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I'm thinking of using the following library in a website I am building.
https://github.com/imazen/imageflow-dotnet-server
It is licensed under the AGPLv3 license. However, I am not 100% clear whether this means if I use it at all then I have to make my entire website open source, or whether I only have to do so if I actually modify the library. Can anyone clarify in simple terms what AGPLv3 means in this context?
Thanks
The AGPL license contains all the same terms and conditions that the GPL license also has.
This means that if you use an AGPL licensed library, you must make the entire (C#) application available under the AGPL or GPL license. And that also means you must make the source code available to those who interact with your website under clause 13 of the AGPL.
That's the point of the license, that if you use the software for building a broader one everything for running it shall be warranted to be libre too.
GPL only requires that if you publish the software, but AGPL goes a step further and requires it if you use the software as an Internet service.
That's why the Imageflow Server has dual licensing, for those who don't want to publish the code. Then you pay for it.
The GNU licenses say:
All the source code needed to generate, install, and (for an executable work) run the object code and to modify the work, including scripts to control those activities.
However, it does not include the work's System Libraries, or general-purpose tools or generally available free programs which are used unmodified in performing those activities but which are not part of the work.
For example, Corresponding Source includes interface definition files associated with source files for the work, and the source code for shared libraries and dynamically linked subprograms that the work is specifically designed to require. Such as by intimate data communication or control flow between those subprograms and other parts of the work.
