the code, and for others re-using that code. Against that are more rights for the users of the final code. GPL is predicated on advocating for users' rights over developers. But that comes at the right of developers to re-use as they want. Which one is more free is very much a matter of perspective. Claims that GPL is a more free license because it is better for users are therefore subjective, or at least subject to a very specific semantic context.

jordigh 5y ago

> projects now cannot use They can, they just don't want to because they want to ensure other people can produce non-free work. Remove the desire to produce non-free work and you can perfectly legally put copylefted code into weakly-licensed free code. Weak licenses don't forbid this. Copyleft licenses don't forbid this. There's no need for anyone to change the license or copyright to combine weak licenses with copyleft licenses. Copyleft licenses forbid proprietary code. And proprietary licenses forbid a lot of other things.

ezrast 5y ago
On the contrary, AGPL (and GPL) cannot be combined with any other license. See section 5c: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.en.html https://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.en.html
- crazypython 5y ago
  AGPL can be combined with GPL and vice versa. GPL does not require open-sourcing if it stays on your computer or the computer of your company and its employees. This makes AGPL a much weaker copyleft when on a server.
- jordigh 5y ago
  That doesn't say you cannot combine it. It's saying what you have to do when you do combine it. It's not a restriction against combining it.
  - ezrast 5y ago
    I don't understand the distinction you're drawing. It sounds like you're saying that "cannot be combined with code under a different license" is meaningfully different from "can be combined with code under a different license, so long as you immediately relicense that code so it's not under a different license anymore". What am I missing?
    - jordigh 5y ago

the8472 5y ago

> but the reality is also that a lot of more permissively licensed (BSD / Apache) projects now cannot use (most) parts of Grafana / Loki / Tempo anymore Doesn't that depend on how they use it? They're only AGPLing their backends. The tools still follow open protocols, so the client libraries can be permissive. I.e. the rest of their project won't be "infected".

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

533474 5y ago

I suggest you read more deeply into the legal interpretations; it is not so clear cut as you put it. A more permissive license is simply incompatible with this project's ideals - they are willing to sacrifice developer convenience for user freedom and prevent corporate theft and bastardization of the codebase into competing products

533474 5y ago
*Correction: My comment is a reply to Seirdy's answer