Hi all, I was hoping to gather some opinions on the choice of license for releasing some of our codebase as open source.
GNU AGPLv3 is a very appealing license for a range of reasons (many of which are summarised by another project here: https://plausible.io/blog/open-source-licenses).
However... I see many articles like: https://www.techrepublic.com/blog/10-things/dont-believe-the-hype-agpl-open-source-licensing-is-toxic-and-unpopular/ that claim there a big problems... and contrariwise: https://medium.com/swlh/understanding-the-agpl-the-most-misunderstood-license-86fd1fe91275 that claims its just because people misunderstand the license.
I believe Google and other big business refuse to touch anything with an AGPL license.
In my mind, the AGPL is a great license from a business point of view - it's the most protective open source license, particularly as we develop browser-based software that we intend to host via cloud instances in the future.
However, it seems like big companies and individual developers have problems with AGPL and, to be honest, I can't think of a bit of software that I use that is AGPL.
I guess my question is: despite the obvious protection AGPL gives a small SaaS company, are the perceived negatives and lack of community uptake enough to negate all these positives?
Thanks for your thoughts!
Chas
Oldest comments (5)
I asked my partner Heather Meeker to comment!
Thanks!
As one recent example, Linagora seems to be using AGPLv3 for their new application Twake.
Perhaps @zapolsky can add some additional insight to the discussion?
One data point - the techrepublic post points out Kafka as one major project that uses Apache 2.0, but Confluent (the COSS that uses Kafka and is more of a comparable for what you're asking) actually shifted part of their tech off Apache 2.0. Detailed explanation here:
confluent.io/blog/license-changes-...
In Confluent's case it wasn't AGPL they switched to, but a custom license. But if you read their explanations, it's actually quite similar logic to Plausible's for switching to AGPL v3
Hi @chasnelson1990 , this new piece from @heathermeeker could give some more insights to AGPLv3's history and role in the ecosystem!
coss.community/coss/elastic-licens...
Additionally, this piece from Salil Deshpande has a detailed section on Why not AGPL, specifically in the business context.
Would love to hear your thoughts and if you find anything particularly interesting!