Videos from the 2020 Copyleft Conference [LWN.net]

Videos from the 2020 Copyleft Conference

Posted Apr 30, 2020 18:17 UTC (Thu) by IanKelling (subscriber, #89418) [Link] (23 responses)

Sorry, but here's some things to convince you otherwise.

https://www.fsf.org/events/john-sullivan-20190202-brussel...

> the AGPL is being used today by a variety of interesting and important projects, including ones started by governments, nonprofits, and even businesses.

$ grep -il affero /usr/share/doc/*/copyright
/usr/share/doc/anki/copyright
/usr/share/doc/ca-certificates/copyright
/usr/share/doc/crda/copyright
/usr/share/doc/debian-goodies/copyright
/usr/share/doc/debug-me/copyright
/usr/share/doc/ghostscript/copyright
/usr/share/doc/gnutls-bin/copyright
/usr/share/doc/libabw-0.1-1/copyright
/usr/share/doc/libcdr-0.1-1/copyright
/usr/share/doc/libe-book-0.1-1/copyright
/usr/share/doc/libeot0/copyright
/usr/share/doc/libetonyek-0.1-1/copyright
/usr/share/doc/libfreehand-0.1-1/copyright
/usr/share/doc/libgnutls28-dev/copyright
/usr/share/doc/libgnutls30/copyright
/usr/share/doc/libgnutls-dane0/copyright
/usr/share/doc/libgnutls-openssl27/copyright
/usr/share/doc/libgnutlsxx28/copyright
/usr/share/doc/libgs9-common/copyright
/usr/share/doc/libgs9/copyright
/usr/share/doc/libhttpclient-java/copyright
/usr/share/doc/libical3/copyright
/usr/share/doc/libjbig2dec0/copyright
/usr/share/doc/libmspub-0.1-1/copyright
/usr/share/doc/libmwaw-0.3-3/copyright
/usr/share/doc/libodfgen-0.1-1/copyright
/usr/share/doc/liborcus-0.15-0/copyright
/usr/share/doc/libpagemaker-0.0-0/copyright
/usr/share/doc/libpulse0/copyright
/usr/share/doc/libpulsedsp/copyright
/usr/share/doc/libpulse-mainloop-glib0/copyright
/usr/share/doc/librevenge-0.0-0/copyright
/usr/share/doc/libstaroffice-0.0-0/copyright
/usr/share/doc/libvisio-0.1-1/copyright
/usr/share/doc/libwpd-0.10-10/copyright
/usr/share/doc/libwpg-0.3-3/copyright
/usr/share/doc/libwps-0.4-4/copyright
/usr/share/doc/libzmf-0.0-0/copyright
/usr/share/doc/monit/copyright
/usr/share/doc/mupdf/copyright
/usr/share/doc/openjdk-11-jdk/copyright
/usr/share/doc/openjdk-11-jdk-headless/copyright
/usr/share/doc/openjdk-11-jre/copyright
/usr/share/doc/openjdk-11-jre-headless/copyright
/usr/share/doc/pithos/copyright
/usr/share/doc/poppler-data/copyright
/usr/share/doc/pulseaudio/copyright
/usr/share/doc/pulseaudio-module-gconf/copyright
/usr/share/doc/pulseaudio-module-zeroconf/copyright
/usr/share/doc/pulseaudio-utils/copyright
/usr/share/doc/python3-certifi/copyright
/usr/share/doc/python-certifi/copyright

Another is Mastodon, which is extremely popular.

jra, whats the output of that command for you?

Videos from the 2020 Copyleft Conference

Posted Apr 30, 2020 18:22 UTC (Thu) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link] (16 responses)

I did a couple of spotchecks and it looks like your list is simply wrong.

E.g.

http://changelogs.ubuntu.com/changelogs/pool/main/g/gnutl...
> License: The main library is licensed under GNU Lesser
> General Public License (LGPL) version 2.1+, Gnutls Extra (which is currently
> just the openssl wrapper library), build system, testsuite and commandline
> utilities are licenced under the GNU General Public License version 3+. The
> Guile bindings use the same license as the respective underlying library,
> i.e. LGPLv2.1+ for the main library and GPLv3+ for Gnutls extra.

Ah, I see. Your code is triggered by this clause of GPLv3:
> 1.12. "Secondary License"
> means either the GNU General Public License, Version 2.0, the GNU
> Lesser General Public License, Version 2.1, the GNU Affero General
> Public License, Version 3.0, or any later versions of those
> licenses.

Videos from the 2020 Copyleft Conference

Posted Apr 30, 2020 18:37 UTC (Thu) by IanKelling (subscriber, #89418) [Link] (15 responses)

Fair enough. Want to make a proper grep command for us to run?

Videos from the 2020 Copyleft Conference

Posted Apr 30, 2020 18:42 UTC (Thu) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link] (14 responses)

You can try to look for "Remote Network Interaction; Use with the GNU General Public License".

Videos from the 2020 Copyleft Conference

Posted Apr 30, 2020 20:21 UTC (Thu) by IanKelling (subscriber, #89418) [Link] (13 responses)

$ grep -l 'Remote Network Interaction; Use with the GNU General Public License' /usr/share/doc/*/copyright
/usr/share/doc/anki/copyright
/usr/share/doc/debian-goodies/copyright
/usr/share/doc/debug-me/copyright
/usr/share/doc/libpulse0/copyright
/usr/share/doc/libpulsedsp/copyright
/usr/share/doc/libpulse-mainloop-glib0/copyright
/usr/share/doc/monit/copyright
/usr/share/doc/mupdf/copyright
/usr/share/doc/pithos/copyright
/usr/share/doc/pulseaudio/copyright
/usr/share/doc/pulseaudio-module-gconf/copyright
/usr/share/doc/pulseaudio-module-zeroconf/copyright
/usr/share/doc/pulseaudio-utils/copyright

Videos from the 2020 Copyleft Conference

Posted Apr 30, 2020 20:31 UTC (Thu) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link] (12 responses)

This still is not quite right.

Pulseaudio removed an AGPL plugin in 2017: https://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/pulseaudio-discuss...

Without pulseaudio spam, the final is: anki, debug-me, monit, mupdf, pithos. Out of these four mupdf, pithos are "poisoned pill" software with a proprietary dual-license.

So we have only: anki (last version in 2006), debug-me (a small hobby project) and monit as a result. Sorry, but you've just demonstrated that that AGPL is basically non-existent.

Videos from the 2020 Copyleft Conference

Posted May 1, 2020 15:12 UTC (Fri) by IanKelling (subscriber, #89418) [Link] (9 responses)

pithos is not dual-licence afaik. I've just demonstrated that on my computer, there are several useful agpl programs that i've been using for years. Just a single anecdata to counter the "i've never seen agpl be useful." And the fact that some program has proprietary dual licencing doesn't invalidate it. In fact, I'd rather a program have a proprietary dual license than get used as part of a nonfree program or os, which is much more prevalent. Agpl is having small and important successes and we need more of it.

Videos from the 2020 Copyleft Conference

Posted May 1, 2020 15:50 UTC (Fri) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link] (8 responses)

Pithos is actually GPLv3, not AGPL: https://github.com/pithos/pithos/blob/master/license

> I've just demonstrated that on my computer, there are several useful agpl programs that i've been using for years.
Sure, there are exceptions. I think the _only_ non-trivial software I've seen so far under pure AGPL is nextCloud. Almost everything else is either simple or dual-licensed.

So AGPL is basically a dead license.

Videos from the 2020 Copyleft Conference

Posted May 3, 2020 3:07 UTC (Sun) by jra (subscriber, #55261) [Link] (2 responses)

I just realized something interesting about GPLv3 adoption that I'd actually forgotten about for my talk. If I give this talk again (how about it, LinuxFoundation ? :-) I'd include this perspective that I'm copying here from my own comment on the slashdot (yes, some of us still read it :-) version of this article:

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here is a great retrospective on GPLv3 from a good friend of mine, Richard Fontana at Red Hat:

https://opensource.com/article... [opensource.com]

One of the things he notes (that to be honest I'd forgotten about for my talk) is that Red Hat and others have lead the charge to adopt the "forgiveness" provisions of GPLv3 (which as I recall was one of the primary concerns of corporate lawyers taking part in the GPLv3 drafting process) into GPLv2.

To quote from the linked article:

> "This in turn was followed by a Red Hat-led series of corporate commitments to extend the GPLv3 cure provisions to GPLv2 and LGPLv2.x noncompliance, a
> campaign to get individual open source developers to extend the same commitment, and an announcement by Red Hat that henceforth GPLv2 and LGPLv2.x
> projects it leads will use the commitment language directly in project repositories."

From Richard's blog post:

https://www.redhat.com/en/blog... [redhat.com]

> "As of today, all new Red Hat-initiated open source projects that opt to use GPLv2 or LGPLv2.1 will be expected to supplement the license with the cure
> commitment language of GPLv3."

A cynic would read that as an attempt by Red Hat to neuter possible adoption of GPLv3 with it's "problematic" (for corporations) anti-DRM provisions. In the words of one of my favorite fictional characters - "You might think that, I couldn't possibly comment" :-).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Videos from the 2020 Copyleft Conference

Posted May 3, 2020 3:15 UTC (Sun) by jra (subscriber, #55261) [Link]

Sorry, links in the previous comment were broken (note to self, don't cut-n-paste truncated web-page representations of links as text :-) :

Richard Fontana's retrospective:

https://opensource.com/article/18/6/gplv3-anniversary

Richard Fontana's blog post:

https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/gpl-cooperation-commitment...

Videos from the 2020 Copyleft Conference

Posted May 4, 2020 0:01 UTC (Mon) by jra (subscriber, #55261) [Link]

A fellow Samba Team member and Red Hat engineer has just pointed out to
me that it's unfair to call out Red Hat specifically for this, and in retrospect
I agree with him and would like to apologize to Red Hat.

Many others including my own employer Google also signed on to this statement as well.

Sorry Red Hat. Hats off to you for all your sterling Open Source work :-).

Videos from the 2020 Copyleft Conference

Posted May 4, 2020 17:15 UTC (Mon) by federico3 (guest, #101963) [Link] (4 responses)

AGPL is widely used across the ActivityPub/Mastodon ecosystem and it's being adopted very quickly.

Videos from the 2020 Copyleft Conference

Posted May 4, 2020 17:19 UTC (Mon) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link] (3 responses)

Sorry, but I don't consider Mastodon to be a serious app.

Videos from the 2020 Copyleft Conference

Posted May 4, 2020 17:58 UTC (Mon) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link] (2 responses)

Way to move the goalposts there.

...Mastadon (and the rest of the activitypub ecosystem) may not be your cup of tea, but it is decidedly non-trivial.

(Or do you only consider something "successful" or "serious" when its userbase is hits nine digits?)

Videos from the 2020 Copyleft Conference

Posted May 4, 2020 18:06 UTC (Mon) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link] (1 responses)

A successful project is something that has an impact, not necessarily with the raw number of users. I guess it needs to be at least noticeable in the area it serves. Example: Blender - it's now widely used in animation industry.

So far Mastodon has is basically a large hobbyist project for bored coders, if it disappears almost nobody would notice this.

But OK, whatever. Let's say that there are two large AGPL-only projects: Mastodon and nextCloud. I guess it's "Mission Accomplished" for AGPL?

Videos from the 2020 Copyleft Conference

Posted May 4, 2020 18:20 UTC (Mon) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link]

> So far Mastodon has is basically a large hobbyist project for bored coders, if it disappears almost nobody would notice this.

While what you say is probably true, I doubt their choice of software license will have anything to do with it.

> But OK, whatever. Let's say that there are two large AGPL-only projects: Mastodon and nextCloud. I guess it's "Mission Accomplished" for AGPL?

Many years ago, I deliberately chose to _not_ use AGPL for one of my projects, for many of the reasons mentioned in this thread. I share the opinion that the AGPL is only really useful as a poison pill.

Videos from the 2020 Copyleft Conference

Posted May 7, 2020 22:42 UTC (Thu) by flussence (guest, #85566) [Link]

All that's demonstrated here is that AGPL is nonexistent in desktop-installed software, which spectacularly misses the point.

Videos from the 2020 Copyleft Conference

Posted May 8, 2020 0:07 UTC (Fri) by anselm (subscriber, #2796) [Link]

My employer's product – an MFA integration server – is under the AGPL (paid licenses with support are also available).

Videos from the 2020 Copyleft Conference

Posted Apr 30, 2020 18:57 UTC (Thu) by jra (subscriber, #55261) [Link] (5 responses)

Just did it on my work laptop and got a shorter list. Which is why I know that isn't a good way to accurately track licensing of packages, as AGPL is explicitly prohibited here at Google.

If you want to claim AGPL is widely used, please tell me which of the FSF's projects for which they own copyright are under AGPL ? They won't even move glibc to LGPLv3 as Richard was frightened it would encourage creation of glibc alternatives.

The FSF is frightened of its own licenses.

Videos from the 2020 Copyleft Conference

Posted Apr 30, 2020 22:09 UTC (Thu) by NYKevin (subscriber, #129325) [Link] (2 responses)

On https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_software_under_the_... I found GNUnet, which is apparently a peer-to-peer networking client under the aegis of the GNU project. I can't say I've ever used it, however.

Videos from the 2020 Copyleft Conference

Posted May 2, 2020 18:51 UTC (Sat) by IanKelling (subscriber, #89418) [Link] (1 responses)

There's also GNU Social that is Agpl. The thing with GNU is that FSF recommends agpl "If it is likely that others will make improved versions of your program to run on servers and not distribute their versions to anyone else, and you're concerned that this will put your released version at a disadvantage" https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-recommendations.en.html, and GNU doesn't have many of those programs.

Videos from the 2020 Copyleft Conference

Posted May 2, 2020 18:52 UTC (Sat) by IanKelling (subscriber, #89418) [Link]

There might be more, I haven't surveyed the licenses of all GNU programs.

Videos from the 2020 Copyleft Conference

Posted May 3, 2020 2:03 UTC (Sun) by jra (subscriber, #55261) [Link] (1 responses)

Well the FSF can claim what they like. But the proof of the pudding is in the eating. And the FSF refused point blank to re-license glibc under LGPLv3, due to a fear of competition. That to me does not engender confidence in their stewardship of licensing.

Videos from the 2020 Copyleft Conference

Posted May 3, 2020 2:06 UTC (Sun) by jra (subscriber, #55261) [Link]

Sorry to reply to myself but: "the FSF refused point blank to re-license glibc under LGPLv3, due to a fear of competition". I know this because I asked them to do so (I was tired of Samba getting arrows in our back for GPLv3 relicensing - that is the common fate of pioneers). A flat refusal due to a fear of competition for glibc was the response I got.

You can tell, I'm still rather annoyed by that :-).

Videos from the 2020 Copyleft Conference

Posted Apr 30, 2020 18:35 UTC (Thu) by IanKelling (subscriber, #89418) [Link] (1 responses)

> The only real use I've seen of AGPL is as a "poison-pill" license designed to get users to purchase the proprietary licensed version.

I've never seen it, thus it doesn't exist! https://old.reddit.com/r/Giraffesdontexist/ it was a bit entertaining of a talk, but that part was clearly wrong. Here's another example for you: Civicrm, used by thousands of nonprofits.

Videos from the 2020 Copyleft Conference

Posted Apr 30, 2020 19:38 UTC (Thu) by jra (subscriber, #55261) [Link]

OK - mastodon, I'll give you mastodon. I forgot about that :-).

Videos from the 2020 Copyleft Conference

Posted May 1, 2020 11:19 UTC (Fri) by joib (subscriber, #8541) [Link] (3 responses)

There's mailpile, an email client. They switched to AGPL: https://www.mailpile.is/blog/2015-07-02_Licensing_Decisio...

The project set off quite promising (focus on security and making encryption easy), but seems to have stagnated (not saying the stagnation is related to AGPL).

Videos from the 2020 Copyleft Conference

Posted May 1, 2020 17:41 UTC (Fri) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link] (2 responses)

AGPL absolutely was related to stagnation. The number of contributors cratered and it became a one-man show: https://github.com/mailpile/Mailpile/graphs/contributors . Then that one man burned out.

The _only_ non-trivial AGPL-only project I know of that avoided this fate is nextCloud.

Videos from the 2020 Copyleft Conference

Posted May 1, 2020 19:18 UTC (Fri) by joib (subscriber, #8541) [Link] (1 responses)

Ouch. From the poll I linked to which they used to guide the decision, the results were about 50/50 split between Apache and AGPL. Somewhat damning that of all those in favour of the stricter choice, nobody was prepared to step up and help after they got the license they wanted. (Of course, we can't rewind history to check whether the results would have been different had Apache won).

As for nextcloud, IIUIC it's a fork of owncloud, which has precisely the "poison pill" AGPL/proprietary license.

Videos from the 2020 Copyleft Conference

Posted May 1, 2020 19:33 UTC (Fri) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]

nextCloud is a "hostile" fork of ownCloud, so they only have the AGPLv3 option. But so far it looks like they are actually managing to pull that off. I'm honestly amazed that it worked.

Videos from the 2020 Copyleft Conference

Posted May 5, 2020 17:19 UTC (Tue) by stevem (subscriber, #1512) [Link] (1 responses)

LAVA (https://www.lavasoftware.org/) has much of its code under AGPL, and it's definitely not a piece of proprietary software otherwise...

Videos from the 2020 Copyleft Conference

Posted May 5, 2020 18:09 UTC (Tue) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]

It's an internal software developed by Linaro employees for their own needs: https://git.lavasoftware.org/lava/lava/-/graphs/master

Linaro is also a trade group dedicated to promotion of ARM CPUs, so they don't particularly care about an income stream.

Videos from the 2020 Copyleft Conference

Posted May 26, 2020 7:01 UTC (Tue) by Seirdy (guest, #137326) [Link]

Some significant software released under the AGPL:

- SecureDrop, used by whistleblowers to submit documents to the press.
- libraries.io, which is integrated into a number of platforms (inc. PYPI)
- F-Droid, the FOSS Android repository serving as an alternative to Google Plaay
- Pretty much the entire ActivityPub landscape
- Pelican, a very popular static-site-generator
- edX: MOOCs
- OctoPrint, the biggest FOSS for 3D-printer management