[cheald]

Just FYI, a few years ago, I went through the due diligence process for an acquisition. The AGPL on MongoDB (at the time) was the single biggest sticking point for the lawyers. I had to do a lot of work to demonstrate that we had sufficient separation that our proprietary IP wasn't at risk due to the license. This was complicated by the fact that I was a major contributor to one of the drivers and the maintainer of one of the popular ODMs.

I would not make the choice to build a startup on MongoDB today given the expansion of the license's virality. Even if my business model wasn't in the SSPL's immediate crosshairs, the direction the license is moving gives me no confidence that MongoDB won't make my life harder down the road. It's just not worth the eventual headache. Lawyers make things hard enough, I'm not going to take on any more legal exposure than I absolutely need to in order to ship my product.