Comment 454 for bug 269656

Ante Karamatić wrote:
> And, as any other license, it's about software, not a service. You can
> have GPL software on your computer, but your service, based on it, can
> be non-free. Output of AGPL-ed software (aka service) can be non-free
> - it's simple, AGPL doesn't cover services.

The AGPL does cover services. It guarantees that the software continues
to be free if it is provided as a service.

> And, at last, how much are Affero's terms of use different that those
> from Mozilla (except that are much, much bigger and difficult to
> read)?
>
> http://www.affero.com/ctos.html

I don't know, because I haven't read them. Apparently it is OK to have
additional terms for the usage of a service governed by the AGPL. So, IF
we regard an AGPL licensed service as free, then ToS are OK. And then it
is also OK for them to be implicitly accepted by using the service.

> Free service doesn't have anything to do with free software. Those are
> two totally different things.

How can you say that with such confidence? I see no widely accepted
notion of a so-called "free service".

> IMHO, definition of free service is very much like open
> standard/protocol. If I can use some service and share data collected
> using that service, without restrictions, that's an open service.
> Having service served by open source software, but not having rights
> to share collected data is obviously non-free service. But even that
> can't always be true...

Note that you're now giving your own definition of free service. Clearly
we need a widely agreed definition before we can even think about having
a policy for it in Ubuntu.

You focus on the data, but think about this: if all collected data of a
service must be available to anyone, then there is no privacy anymore.
Say a forum is free by that definition, then they must give all account
information, all email addresses to anyone that asks. Nobody will want
to use such a forum anymore.

I think a focus should be more on the software, as the AGPL does. You
want to be able to run the exact same kind of service, so the code that
this service uses, should be available. That's what the AGPL guarantees.
You still have to create your own infrastructure and start mining data,
but that's the same with local free software.

With free software on your own computer you can generate some valuable
data, but you don't have to distribute that data if you want to
distribute the free software.

Remco