Free Software Linux

The Free Software Foundation sent out a press release today
announcing a new addition to the FSF stable of licenses: the Affero
General Public License or AGPL. The FSF has also published a set of
answers to anticipated questions in the GPL FAQ.

The first paragraph of the release explains what the AGPL is:

This is a new license; it is based on version 3 of the GNU General
Public License (GNU GPLv3), but has an additional term to ensure that
users who interact with the licensed software over a network can
receive the source for that program. By publishing this license, the
FSF aims to begin fostering user and development communities around
free software web services and other network-oriented software.

The GPL is designed to ensure that users of software have access to the
source code -- source is prerequisite to freedom and to the type of
collaboration that has made free software successful. However, the GPL
doesn't say "users" when it talks about who gets freedom; instead, it
references people to whom the software is distributed. It
doesn't say users for two reasons. The first is that, under copyright,
"distribution" is a much more meaningful term and a powerful hook than
"use" which is not, in most cases, one of the copyright holder's
exclusive rights. The second is that, until very recently, having a
copy of software was prerequisite to using it; possession was
prerequisite to use.

Things have changed. A large part of many people's computing experience
involves running web applications. These include email clients (e.g.,
GMail or other webmails), office applications (e.g., Google Docs),
social network systems, and others. These applications all run on servers
-- i.e., on other people's computers. The providers of these services,
the Googles and the FaceBooks, build upon, modify and improve
GPL software without giving back to their users or the community that
they took their software from.

The AGPL was created several years ago by FSF board member Henri Poole
as a way to address this issue. The license took the form of the GPLv2
with one extra clause. It was a first stab at a license and was
imperfect. The language and methods were clunky and, most
problematically, the license was incompatible with software under the
GPL.

The new AGPL is based on the GPLv3 and the extra clause has been
rethought and rewritten. It has been vetted using the GPLv3 comment
process and dozens of insightful comments from dozens of lawyers,
hackers, and users of free software have been incorporated. The new
license fixes the issues that many folks -- including myself -- had with
the first version of the license. More importantly it can now be linked
to GPLv3 code which makes the license a whole lot more practical.

I am quoted in the release being excited about the license and I really
am. I've got 2-3 major development projects (including Selectricity)
which I've been waiting to distribute so that I could do so under the
AGPLv3.

The AGPL isn't a complete answer to the problem faced by disempowered
users of web services. Without data or the capacity (in terms of
servers, money, and expertise) to run web applications, the state and
quality of these users' freedom remains far from clear. Thankfully,
there are a whole bunch of folks thinking about what freedom for users
of services might be -- it's a conversation that I'm going to push the
FSF to participate in and pursue moving forward. The AGPLv3 marks a
first solid contribution to the process of answering that question. If
you'd like to help supporting or assisting the FSF in this effort,
please consider becoming an associate member or donating.