[ninkendo]

> You aren't distributing either of them. When you run code on your server and people interact with it over the network that's not a distribution. If it was a distribution there would be no need for AGPL. GPL would be sufficient.

I think you’re misreading this part of my comment: MongoDB is (or at least, was) AGPL, and AGPL defines network access as distribution. So I would have to justify whether offering my proxy service to network access counts as distributing MongoDB, or if laundering it through a proxy works around this. Remember that in my example, I did modify mongoDB. But I’m not technically offering this modified mongoDB as a service, I’m offering my proxy as a service, and hoping that it doesn’t count as “distribution” of my modified mongoDB. (i.e. I’m not distributing mongo, I’m distributing my proxy, and my proxy is not AGPL.)

> AGPL would protect MongoDB in that scenario because you are allowing remote users to interact with MongoDB over a computer network. That this interaction happens to be taking place through a proxy shouldn't be relevant.

Well, that’s the thought experiment that my example is intended to provoke… it seems obvious that my dumb proxy is a way to work around the AGPL, but what if we tweak the example? What if I make a web UI where you type mongo commands and it gives you the result? (Still pretty obvious, no?) What if I make a simple dumb CRUD app that happens to use MongoDB? (Less obvious…) what if the CRUD app is itself an extremely thin wrapper, and although it doesn’t implement any MongoDB protocols, it leverages built-in mongoDB functionality for 99% of the logic?

The point is, it’s not hard to imagine a legal theory that says “if network access equals distribution, then network access equals a derived/combined work”. It’s the theory that the legal departments of several companies I’ve worked for have taken. And I’d argue that if you have a proprietary product that uses an AGPL service as part of the backend, you have a rather large reason to be worried.

[assbuttbuttass]

By my reading, the AGPL doesn't define "distribution" at all. It defines "conveying":

    To "convey" a work means any kind of propagation that enables other parties to make or receive copies. Mere interaction with a user through a computer network, with no transfer of a copy, is not conveying

This definition specifically excludes networked API access.

Here's what the AGPL says about network access:

    Notwithstanding any other provision of this License, if you modify the Program, your modified version must prominently offer all users interacting with it remotely through a computer network (if your version supports such interaction) an opportunity to receive the Corresponding Source of your version by providing access to the Corresponding Source from a network server at no charge, through some standard or customary means of facilitating copying of software. This Corresponding Source shall include the Corresponding Source for any work covered by version 3 of the GNU General Public License that is incorporated pursuant to the following paragraph.

It only applies if you "modify" the program. Does creating a proxy service count as modifying the original program? I think it could count as a derived work, but I would be very surprised if that counts as a modification.