Re:The terms of the AGPL are pretty easy to comply with
by kube-system on Tuesday July 28, 2020 @10:40AM
(#23976274)
FOIA has a substantial list of exemptions, and many of them would apply to a lot of code that the government uses.
Above, I was referring to trade secrets in the private sector, but actually, that is one of the FOIA exemptions too.
Also, a lot of code running in production is poorly designed. I'd bet the vast majority of it is poorly designed.
Damages are one part of it, but you also have to return to compliance, which means you either have to follow the license or stop using the code. Given that the AGPL doesn't have linking exceptions, the concern is that might be all of an organization's code.
That's not to say that you can't use open source in industries where these might be concerns -- almost all other common open source licenses don't have this problem.
Above, I was referring to trade secrets in the private sector, but actually, that is one of the FOIA exemptions too.
Also, a lot of code running in production is poorly designed. I'd bet the vast majority of it is poorly designed.
Damages are one part of it, but you also have to return to compliance, which means you either have to follow the license or stop using the code. Given that the AGPL doesn't have linking exceptions, the concern is that might be all of an organization's code.
That's not to say that you can't use open source in industries where these might be concerns -- almost all other common open source licenses don't have this problem.