[zelphirkalt]

Where there is a will, there is a way. Big corporations could use the license and stick to its terms, but no, they don't want to. Better in their view to just take take take and never give. What they don't see however, and what is on no ones quarterly number sheet, is all the talent they don't attract.

[k__]

Which is funny, as enterprise customers have no issue in buying closed source software, but the moment they see a GPL, they lose their mind.

[dwaite]

The most significant reason there is that the license must be taken under the strictest interpretation without a more specific business level agreement between the two.

Apple for instance forbade GPLv3 because the anti-Novell clauses, which could be interpreted as "with a lost patent lawsuit, you can't merely license the technology but must secure and license the technology for all parties who may use or create a derivative of the original GPLv3 work". If you thought a court would agree with this interpretation, you'd be crazy to touch the software.

AGPL takes the strictest interpretation of a derivative work that even content created using the AGPLed software internally for an administrative function (such as storing your business data in a database) is a derivative work, and that the output of your software thus has restrictions under it by AGPL. Before AGPL, the only times we would see statements as such was to assure businesses that such an interpretation would not be taken - standard C libraries, compiled output, and java code with classpath exceptions are three popular examples.

I find the AGPL to run counter to the original purpose of the GPL, which I understand to be to protect the communities developing software from having their work superseded by commercial entities not giving back. The lack of examples of AGPL projects where contributors are not required to execute some form of CLA illustrates how it is often not being embraced to foster communities, but to protect against them and even exploit them.

[hi-v-rocknroll]

No, that's a gross mischaracterization based on ignorance. It only applies to AGPL because it prevents SaaS services. And because it can't be proven that an AGPL app isn't required as part of a SaaS service to function, then it can't be used anywhere in a MAANG shop.