And the weirdest part about the complaint is that this is an application your employees could run on their computers to write documents. It's not like the discussion is about a library or package to be included in the product you're shipping.

Yeah. I challenge people here to break my claims down point by point from agpl license.

I could be wrong but let's see how wrong I really am.

With large companies with 100s of partners and contractors what is internal is fluid particularly over the network. So am sure they don't want to use such as a library.

Though I am not lawyer/license expert so that fact may be irrelevant more so using it as desktop app. But perception matters, if Goog/MSFT are not using it, a startup also won't risk using them lest some auditor flags it in next round of funding particularly if alternative is few dollars a month.

The software in question is an end product, like microsoft office.

>lest some auditor flags it in next round of funding

i am an auditor and a laywer, so what is there to flag? please enlighten me.

This is the AGPL, not the GPL. The AGPL may be based on the GPL but it is different, and has nothing to do with the Free Software Foundation.

Basically, you if you provide this software as a service to your customers, you are required to let them access the source code and modifications.

The AGPLv3, which OnlyOffice uses, is a FSF license.

>Basically, you if you provide this software as a service to your customers, you are required to let them access the source code and modifications.

the source code of "this" software and any modifications you made. so.... whats the problem?

Be is it may, there are companies like iText (Java PDF library) which are actively harassing companies which use their software, even if the use is perfectly legal (e.g. internal server software). So it's not only Google spreading FUD but companies which try to use AGPL as a trojan horse and then strong-arm users into commercial licenses.

The problem with AGPL is, that the definitions are very open to interpretation. What is a network, how many systems do have to be between to the end user and the software component to still count as "interacting over a network", etc.

So I would also not recommend to use AGPL in your company...

Please make your substantive points without fulminating or calling names. This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. In addition, it's in your own interest because it will make your argument much more persuasive.

Edit: we've had to ask you this at least once before: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32387908. Can you please stick to the rules when posting here? We have to ban accounts that won't, and I don't want to ban you.