On Tue, Jul 2, 2013 at 6:58 PM, Nick Andrik <nick.and...@gmail.com> wrote:
> 2013/7/2 Russ Allbery <r...@debian.org>: > > I don't believe the AGPL was ever intended to be used for libraries. > > Quite a bit of the license is very difficult to interpret as applied to a > > library. (For example, does that mean that every application using the > > library has to provide a URL to download the source of the *library*? Is > > the user interacting with the library directly over the network?) > > > > I think this one is all on Oracle. They're using a license that was > never > > intended for a basic infrastructure library, quite possibly in an attempt > > to make it obnoxious and excessively onerous to use the open source > > version, or to create a situation where nearly all users of their library > > are violating some technical term of the license (or at least are close > > enough that a lawsuit wouldn't be immediately thrown out) and therefore > > can be shaken down for cash if Oracle feels like it. > > Since AGPLv3 is really similar to GPLv3 but mostly oriented for > webapplications, would it make sense to contact Oracle with the > concerns raised in this thread and ask for clarification and possible > consideration to change to license to GPLv3 instead? > That would help just a little bit. GPLv3 library is still incompatible with f.e. Apache 2.0 licensed program. So this would still need to be handled in case-by-case manner working closely with upstream developers. There could be some possibility that the choice of AGPL over GPL was > not well considered by their part with all the issues that raises. > > On the other hand, with Oracle one can never be sure, but at least > contacting them will make the problem more widely apparent and their > ittentions more clear. > I already wrote to the Oracle developer I am in close contact with about the mismatch of the license in distribution tarball and I will pursue this further when he responds. Ondrej -- Ondřej Surý <ond...@sury.org>
