- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
cross-posted from: https://rss.ponder.cat/post/120321
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Neo4j provided database software under the AGPLv3, then tweaked the license, leading to legal battles over forks of the software. The AGPLv3 includes language that says any added restrictions or requirements are removable, meaning someone could just file off Neo4j’s changes to the usage and distribution license, reverting it back to the standard AGPLv3, which the biz has argued and successfully fought against in that California district court.
The issue before the appeals court boils down to the right to remove contractual restrictions added to the terms of the APGL. This right is spelled out in AGPLv3, section 7, paragraph 4: “If the program as you received it, or any part of it, contains a notice stating that it is governed by this license along with a term that is a further restriction, you may remove that term.” Other GPLs contain similar terms.
“Licensed under AGPL but not AGPL”? It’s a named license that people have expectations on. I assume if they had said “licensed under aa modified AGPL license” it would have been fine? Seems reasonable/makes sense.
How does that become “may kill a GPL license”? Key word “a”? (When it’s not one.)
I am really confused by what is going on here. Was Neo4j the original author of the code? Because if so, then they can license their own code however they like. The potential sticking point would be if they represented the license as being AGPL3 when it is not because this would be fundamentally misleading, and it sounds like the court agrees that this is a valid concern because it awarded a partial summary judgement that, “The court did affirm that a license created by combining the AGPL with other non-open-source terms cannot be called ‘free and open source.’”
It is noteworthy that apparently the Free Software Foundation did not think that this legal case was worth intervening in.
The article saysIt could be that FSF encouraged him to settle because FSF wanted it kept out of the 9th District, to minimize the damage of the ruling. When the 9th rules to uphold the lower ruling it will be a problem.I am unable to find that in this article. Could you quote the paragraph you are referring to?
I’m inferring from these two quotes:
1-Suhy said that he’s unsure why the Free Software Foundation didn’t choose to intervene. “They actually did not want me to appeal,” Suhy explained.
2-“I was willing to work with them. I want to make sure that we protect the license and make sure that there’s no dangerous precedent. And the only thing that they could come up with was not to appeal, which I couldn’t do.”
From the beginning of the article: -“If the appellate court upholds that decision, which endorsed database maker Neo4j’s right to amend the GNU Affero General Public License, version 3, governing the use of its software with new binding terms, current assumptions about the enforceability of copyleft licenses will no longer apply.”
What that says to me is that FSF fears the 9th will use this case to expand corporate power, as they often have in the past, and the precedent thus set will have a much wider reach than a low court decision. This Suhy guy may burn the forest while trying to save his tree.
But, IANAL, YMMV.
Okay, so just to be clear: the article did not actually say what you claimed it said, but rather you are conjecturing the basis of the FSF’s decision not to assist this person based on quotes describing this person’s own inferences from a conversation they had with the FSF rather than based on anything the FSF has actually said.
You may be right about this, but it is still conjecture.
I’ll edit my comment to clarify, you make a good point.
The FSF doesn’t seem to have teeth when it comes to things like this, instead it’s the SFC who intervenes.
In January, the Software Freedom Conservancy, an open source advocacy group that intervened to help Suhy several years ago, submitted an amicus brief to the Ninth Circuit
