[omnicognate]

> As far as I understand it, the stance of the 'Open Source' crowd is that if Amazon can't make it one of their AWS offerings then it isn't true open source

Isn't this what the AGPL is for? That's an OSI approved "open source" license that places restrictions on people making the software accessible as a network service.

[happymellon]

I think the problem that these folks have is that AGPL still allows other people to host the software.

They want to seem altruistic but want to also be the only provider.

GPL would have been a better initial license, and AGPL would have been the next logical step to ensure that changes that hosted services make can come back to the original version.

I'm not entirely sure what they were hoping to get by making an extremely permissive licensed piece of software, but competition doesn't appear to be it.

[tptacek]

They care that other people can sell the software, not that other people can use the software, which is why the license they use makes that distinction.

[cxr]

This is a confusing claim. Are you saying the chosen license (<https://github.com/HermanMartinus/bearblog/blob/998e87263248...>) makes the software free to use to offer (e.g. gratis) "hosted or managed service[s]" so long as one does not sell the services? This is trivially confirmed not to be true. It prohibits all use of the software to provide services, not just a prohibition on selling them.

[heavyset_go]

> They want to seem altruistic but want to also be the only provider.

Some people pick the AGPL because the license itself acts like garlic to commons destroying IP vampires and are disappointed that those vampires still found a way to drink their IP milkshake.

Has nothing to do with altruism and everything to do with not wanting to be taken advantage of for free labor and IP by powerful entities that would deny them a glass of water if they were dying from thirst.

[account42]

Except AWS is not an IP vampire in this case, they are providing a hosting service. There is no conflict between AWS's use and the spirit of the open source license.

The conflict is entirely between the original developer wanting to be the sole service provider and the open source license that lets people host the software themselves. The software as a service business model is the problem here, not AWS hosting.

[mynameisvlad]

> They want to seem altruistic but want to also be the only provider.

This is an overly negative take. At the end of the day, they are still providing software and the source code free to use for practically every purpose except directly competing with them.

That's still altruistic while also being sensible in the real world rather than an ideal.

[passthejoe]

The license disallows use of the software for what it is intended: setting up a multi-user blogging system.

[kelnos]

No, the license disallows use of the software for seeing up a multi-user blogging system as a paid service.

You might say, "well wouldn't that be most of what people might want to do with it?" And you might be right, but so what? No one is entitled to build their business on the back of someone else's work, not without their permission anyway.

That certainly makes software like this no longer Free Software. But I'm not religious about it, and maybe that's ok sometimes.

(It also runs afoul of several parts of the OSI Open Source Definition, but maybe that's ok too.)

[happymellon]

> No, the license disallows use of the software for seeing up a multi-user blogging system as a paid service

This is incorrect.

https://github.com/HermanMartinus/bearblog/blob/master/LICEN...

> You may not provide the Software as a hosted or managed service that offers users access to substantial features or functionality.

It does not make the distinction around a financial transaction.

[jwitthuhn]

Not "as a paid service" just "as a service". The license does not allow me to stand up a Bear instance and let people blog on it for free.

[foxglacier]

Not for practically every purpose. It's a blog platform to be used by services that provide blog hosting, just like his own business does, so any use of it would be directly competing with him. From TFA, he never wanted people to actually use it, just to look at the source code.

[ahartmetz]

I thought so, too, at first. But there's a crucial difference: With the AGPL, Bear's competition can offer the software as as service if they publish the source code they are deploying. With the Bear license, Bear's competition just cannot offer the software as a service. It feels mostly in the spirit of FOSS to me, but Stallman would disagree. He has made it clear that there should be no restrictions on use.

[cxr]

> It feels mostly in the spirit of FOSS to me

From the license at <https://github.com/HermanMartinus/bearblog/blob/998e87263248...>:

"You may not provide the Software as a hosted or managed service that offers users access to substantial features or functionality"

Given that the exclusive purpose of the Software in question is to implement a managed service for its users' hosting needs, I'm having trouble understanding how anyone could take the position that this is "mostly in the spirit of FOSS".

The license might as well say, "You just can't use this."

[rafram]

It’s saying that you can use Bear for your own blog, but you can’t launch a service that hosts other people’s blogs using it.

[jwitthuhn]

The readme has this to say about hosting your own blog on it:

"Bear Blog has been built as a platform and not as an individual blog generator. It is more like Substack than Hugo. Due to this it isn't possible to individually self-host a Bear Blog."

"It isn't possible" is obviously not true but a plain reading of both that combined with the license would suggest you can't use bear at all for anything.

[cxr]

> It’s saying that you can use Bear for your own blog

Where does it say that?

[happymellon]

> Bear's competition just cannot offer the software as a service. It feels mostly in the spirit of FOSS

I don't see how, there is nothing in the spirit of FOSS by doing that.

[jakelazaroff]

> With the AGPL, Bear's competition can offer the software as as service if they publish the source code they are deploying.

Technically true, but in practice almost every tech company forbids GPL code. I bet if you re-read your employment contract closely you'll find that you agreed not to introduce any GPL code into the company's codebases.

(Edited for clarity).

[josephcsible]

This can't possibly be true, since the Linux kernel's code is GPL and approximately every tech company uses Linux.

[jakelazaroff]

By "use GPL code" I mean integrate it into a company codebase (which would require the codebase to be licensed as GPL). Edited my original comment to clarify.

[pabs3]

Phones contain Linux, TVs contain Linux, cars contain Linux, clouds contain Linux. It is used everywhere.

[heavyset_go]

Companies that follow the law will release their changes to the Linux kernel when they distribute their products to users.

Just using Linux is not enough to say anything built with it is a combined product in the eyes of the GPL, the license is pretty specific about what it considers a derivative work.

For example, you can ship closed source apps and OS on top of Linux so long as you respect the license.

[pmontra]

Note that this is about source code, not binaries, or nobody would be working with docker (and more.)

Of course a company must forbid copy/paste of GPL code, because that would GPL the codebase and that's hardly what they want. But one should ask the Legal office (and/or other offices) about adding any MIT, BSD or proprietary library: credit must be given (how?), licenses must be available and compatible with the way the software is distributed. There are so many licenses out there, everything should be vetted.

[jakelazaroff]

Re: code vs. binaries, it depends on the license. Another commenter has been pointing out that Google forbids any use of AGPL projects, period [1] because its definition of "linking" includes communication over a network.

Of course everything should be vetted, but lawyers have canned advice about common licenses they see often — GPL, MIT, etc.

[1] https://opensource.google/documentation/reference/using/agpl...

[ahartmetz]

I'm self-employed in Germany, and when I was employed, what was in the contract went more in the other direction: it was explicitly allowed to contribute to FOSS projects. Of course, it still would not have been OK to randomly add GPL software to a closed source customer project. If anyone had been stupid (uneducated, really) enough, somebody else on the same project would have noticed.

[jakelazaroff]

Yeah, the second sentence is what I meant. This is why I'm writing comments on Hacker News rather than legal contracts :)

[jefftk]

I was at a FANG until 2022, and we were allowed to introduce GPL code into the monorepo. There were policies on how to do it correctly, but definitely not prohibited.

(AGPL, however, was nearly impossible to get permission to use)

[account42]

Companies not wanting GPL code in code bases they want to keep proprietary should not be surprising to anyone. I fail to see how that is relevant to the comment you are replying though.

Some companies subscribe to FUD (aka lawyers covering their ass) and forbid use of AGPL, GPL and sometimes even LGPL software outright even though they allow proprietary sofware that has even more restrictions, but the big elephant in the room that is usually cited for these open source to "proprietary but we still want the publicity of open source" license changes (AWS) is not one of those companies that put fear over profit.

[jakelazaroff]

The comment I'm replying to says that the reason companies like Bear choose these licenses over the AGPL is that the AGPL allows other companies to offer competing hosting services. I'm saying that while that's true, in practice most companies will not touch AGPL code.

[fsflover]

> With the AGPL, Bear's competition can offer the software as as service if they publish the source code they are deploying

Any examples when AGPL was used successfully by competitors? Typically every company prohibits using this licence.

[fsflover]

Why am I silently downvoted?

[echoangle]

AGPL doesn't really prevent Amazon from making it an AWS offering unless they want to modify the program and don't want to share the modifications.

[omnicognate]

Why would I want to stop them making it available as a network service except as a way of circumventing the copyleft by effectively distributing it without actually distributing it (which AIUI the AGPL fixes)? If you want to place restrictions on how people are allowed to use the software then A) I don't see the relevance of AWS as a special case, and B) go ahead but don't imply the "open source crowd" are being unreasonable by not considering it open source.

[account42]

You'd want to stop them if like in TFA you don't actually want to provide open source software but rather want to sell your software as a service with free marketing from being "open source".

[Arrowmaster]

It doesn't in an indirect way. A friend that worked for Amazon about 5 years ago told me they were even allowed to look at AGPL codebases on the clock because the lawyers were so afraid of it.

[jdxcode]

Another reason is that copyleft licenses are kryptonite in large organizations.

[cinericius]

Not a lawyer, but my understanding is there is a strong feeling that AGPL can be roughly ignored if a service provider provides some level of indirection (e.g. a proxy) between the user and the software. Then, the software is somehow not being accessed over a network and thus they are not required to release the source.

[barnabee]

I have a strong feeling that speaking to a lawyer might reveal that to be untrue

[gpm]

I have a strong feeling you would be told "we don't know, it's never been tested in court, there's a chance you would win and a chance you would lose on that argument".

[swiftcoder]

Yeah, but lawyers say that about just about everything

[shakna]

Not just a level of indirection. The "substantial features" of the code need to not be directly exposed.

So if you had some AGPL OCR tool you were using, you could use it, but not in a way the user sees that text. Generate audio from it and expose the sound? Probably fine.

[gpm]

My understanding of the theory that they're advocating is that the AGPL requires that when you modify AGPL software you modify it to provide an offer of its source.

And that you can comply with that completely, run the software, and then have a proxy in front that strips that offer without violating the letter of the license.

And if that theory works I think "substantial features" of the code could be directly (but for the indirection of that proxy) exposed.

[shakna]

That would violate the license.

> However, nothing other than this License grants you permission to propagate or modify any covered work. These actions infringe copyright if you do not accept this License. Therefore, by modifying or propagating a covered work, you indicate your acceptance of this License to do so.

and

> Each time you convey a covered work, the recipient automatically receives a license from the original licensors, to run, modify and propagate that work, subject to this License.

"Convey" is the key word there. You _must_ convey the license. Stripping it out, is not conveying it. Why is it automatic? Because under the AGPL, the license is a part of the work itself. You cannot remove it or modify it, without breaking the license, and thus having no right to modify it in the first place.

[gpm]

> Each time you convey a covered work

You didn't convey a covered work by using it to respond to a response or anywhere else in my hypothetical - and indeed that part of the license exactly matches the GPLv3. The relevant portion of the license is rather

> 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.

[shakna]

So... You know a proxy is not legal... But felt the need to make me explain which facets it would cover...?

Yeah, I'm not continuing this convetsation.