[oneplane]

I wonder why it's AGPL and not dual-licensed or some different GPL. As it is right now it's dead in the water for any commercial usage unless you're manually installing the thing on a manually installed server somewhere (which you probably aren't).

With automation you'd build images based on their images but run via your own CI/CD with your own security scans and any additions you might need (like additional logging infrastructure). Doing that is not possible with AGPL.

[gary-kim]

At least for me, the fact that it is purely licensed under the AGPL and that the copyright is owned by multiple people makes me far more comfortable with using it. It's a guarantee that the project will remain open source so I don't have to worry about suddenly being in a situation where I have to migrate away because the company or person decided that they don't want to have this be free and open source software anymore.

I guess, to a certain extent, that's because I'm an individual, not a company, and one that tends to open source pretty much everything they write. This is the same licensing that I use for pretty much all my projects (AGPL with no CLA).

[mekster]

> It's a guarantee that the project will remain open source

What are you talking about? They can change the license to a closed one from a certain version in the future.

[cxr]

> They can change the license to a closed one from a certain version in the future.

You're right if and only if by "they" you mean every copyright holder whose contributions would exist in the future version (including, say, the contributions of the very person you're responding to). But if by "they" you mean the project leaders acting without the cooperation of everyone who holds copyright, then that's a no.

[mekster]

It was easy to tell it's almost one man's job if you look at the level of integrity the software has.

https://github.com/Requarks/wiki/graphs/contributors

Main guy commiting 600k lines and the second most committed guy 450 lines.

So yeah, it wouldn't take him a whole lot of time if he really wanted to change the license by removing all the others' commits and rewriting it by himself.

Also, what does AGPL has anything to do with keeping the license open sourced?

[gary-kim]

> Main guy commiting 600k lines and the second most committed guy 450 lines.

> So yeah, it wouldn't take him a whole lot of time if he really wanted to change the license by removing all the others' commits and rewriting it by himself.

Good point. I may try to get involved in its development as well to spread that out a little more.

> Also, what does AGPL has anything to do with keeping the license open sourced?

The AGPL requires that any code linked to it also be distributed with an AGPL license (the difference from the GPL being that hosting over a network counts as distribution). Every part of the project is technically linked to itself so if someone makes a change, no one else can use that change in the project under a different license.

[fungos]

For future versions, not past versions.

[hundchenkatze]

I don't think any of the mainstream open-source licenses allow you to retroactively revoke or change the license.

[fungos]

If they are the sole copyright owners (no external contribution) or have SLAs, they can for any future version of the software. It is not uncommon, it is just hard as most doesn't have SLA to do this.

[cxr]

> If they are the sole copyright owners (no external contribution)

That's not the scenario gary-kim laid out; you've failed to satisfy the constraints in the premise.

[fungos]

Not sure why I'm getting downvoted, but this does not change the fact that yes, licenses can be changed. You disliking it does not make it wrong.

[andrewshadura]

> With automation you'd build images based on their images but run via your own CI/CD with your own security scans and any additions you might need (like additional logging infrastructure). Doing that is not possible with AGPL.

None of that is impossible with AGPL.

[normalnorm]

> As it is right now it's dead in the water for any commercial usage

So what? If companies need a certain software, they can pay for it. I remember a time when FOSS was not about providing companies with free work, quite the opposite indeed.

[oneplane]

It is presented as being enterprise-ish, for organisations (of which a lot are commercial) and presents features usually useful for large companies. That's what.

This isn't about good/bad or something like that, just an odd presentation that doesn't seem to be in line with the license. There is nobody to pay here to use this stuff because you still won't be able to integrate it without also sharing internal IP.

There are plenty of organisations that would happily pay what they'd normally pay Atlassian to use Wiki.js but they can't because they don't want to share any of their own code. This is also why license guides like the one from google explicitly bans all AGPL software because it's not worth the risk.

[cxr]

So it's working as intended then.

It's a bit weird to comment on this as if it's an oversight or unintended downside. Suppose you keep going into someone's house and they don't want you to, so they do something to dissuade you (like putting locks on their doors). You then complain that you can't get in. Their likely response? "Well, yeah..."

[fungos]

These company make changes to Atlassian code? You're conflating internal or public use with derivative work or service offering. You clearly misunderstand licensing.