Timeline for AGPLv3 source redistribution: when does it apply to my code for a server-side Java app using an AGPL-licensed library?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
7 events
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| Mar 9, 2020 at 9:56 | comment | added | Lutz Prechelt |
@Tordanik I don't think so. From the point of view of the original developer, all the new developer has done is "making an exact copy". The new code is obviously under the copyright of the new developer, not the original developer, and so is not what the license is talking about. (As far as I understand, the GPL/LGPL difference was relevant for license version 2, but has more or less disappeared for license version 3.)
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| Mar 5, 2020 at 21:42 | comment | added | Tordanik | @Lutz Prechelt: OP isn't making an exact copy – they've added their own code in order to produce the software that's running on their server. To "modify" software doesn't just mean removing or replacing code. It can also mean adding code. So yes, all the bits they received from the library author are still there, but there are now also a lot of new bits that weren't there before. That these additions happened in a different jar does not matter according to my understanding of the GPL or AGPL. Only the LGPL would allow us to treat the library as its own separate thing. | |
| Jan 16, 2019 at 14:42 | comment | added | Lutz Prechelt |
@Zimm Indeed, given the explicit definition, "to modify" is not just some English word any more. But obviously you need to obey the definition. And the definition includes the clause "other than the making of an exact copy". So exact copying is not modifying and hence the resulting overall work is then not "based on" the original work and hence copyleft is not triggered.
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| Apr 5, 2017 at 7:21 | comment | added | Zimm i48 | In any case, because section 0 of the license defines "to modify", you can't just use normal English understanding to interpret this word. | |
| Apr 5, 2017 at 7:12 | comment | added | Zimm i48 | I too find the terminology confusing but what I argue in my answer is that what the FSF is calling "modifying" is to be understood as synonymous of "making a derivative work" and you will agree that indeed calling an unmodified library is still making a derivative work (thus copyleft is triggered). | |
| Apr 4, 2017 at 23:17 | comment | added | Philippe Ombredanne | I feel that you may be conflating calling/using and modifying. How one could sustain a position that I am modifying a pre-built Java Jar fetched from Maven central when what I use is bit-for-bit identical to the one released by the project and I am just calling its code? I agree that the copyleft would flow to the caller... but I cannot fathom how one could argue that I modified anything. Aside from that the Google page is a nice find, but Google policy and interpretation is just theirs. | |
| Apr 3, 2017 at 18:40 | history | answered | Zimm i48 | CC BY-SA 3.0 |