The GNU Affero General Public License (GNU AGPL) is a

free Free may refer to: Concept * Freedom, having the ability to do something, without having to obey anyone/anything * Freethought, a position that beliefs should be formed only on the basis of logic, reason, and empiricism * Emancipate, to procur ...

copyleft Copyleft is the legal technique of granting certain freedoms over copies of copyrighted works with the requirement that the same rights be preserved in derivative works. In this sense, ''freedoms'' refers to the use of the work for any purpose, ...

license published by the

Free Software Foundation The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization founded by Richard Stallman on October 4, 1985, to support the free software movement, with the organization's preference for software being distributed under copyleft ("s ...

in November 2007, and based on the GNU General Public License, version 3 and the Affero General Public License. The Free Software Foundation has recommended that the GNU AGPLv3 be considered for any software that will commonly be run over a network.List of free-software licences on the FSF website
"''We recommend that developers consider using the GNU AGPL for any software which will commonly be run over a network.''" The Free Software Foundation explains the need for the license in the case when a free program is run on a server:

The GNU Affero General Public License is a modified version of the ordinary GNU GPL version 3. It has one added requirement: if you run a modified program on a server and let other users communicate with it there, your server must also allow them to download the source code corresponding to the modified version running there. The purpose of the GNU Affero GPL is to prevent a problem that affects developers of free programs that are often used on servers.

The

Open Source Initiative The Open Source Initiative (OSI) is the steward of the Open Source Definition, the set of rules that define open source software. It is a California public-benefit nonprofit corporation, with 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status. The organization w ...

approved the GNU AGPLv3 as an

open source license An open-source license is a type of license for computer software and other products that allows the source code, blueprint or design to be used, modified and/or shared under defined terms and conditions. This allows end users and commercial compa ...

in March 2008 after the company Funambol submitted it for consideration through its CEO Fabrizio Capobianco.

Compatibility with the GPL

GNU AGPLv3 and GPLv3 licenses each include clauses (in section 13 of each license) that together achieve a form of mutual compatibility for the two licenses. These clauses explicitly allow the " conveying" of a work formed by linking code licensed under the one license against code licensed under the other license, despite the licenses otherwise not allowing

relicensing Software relicensing is applied in open-source software development when software licenses of software modules are incompatible and are required to be compatible for a greater combined work. Licenses applied to software as copyrightable works, in s ...

under the terms of each other.List of free-software licences on the FSF website
"''We recommend that developers consider using the GNU AGPL for any software which will commonly be run over a network.''" In this way, the copyleft of each license is relaxed to allow distributing such combinations.

Examples of applications under GNU AGPL

Stet was the first software system known to be released under the GNU AGPL, on November 21, 2007, and is the only known program to be used mainly for the production of its own license. Flask developer Armin Ronacher noted in 2013 that the GNU AGPL is a "terrible success, especially among the

startup A startup or start-up is a company or project undertaken by an entrepreneur to seek, develop, and validate a scalable business model. While entrepreneurship refers to all new businesses, including self-employment and businesses that never intend t ...

community" as a "vehicle for dual commercial licensing", and gave Humhub, MongoDB, Odoo, RethinkDB, Shinken, Slic3r, SugarCRM, and WURFL as examples. MongoDB dropped the AGPL in late-2018 in favor of the " Server Side Public License" (SSPL), a variation of GPLv3 that requires those who provide "the program as a service", accessible to third-parties, to make the entire source code of all software used to facilitate the service available under the same license. The SSPL has been rejected by the

and banned by both

Debian Debian (), also known as Debian GNU/Linux, is a Linux distribution composed of free and open-source software, developed by the community-supported Debian Project, which was established by Ian Murdock on August 16, 1993. The first version of De ...

and the Fedora Project, who state that the license's intent is to discriminate against cloud computing providers offering services based on the software without purchasing its commercial license.

References

External links

* for GNU Affero General Public License (GNU AGPL). * * also includes info on version 2 of the Affero GPL. * {{Free Software Foundation Free Software Foundation Free and open-source software licenses Copyleft software licenses

Compatibility with the GPL

Examples of applications under GNU AGPL

See also

References

External links