[ckan-dev] About the impact of AGPL License of CKAN on CKAN extensions

[Guido Stein]

Hey Bradley,

I am not a lawyer, you would need to speak to a lawyer for a definitive
answer.

That said, I think that what you are asking is:

"If you write a piece of code that uses a library that is AGPL does this
mean that you need to also use the same license for your code?"

Short answer is no, you do not need to adopt AGPL unless you are editing
the original library source code.

Here is another way to think about this.

"If someone makes a web service that has an API for sharing data, does that
mean any tool that access that api using REST endpoints now has to be
licensed in the same manner as the code behind the web service?"

Again the answer is no.

Here is a place where this discussion has more examples and ideas:
https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/107883/agpl-what-you-can-do-and-what-you-cant

It's a fair question to ask. And this is my take on it, but as I said when
I started, this is a legal question best resolved by a lawyer.

-Guido

On Wed, Oct 24, 2018 at 4:49 AM Ricardo Pinho <ricardodepinho at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Hi,
> If the authors of this amazing solution CKAN, choosed AGPL license, the
> strongest copyleft GNU license, was because are where committed on making
> available complete source code of licensed works and modifications under
> the same license.
> I must advise you on reading this to understand and change your mind on
> using proprietary licenses!
>
> https://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-affero-gpl.html
>
> *But suppose the program is mainly useful on servers. When D modifies the
> program, he might very likely run it on his own server and never release
> copies. Then you would never get a copy of the source code of his version,
> so you would never have the chance to include his changes in your version.
> You may not like that outcome.Using the GNU Affero GPL avoids that outcome.
> If D runs his version on a server that everyone can use, you too can use
> it. Assuming he has followed the license requirement to let the server's
> users download the source code of his version, you can do so, and then you
> can incorporate his changes into your version. (If he hasn't followed it,
> you have your lawyer complain to him.)*
>
> https://choosealicense.com/licenses/agpl-3.0/
> *Permissions of this strongest copyleft license are conditioned on making
> available complete source code of licensed works and modifications, which
> include larger works using a licensed work, under the same license.
> Copyright and license notices must be preserved. Contributors provide an
> express grant of patent rights. When a modified version is used to provide
> a service over a network, the complete source code of the modified version
> must be made available. *
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affero_General_Public_License
>
>
> *The GNU Affero General Public License is designed specifically to ensure
> that, in such cases, the modified source code becomes available to the
> community.It requires the operator of a network server to provide the
> source code of the modified version running there to the users of that
> server.Therefore, public use of a modified version, on a publicly
> accessible server, gives the public access to the source code of the
> modified version.*
>
> If we believe and want to live in and Open World, we must believe there is
> no place for proprietary licenses!
> https://openrevolution.net/
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gevj7sa6ZAg&t=45
>
> Cheers.
>
> zonghuanwu <zonghuanwu at huawei.com> escreveu no dia quarta, 24/10/2018
> à(s) 07:30:
>
>> Will the CKAN AGPL License restrict third party CKAN extensions to be
>> open-source?
>>
>>
>>
>> In other words, can a third-party CKAN extension be proprietary?
>>
>>
>>
>> Thank you in advance for the help,
>>
>>
>>
>> Bradley
>> _______________________________________________
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>> ckan-dev at lists.okfn.org
>> https://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/ckan-dev
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>>
>
>
> --
> Ricardo Pinho
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