[Dayshine]

My understanding is you can simplify it into roughly three tiers of "connection":

1. Same application, dll linked

2. Same computer, IPC linked

3. Different computer, HTTP/etc linked

Companies that use AGPL will tell you that all three are covered by AGPL.

More reasonable people will tell you that 1 is definitely covered, and 2 is a grey area.

[eitland]

I've recently read someone who I think is affiliated with FSF say that MongoDB(?)and others have misinterpreted the AGPL intentionally to create necessary FUD to sell commercial licenses, so this is my opinion as well but when I tried to find out on the FSF page earlier this week the was still not a word in the FAQ about it.

[sparkie]

My understanding of copyright is that the method of linking is more of a vague guideline than any set in stone legal principle. Copyright determines whether or not some work is a derivative work of an already covered work. If you simply proxy access to a covered work through a different communication interface, but still depend on it for the essential functionality of your own work, you are unlikely to get a free pass to evade the terms of the license.

Only a court can make the final decision about whether a work is a derivative work or not. As developers we need to use our common sense to determine whether what we are doing is creating new or derivative works. We've seen from Google vs Oracle that it is not necessarily clear cut as to the extent a work is covered, which is why you should never assume that it's OK to ignore license terms for some perceived "grey area," and if you have any doubts, you should seek a professional opinion.