RethinkDB source relicensed, donated to the Linux Foundation

Posted Feb 6, 2017 16:24 UTC (Mon) by epa (subscriber, #39769)
In reply to: RethinkDB source relicensed, donated to the Linux Foundation by lmb
Parent article: RethinkDB source relicensed, donated to the Linux Foundation

The Affero GPL is a bit more than strong copyleft; it's extra-strength, with its hoops you must jump through to deploy the software on a public-facing website. This may be a Good Thing or a Bad Thing, but clearly it's a step beyond the GNU GPL and other traditional copyleft free licences.

RethinkDB source relicensed, donated to the Linux Foundation

Posted Feb 6, 2017 23:28 UTC (Mon) by pabs (subscriber, #43278) [Link] (4 responses)

Those hoops only kick in if you actually modify the software, which normal deployments rarely need to.

RethinkDB source relicensed, donated to the Linux Foundation

Posted Feb 7, 2017 10:13 UTC (Tue) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link] (2 responses)

The big problem is that it's quite easy to argue that, if you use AGPL software, you need to make the *entire* *stack* available under the (A)GPL. Bit tricky if you're using MS SQL-Server as your db back end ...

Cheers,
Wol

RethinkDB source relicensed, donated to the Linux Foundation

Posted Feb 7, 2017 12:13 UTC (Tue) by aggelos (subscriber, #41752) [Link] (1 responses)

If it's quite easy to argue, would you kindly do so?

RethinkDB source relicensed, donated to the Linux Foundation

Posted Feb 8, 2017 23:44 UTC (Wed) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link]

Section 13 of v3.

Actually I might be thinking of v2, but v3 doesn't seem much clearer. It clearly permits using the covered work in conjunction with GPLv3.

But if I combine an Affero program with a proprietary back end to create a web-facing application, is this now a "modified version"? Does Affero apply to the back end as well as the front end? I don't know, and with v2 there were plenty of reports that people were scared that it might. That "exception for GPL" could easily be taken to imply that it does.

Cheers,
Wol

RethinkDB source relicensed, donated to the Linux Foundation

Posted Feb 8, 2017 11:49 UTC (Wed) by epa (subscriber, #39769) [Link]

I wouldn't like to be in a position where the software is running in production, but if I make any change to it I will be in breach of the licence unless I set up a way to download the modified code at the same time. If you plan to keep within the licence, and you accept that random fixes and changes to deployed software are sometimes necessary at short notice, you have to plan to maintain a download link for the particular code you're running.