Debian Takes AGPL Software into Main

[ Thanks to Britta Wuelfing for this link. ]

"Google and Yahoo are among the largest users of free software. Under previous GPL terms they could adapt this software for their own use and commercialize it, and users would have rights to the source code only when running the software residing on their systems. The AGPL has an additional paragraph, "Remote Network Interaction; Use with the GNU General Public License," that gives users rights to remote source code as well.

"This licensing has been an ongoing discussion at Debian, including in wishlist bug reports. The Debian project has been following its own social contract, primarily addressed in the Debian Free Software Guidelines (DFSG). Debian releases only software in its Linux distro that falls under these guidelines. Conflicts arose, for example, around Mozilla's trademarks on for Firefox and Thunderbird."

Complete Story

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