Should Aferro GPL replace plain GPL?
Here is my line of thought.
Some time ago the FSF discovered that software users could loose their freedom when doing their computing in others people's computers.
To protect users, the FSF released the AGPL, whose only difference with the GPL is the following (quoting from https://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-aferro-gpl.html):
If you run a modified program on a server and let other users communicate with it there, your server must allow them to download the source code corresponding to the modified version running there.
Why isn't that clause in the GPL?
If you pay attention to the history of the drafting of GPL version 3 it was originally going to be (check out Discussion Draft #2 of GPL version 3)
But in response to feedback, in Discussion Draft #3 the FSF made a compromise and made it a separate license but with compatibility terms in each one so that GPL & AGPL programs could still be combined.
So I consider the AGPLv3 to be the "real" idea of what the GPLv3 was going to be and use that myself! :)
I cannot find that feedback you refer to. What were the reasons proposed to not include the network clause?
I find it to be a failure to protect users.
Is there any reason not to license software whose primary purpose is not to run in a server?
What's stopping me from licensing everything under AGPL?
Some people simply thought the AGPL's extra term went too far for a copyleft license. Philosophical, not technical. You can use AGPL for everything just fine.
"What's stopping me from licensing everything under AGPL?"
Absolutely nothing. In fact I'd love to see more things licensed in that way.
There is stuff at http://gplv3.fsf.org/ especially if you go to the Comments tab which lets you review various Discussion Drafts and see what parts of the license people were commenting on based on color codes the more comments the darker it gets. They also provide some of their Rationale documents too. http://gplv3.fsf.org/gpl3-dd3-rationale.pdf has the rationale for Discussion Draft 3. But it's probably good to look over all those Rationale documents. There's one to go with each of the Discussion Drafts. There were 4 Discussion Drafts made.
My recollection is that there were some saying they wouldn't use the GPLv3 if the Affero clause were included in it. I'm not sure you'll find those comments on the site or not. But it forced a decision to be made of accomplishing some of the things that really needed doing because making a license is one thing; getting people to adopt it is another. If you examine Discussion Draft #2, the Affero clause would have been an optional feature and not necessarily "turned on" by default. Making it two separate licenses provided a good way to accomplish both goals: Updating the GPL to address modern things while still giving people the ability to experiment with the Affero clause.
On 04/01/18 14:33, wrote:
> To protect users, the FSF released the AGPL, whose only difference
> with the GPL is the following (quoting from
> https://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-aferro-gpl.html):
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Ignacio Agulló · name at domain