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

[zonghuanwu]

Dear Ricardo,

Thank you. I do agree with you on the open spirit.

However, The company’s concern is not about disclosing the modified code of Ckan.  The concern is about the possible security issue because of disclosing the code of its specific Ckan extensions, and the other pieces of its software that use Ckan APIs to interact with Ckan.

Thank you,

Bradley

From: ckan-dev [mailto:ckan-dev-bounces at lists.okfn.org] On Behalf Of Ricardo Pinho
Sent: Wednesday, October 24, 2018 4:49 PM
To: ckan-dev at lists.okfn.org
Subject: Re: [ckan-dev] About the impact of AGPL License of CKAN on CKAN extensions

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<mailto: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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--
Ricardo Pinho
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