Re: Is the following statement true?

Quoting Marc MERLIN ([email protected]):

> On Wed, Apr 03, 2019 at 01:15:24PM -0700, Rick Moen wrote:
> > Last AGPL versions of MongoDB were 4.0.3 (stable) and 4.1.4 (beta).  
> 
> And even AGPL is a problematic license.

It's perfectly legitimate to decide one dislikes AGPLv3 (what MongoDb
used previously), just as it is to decide one doesn't like the terms of
any copyleft (or for that matter permissiive) licence.  So, without
objection of any kind to your view, I'll just point out that AGPL is
conclusively open source (satisfies OSD along with DFSG and that vague
FSF thing), while MongoDB's post October 2018 'SSPL' licence is very
much not.

Certainly one should make sure one understands _any_ licence one
substantively relies upon for software engineering.


> Mongodb has apparently used it and interesting interpretations of it,
> to "encourage" companies to switch to paid commercial licenses, even
> though they were not violating the "don't sell a web hosted service
> and not make our source available" clause that most people understand
> AGPL to be.

I've not been able to find on a quick search accounts of what
interpretations MongoDB attempted to urge on people, and don't know
specifics.  A possibly similar case applied with Michael Widenius's firm
MySQL AB, which dual-licensed the MySQL database and whose sales
representatives had a shady habit of egregiously overstating the scope
of GPL copyleft scope in order to sell more proprietary licences.


> IANAL and I won't discuss the AGPL in details, but just warning people
> to be careful with it and do their homework.

Always wise.