What is the difference between the Affero General Public License and the GNU General Public License (GPL)?
+3
A:
Assume the following:
You are developing a server side application in GPL. Now this application serves HTML and not an executable which is directly executed on your machine. That means that another guy could take the GPL code, adapt it and does not necessarily publish it. Ie. he can create the identical service without violating the GPL! (Although he cannot sell the software itself but it does not matter if the idea + implementation are genius)
Not so with the AGPL.
This hole in the GPL is often called "Application Service Provider" hole.
Search for "Why AGPL" or "AGPL vs. GPL" or just read this for some real projects who have problems with GPL. The MongoDB tries another interesing thing. They want that people do not fork the core DB (thatwhy AGPL) but the driver which has to be linked with the main programm is apache 2.0 licensed so that the mongoDB could be used within commercial application.
Public web application that uses the AGPL are listed at wikipedia.
Karussell
2010-01-24 14:10:37
+1
A:
See http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/index_html#GPLCompatibleLicenses
Its terms effectively consist of the terms of GPLv3, with an additional paragraph in section 13 to allow users who interact with the licensed software over a network to receive the source for that program. We recommend that developers consider using the GNU AGPL for any software which will commonly be run over a network.