Do any of you use Affero GPL v3 for your projects?
I may be doing a personal web project that will licensed under the Affero GPL v3 and then potentially offer an "enterprise" edition for any clients that need special treatment under a different license that will take away some of the GPL copyleft requirments and give them paid support as part of the package. Of course users of the Affero GPL version can use it any way they want, but will rely on themselves to fix things or asking others.
Technically, since I am owner of the copyright, I could change the license to whatever I want whenever I want, but I at first considered Apache 2.0 or a more permissive license. Would this mean the code would have to be dual licensed from the start or can I just have the copyleft license for the base system and then when I distribute to certain clients that have customized code just for them, then I could change the license completely or would I have to be up front about it being dual licensed from the start?
The big worry about that was someone stealing my code and profiting off of my work without contributing back even though big companies prefer to not use GPL code and would rather contribute code back to a permissively licensed one.
I did some research on the Affero GPL v3 and its purpose was to close up the ASP loophole in the standard GPL v3 with more and more people using software as a service instead of a dedicated program. I've also read that adoption of Affero GPL v3 is VERY low as others opt for a more permissive license. I just want to protect my ass and make sure any licensing is in my control as the copyright holder.
Do any of you use Affero GPL in your projects and if so, what is your feedback on the license?
The GNU AGPL doesn't make sense for most programs you use (programs installed on your own computer); if it isn't commonly run over a network, and very few free programs are, the AGPL's additions do no good. That would be mainly why so few programs use it. But some very important software does use it. Ryzom is one example, and so is MediaGoblin. It's just that the amount of important free software that the AGPL is the best choice for is small. It's important to note that SaaS is extremely rare; the usual practice is to send a program (usually in Javascript) to the user's computer, where it is then executed locally on his/her browser.
If you hold the copyright, you can put whatever license you want on it. Of course, if you release it under a permissive license first, that code will always be available under that permissive license, so switching to the AGPL will not affect that code (and it might even cause some disgruntled users to fork it, if it's popular enough). But for example, licensing it under the AGPL and then later on offering the dual-licensing model you describe would be fine, since you were planning on using the AGPL anyway.
As an aside, there's no sense in refusing to offer paid support to users using the AGPL with your program. Just charge for the support and make some extra money if people choose to take advantage of it.