----- "Will Woods" wwoods@redhat.com wrote:
Actually, one question - did you make rpmguard AGPLv3 (instead of GPLv3) intentionally? If so, why? Should we think about relicensing other tests as AGPLv3?
Err, the licensing problems... :) Actually I try to license all my personal projects under AGPL, so I put it here too. We can change it to anything that is suitable for/compatible with our project.
Personally I prefer AGPL to GPL because it applies not only to traditional way of distributing source code (downloading and running locally) but also to using the source code as a web service. These days almost anything can be used as a web service (even traditional end-user software like openoffice - eg. for document conversion on the server). Everything starts to be pushed "to the cloud". So, some big company could come, take many opensource projects, heavily modify them and offer the result as a web service - and give nothing back. I don't like that idea, because I believe the principles that are the core of GPL do not relate to distribution channels - just the cloud computing simply didn't exist back in time when GPL was created. This also confirms RMS, who said that the very definition of AGPL3 should have really been the GPL3. But he was afraid the GPL3 wouldn't be adopted by many groups at all, and there were also other important changes to push ahead, so he split them into GPL3 (the basic one) and AGPL3 (the extra amendment about web distribution). He was probably right, companies like Google don't object against GPL3, but they would be extremely reluctant to adopt software under AGPL3 (see allowed licenses for Google Code hosting :).
So, that's my point of view, I don't see any reason to prefer GPL to (more freedom ensuring) AGPL. Maybe except for license compatibility: http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/gpl-faq.html#AllCompatibility AGPL3 is not listed in the matrix - I suppose it should fall into same category as GPL3, but I am not sure. I will try to ask FSF probably.
Once again, this was my opinion used for my personal projects. It's up to you to decide for the license. (I don't even know if - as an employee of Red Hat - I am or I am not obliged to publish my work under some specific license. I suppose when concerning Fedora stuff it's up to our choosing as long as it's OSS license. The copyright probably goes to Red Hat.)
PS: I really hate that we have to study lawyer stuff to publish work as free and open :)
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