Why AGPL3?

[Mikkel Høgh]

I know this was also raised on Joaquim's blog (http://
www.joaquimrocha.com/2008/11/17/introducing-rancho/), but I'm quite
curious as to why you chose AGPL3.

Because, as I understand the AGPL3, it will be completely impossible
to integrate Rancho with any sort of plugable Django apps that are not
"Free Software" by FSF's narrow definition. It will be neigh-
impossible to do any sort of integration with any sort of legacy
proprietary systems that the customer might own. And depending on how
you interpret AGPL3, you may or may not be forced to share any
customer specific template code as well.

In addition, unless you demand copyright assignment from those who
would contribute to Rancho, you would also be forced to share whatever
modifications you make in the code for your own clients.

On the block "admin" (Joaquim, I guess) stated:
"Guys, again, we didn’t choose AGPL and its 3rd version following any
conspiracy you might believe in."

And I think that strikes at the core of the issue at hand. You chose a
license that is almost impossible for someone who is not a copyright
lawyer to interpret. You might call the above conspiracy theories, but
there's nothing conspiracy-y about it. Just a lot of scary,
unintelligible legalese.

So why did you choose it?

[ranc...@gmail.com]

Hi Mikkel and sorry for the delay in the answer.

AGPL seemed to be the right choice for our software since Rancho is to
be deployed online and it corrects the so called "ASP loophole" in
GPL.
From the AGPL entry on the Wikipedia:

"In 2000, while developing an e-learning and e-service business model,
Henry Poole met with Richard Stallman in Amsterdam where they
discussed the ASP loophole in GPLv2. Over the following months,
Stallman and Poole discussed approaches to solving the problem. In
2001, Poole founded Affero, Inc. (a web services business), and he
needed a license that would require distribution by other
organizations who used Affero code to create derivative web services.
At that time, Poole contacted Bradley M. Kuhn and Eben Moglen of the
Free Software Foundation to get advice on a new license that would
close the ASP loophole in GPLv2."

Currently, we believe this is the right choice for a software like
Rancho because it gives users the Free Software rights but also its
obligations. Pretty much like anything in life.
We cannot possibly please everyone in the software world but we
believe in the Free and Open Source Software principles and Rancho
follows them.


We hope this answers you question, please let us know if you have
further doubts.

Best Regards,

--
The Rancho Team


On Dec 24 2008, 3:59 pm, Mikkel Høgh <mikkelho...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I know this was also raised on Joaquim's blog (http://www.joaquimrocha.com/2008/11/17/introducing-rancho/), but I'm quite