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by matheusmoreira
676 days ago
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Absolutely. As the copyright owners, the authors of the software can always sell permissions to corporations. This allows software to become free. Stallman himself has suggested this to corporations: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling-exceptions.html People have pointed out to me that the above is not quite the same as what happens today with people building proprietary SaaS platforms. So I emailed Stallman to ask about the ethics of it. This was his reply: > It is my understanding that as the copyright holders
> they have the right to do it without any problems.
> They leverage the AGPLv3 to make it harder for their
> competitors to use the code to compete against them.
I see what you mean. The original developer can engage
in a practice that blocks coopertation.
By contrast, using some other license, such as the ordinary GPL,
would permitt ANY user of the program to engage in that practice.
In a perverse sense that could seem more fair, but I think it is
also more harmful.
On balance, using the AGPL is better.
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