Gpl, also known as copyleft, grants permission to reuse or modify the source code to make derivative works, but if you distribute your program to others, it requires you to license your derivative work under the gpl too. For now, gnu gpl is an enforceable contract, says us federal judge the software hippies minds are going to be blown over this one by kieren mccarthy in san francisco may 2017 at 09. Describes the ability to use the software for commercial purposes. This public license applies to most of affero s software and to any other program whose authors commit to using it. The gnu affero gpl does not address the problem of service as a software substitute saass. Conditions on distributing ghostscript in a commercial context. The gnu affero general public license is a free, copyleft license for software and. Under this model, developers may choose to use razuna under the free software open source gnu affero general public license commonly known as the agpl or under a commercial license.
It has been under active development for over 20 years and. We recommend that people consider using the gnu agpl for any software which will commonly be run over a network. Qgis is a user friendly open source geographic information system gis licensed under the gnu general public license. The following licenses are sorted by the number of conditions, from most gnu agplv3 to none unlicense. Top 10 gnu gpl license questions answered whitesource.
Open source licenses grant permission for anybody to use, modify, and share licensed software for any purpose, subject to conditions preserving the provenance and openness of the software. Agplv3 is a gplv3compatible license that falls under the freelibre software tag. Ghostscript is an interpreter for postscript and portable document format pdf files. These users are granted the same rights as licensees who receive the software. The agpl can be regarded as an extension to the gpl.
By contrast, the affero general public license is intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change free software to make sure the software is free for all its users. Agpl what you can do and what you cant software engineering. Using gpllicensed components in proprietary projects. Oems original equipment manufacturers, isvs independent software vendors, vars value added resellers and other distributors that combine and distribute commercially licensed software with webswing and do not wish to distribute the source code for the commercially licensed software under version 3 of the gnu affero general public license. The gnu affero general public license agpl ghostscript. Google is an example of a major company that has banned employees from using any open source software licenced on gnu affero gpl due to. We are however preparing a commercial license for the software that does not impose the above limitations.
It has a simple installation, is easy to modify, and offers an unique. Coordinatesharp is split licensed and may be licensed under the gnu affero general public license version 3 or a commercial use license as stated. The full agpl is included under the name copying in the gpl ghostscript fileset, and can also be obtained directly from the free software foundation. By contrast, the gnu general public license is intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change all versions of a programto make sure it remains free software for all its users. Gnu affero general public license gnu project free. How to choose the best license for your open source. There is a reasonable description at gnu affero general public license wikipedia and the actual license text is available at gnu affero general public license but to make a long story short, you can probably think of it as a version of the gpl3. What is the difference between gpl, agpl and lgpl licenses. This requires them to send their data to the server, which does their computing for them and sends the results back to them. The free software foundation has recommended that the gnu agplv3 be. Cmsimple is a simple content management system for simple maintainance of small commercial or private sites. Qgis is an official project of the open source geospatial foundation osgeo. The free software foundation has recommended that the gnu agplv3 be considered for any software that will commonly be run over a network. Gpl is the acronym for gnu s general public license, and its one of the most popular open source licenses.
Both licenses have the same copyleft scope, but materially differ in one important way. The gnu affero general public license version 3 agplv3 is a copyleft license nearly identical to the gplv3. It is available both under the gnu gpl affero license and for commercial licensing from artifex. Rstudio is available under the gnu affero general public license v3. We, the free software foundation, use the gnu general public license for most of our software. Gpl is the abbreviation for gnu general public license. All the wikidot software is available under the gnu affero general public license 3. Hi, afaik, this is a derived work of itextsharp, an agpled library. With the agpl license, razuna is available free of charge, under certain conditions. Gnu affero gpl version 3 and the asp loophole submitted by michael tiemann on thu, 20070607 11. You may copy, distribute and modify the software as long as you track changesdates of in source files and keep modifications under gpl. It is intended for licensing software that is not conveyed to users but rather accessed through a network. Digital asset management, open source, media asset. The affero gpl is designed to close the socalled application service provider loophole in the gpl, which lets asps use gpl code without distributing their changes back to.
The affero general public license, often abbreviated as affero gpl and agpl and sometimes informally called the affero license, refers to two distinct, though historically related, free software. I again dont so much care about the ethics bsds just fine as i do about the commercial impact. Apache, mit, or free with specific limitations cc, gnu. To get around this, licenses such as the gnu affero general public license agpl have a stipulation that users who access the software over a network are also entitled to receive the source code. The agpl license differs from the other gnu licenses in that it was built for. The gnu affero general public license is based on the gnu gpl, but has an additional term to allow users who interact with the licensed software over a network to receive the source for that program. Boston, massachusetts, usamonday, november 19, 2007the free software foundation fsf today published the gnu affero general public license version 3 gnu agplv3. Shortly after the release of gpl3, the fsf released affero gpl 3. It restricts you from using software to build nongpl software including bsdlicensed free software, but it prevents software from being taken private by commercial developers.
You must make the source code for any of your changes available under mpl, but you can combine the mpl software with proprietary code, as long as you keep the mpl code in separate files. The gnu affero general public license is a free, copyleft license for software and other kinds of works, specifically designed to ensure cooperation with the community in the case of network server software. With the commercial license the customers would be free from. The affero general public license affero gpl and informally affero license is a free software license. Open source development an introduction to ownership and licensing issuesexplains the principles of open source licensing. The agpl makes straightforward commercial sense we use it. The bsd 2clause license the bsd 3clause license the gnu general public license version 2. You can distribute your application using a gpl library commercially, but you must also provide the source code. The affero gpl v3 imposes that all derived works are distributed under the same licence, recursively thus, right now everyone that linked your library without distributing their source code over the internet at least to their own final users is violating the itextpdfs corporate s.
Some other affero software is covered by the gnu library. Meanwhile, and somewhat ironically, the success of conservancys and the fsfs efforts to counter this messaging about the affero gpl has created an unintended consequence. Free software foundation releases gnu affero general. Projeqtor free project management software explanation. Rstudio also offers a commercial desktop license for rstudio and a commercial license for rstudio server pro. Gnu affero gpl version 3 and the asp loophole open. For a list of licences not specifically intended for software, see list of free content licences. Comparison of free and opensource software licences. The first version of the affero general public license agplv1, was published by affero, inc. We recommend that people consider using the gnu agpl for any software. The gnu affero general public license is a free, copyleft license published by the free software foundation in november 2007, and based on the gnu general public license, version 3 and the affero general public license. Gnu affero general public license gnu project free software. Agpl is the abbreviation for gnu affero general public license.
The software that i am refering to is qgis which provides this description. Free software foundation releases a variation of the gpl that brings its reciprocity obligations to software running as an online service. Anyone may modify gpl ghostscript, but the provisions of 1 apply to modified or derived works as well. The gnu affero general public license gnu agpl is a modified version of version 3 of the regular gnu gpl. This is a comparison of free and opensource software licences. It is a specific implementation of his copyleft concept. Saass means that users use someone elses web server to do their own computing. Richard stallman created the gpl to protect the gnu software from being made proprietary. Media in category free software under the agpl the following 3 files are in this category, out of 3 total. Provision 2 effectively prevents the development of proprietary commercial products that incorporate gpl ghostscript without a commercial license.
If we follow the comments it turns out that you can use agpl libraries with your closedsource, commercial serverside software, as long as you dont modify the. The affero gpl was designed as the aspkiller, unlike the gpl which requires you to give back any additions or changes you have made only if you distribute your software to others, the affero gpl compels you to give back any modifications to a piece of software if you use it to deliver a service. The gpl is far, far more authorfriendly than the bsd license is. The zfone libzrtp sdk is offered under two different licenses.
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