[pjmlp]

Lets not forget another feature of web APIs that makes them loved by the enterprise.

The ability to make use of open source tooling, driving the cost down to zero, without giving anything back, because customers cannot prove what technology stack is being used.

[tbrownaw]

The ability to make use of open source tooling, driving the cost down to zero

Because their employees' time is worthless?

without giving anything back

Isn't this a bit of a red herring? Local forks have a maintenance cost, so there is still an incentive to contribute and improvements back upstream (isn't this why BSD-licence projects do not in fact receive zero contributions from corporate users?). Conversely, posting source tarballs full of unmergeable (whether due to style, quality, or incompatibility) changes doesn't help anyone.

because customers cannot prove what technology stack is being used

This is false. Open/free licenses do not (cannot) restrict use, because they work by allowing things that copyright laws would otherwise forbid (which is why AGPL cannot be considered a True Open/Free License). Whether or not customers can prove or know what stack is being used, is completely irrelevant.

[pessimizer]

Free licenses always restrict use. You cannot use them without sharing your changes. I don't know what an "Open/free" license is, but if it's your invention, I guess you get to define what a "True" one is.

[cwp]

First, not all free licenses require you to share changes. See, for example, the MIT and BSD licenses. They only require that you preserve the copyright notice, and refrain from suing the original authors.

Second, even the GPL doesn't stop you from using a modified version, just from distributing modified versions without the source code. From the preamble to the GPL "if you distribute copies of such a program, whether gratis or for a fee, you must pass on to the recipients the same freedoms that you received."

The fact that web services don't actually distribute software at all is what inspired the AGPL license in the first place.

Finally, "open/free" refers to the distinction between "open source" licenses as defined by the Open Source Initiative (opensource.org) and "free software" as defined by the Free Software Foundation (fsf.org). As a practical matter, they are similar, but the two organizations have different philosophies.

[narag]

Free licenses always restrict use. You cannot use them without sharing your changes.

You managed to compress several errors in just two sentences. Free licenses aim to unrestricted use, that's their very reason to be. Search for "software freedoms". You're not forced to share changes, except in very few licences like MPL. Some (not all) free licenses ask you to distribute source for derivative works. Most ask you neither.

[tbrownaw]

Free licenses always restrict use. You cannot use them without sharing your changes.

From section 0 of the GPLv2:

Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are not covered by this License; they are outside its scope. The act of running the Program is not restricted

That seems to be explicitly not restricting use, yes?

I don't know what an "Open/free" license is

The Open Source and Free Software people tend to use similar (and often the same) licenses, even tho they don't like eachother and can't agree on anything (or rather they only agree until someone points out that they're agreeing, at which point they start nitpicking on their ideological differences).

[Thrymr]

No, you generally can't distribute them with out sharing your changes. Big difference.

[jacobparker]

> because customers cannot prove what technology stack is being used.

Morals aside, this is not typically the case. You can legally run GPL software as a service without contributing back, for example. The AGPL fixes this loophole but as far as I am aware is seldom used. (IANAL etc.)

[_delirium]

AGPL isn't exceptionally common, but it's used in a reasonable number of SaaS type niches, where the other common license is "don't release source at all". For example, Launchpad and Gitorious are AGPL, while their main competitor, Github, is closed-source.

Ghostscript is probably the most widely used piece of AGPL software. That one's driven mostly by their dual-licensing strategy (they want proprietary SaaS providers to buy the commercial version of Ghostscript).

[dspillett]

One major complication with that for modern web applications is that many don't consider sending javascript to the client as distributing the software (as it is not distributed as a whole) which most putting such software out there under the GPL would assume that the client side code counts as distributing the library to the end user just as much as sending it in a compiled executable would.

[rubinelli]

In practice, this is a non-issue. Aside from drivers (without which you can't run your hardware), you really don't want that code. My years in the Enterprise side taught me that the more upper-management worries about "protecting the IP", the less actual value said IP has.