[p_l]

> Almost all companies which produce software under GPL or AGPL dual license with a commercial paid option that comes with no strings attached. Personally I find this disingenuous.

There was at least for a time a trend (or at least noted by some) of using AGPL with copyright assignment[1] as a trojan horse to force customers into commercial licensing once due diligence came in.

[1] I consider copyright attribution to be the big sin in this, not AGPL, even though I'm against AGPL on other grounds. I understand why FSF uses (used?) it, but it opens a way for exploitation of people's work in unequal ways.

[xyzzy_plugh]

Copyright attribution is necessary to avoid tombstoning the project. Imagine you have something using AGPL, and some high profile court cases change the landscape of copyright, resulting in the arrival of new, next generation licenses. For example, let's assume AGPL is defeated in court.

It is effectively impossible to adopt a different license without either:

- getting consent from all authors/copyright holders.

- removing all the contributions of any outstanding authors/copyright holders who don't/can't provide consent.

Your options are pretty bad here.

Furthermore, not having a CLA even for very permissibly licensed projects can be a poison pill for any sort of M&A, even if the project would never need to make use of it. Not using a CLA muddies the IP portfolio of the company, and many investors will spook easily at the scent of IP issues regardless of whether or not they really matter.

Unless you feel like fucking around and finding out (I don't) you get copyright assignment.

Anyways, you can always fork.

[p_l]

Copyright assignment is also why Oracle could close back Solaris, including 3rd party code.

Any form of copyright assignment that isn't "here, fuck me over if you want" will be similarly fraught with peril because majority of the world considers copyright assignment to be same category of contract as AGPL/GPL/etc.