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Re:RethinkDB Relicensed under Apache 2.0 by the_mitsuhiko on Monday February 06, 2017 @10:34AM (#13580336)
> There is little uncertainty -- the terms are in plain language

Just because a license says something does not mean that everybody interprets it the same way or that the clauses are valid in it. The "Remote Network Interaction" section has never made it to court and there are countless different interpretations one can draw from this.

Re:RethinkDB Relicensed under Apache 2.0 by niftich on Monday February 06, 2017 @11:27AM (#13580992)
Deploy some game theory here. Regardless of what the drafters of GNU Affero GPLv3 intended, there are really four outcomes here (with wording since edited for clarity):

Precondition: Take a GNU Affero GPv3 product, modify it, and expose it over a network, directly or by proxy, over a network, for users to use.

Your four possibilities:

(1) If you provide source, and the courts uphold the 'Remote Network Interaction' clause: you're fine.

(2) If you don't provide source, and the courts uphold the 'Remote Network Interaction' clause: you're screwed.

(3) If you provide source, and the courts don't uphold the 'Remote Network Interaction' clause: you're fine, but you would've been fine not providing the code in retrospect.

(4) If you don't provide source, and the courts don't uphold the 'Remote Network Interaction' clause: you've defeated the GNU Affero GPLv3 in court.

You can absolutely make the argument for or against the business risks of releasing source code, but you can't make the argument for 'uncertainty'.