----- "Will Woods" <wwoods(a)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 :)