[maffulli]

I don't accept that this is OSI's fault thought: It takes two to tango. The OSI has been thinking about a more appropriate format to address the issues of copyleft in the cloud world. I recognize that the problem exists, I wrote about it here: https://opensource.net/lost-decade-crucial-lessons-for-ai/

Frankly speaking, I would love to see also a detailed criticism of the AGPLv3. I would love to have a better understanding of why the SSPL was deemed necessary and what needs the AGPLv3 fails to satisfy... So far, the only explanations I've heard are superficial at best.

You have to also realize that most of these companies are not interested in copyleft or in the values of Open Source to empower users. They're following a very well known path, one that Phipps calls the rights ratchet model. Call it the SugarCRM model, if you prefer: it's a very very predictable pattern, from Open Source to proprietary in about 10 years https://meshedinsights.com/2021/02/02/rights-ratchet/

These are complex matters though and I'm convinced that they cannot be eviscerated properly on a social media, or only on an online forum. We need better ways.

[tinco]

You're right, I don't want to imply it's OSI's fault at all. There is an incentive from the ex-opensource companies to move on from their permissive licenses to something else. That movement is entirely separate from OSI, the best OSI can do is entice and encourage project to go or stay open source. You can take a horse to water, but in the end you can't make it drink.

I agree that the companies are not really interested in copyleft. They built a business on open source, and as they gain popularity the edge they have in competition by virtue of being the original authors of the project is eclipsed by the resources and marketing power of platform operators. They turn to copyleft to ensure the platform operators can not use their superior resources to embrace, extend and extinguish their product. They use copyleft to even the playing field, and maintain their profit margin.

And yeah there's the ratchet. I think it's in the open source community's interest to try keep projects inside the "open" part of the ratchet cycle. I imagine that if there was an AGPLv4 that had more of the SSPL style provisions it could've kept Redislabs inside the "open" part of the ratchet for another 5 years.

With regards to a detailed criticism of the AGPLv3, the SSPL is a straight fork with a small diff, which basically amounts to rewriting section 13. I feel it is really clear what the intended effect of the changes is, what do you think the OSI could learn from a more detailed criticism? The goal is that platform companies can no longer use proprietary software to operate their product. That might be superficial, but I just don't see a reason why it would have to go deeper than that.