Free Software Foundation Rides To Defend AGPLv3 Against Neo4j License Add-ons (fsf.org) 33
This week the Free Software Foundation "backed a lone developer's brave effort to overturn a pivotal court ruling that threatens to undermine the AGPLv3 — the foundation's GNU Affero General Public License, version 3," reports the Register.
"At stake is the future of not just the AGPLv3, but the FSF's widely used GNU Public License it is largely based on, and the software covered by those agreements." A core tenet of the GPL series is that free software remains free forever, and this is woven into the licenses' fine print. This ongoing legal battle is a matter of whether people can alter those licenses and redistribute code as they see fit in a non-free way, or if they must stick to the terms of an agreement that says the terms cannot be changed... If the Ninth Circuit upholds the [original district court] ruling, it's likely to create a binding precedent that would limit one of the major freedoms that AGPLv3 and other GPL licenses aim to protect — the ability to remove restrictions added to GPL licensed code.
"Neo4j appended an additional nonfree commercial restriction, the Commons Clause, to a verbatim version of the GNU AGPLv3 in a version of its software..." according to an FSF announcement this week. "The FSF's position on such confusing licensing practices has always been clear: the GNU licenses explicitly allow users to remove restrictions incompatible with the four freedoms." (You can read their amicus brief here.)
Thanks to Slashdot reader jms00 for sharing the news.
"At stake is the future of not just the AGPLv3, but the FSF's widely used GNU Public License it is largely based on, and the software covered by those agreements." A core tenet of the GPL series is that free software remains free forever, and this is woven into the licenses' fine print. This ongoing legal battle is a matter of whether people can alter those licenses and redistribute code as they see fit in a non-free way, or if they must stick to the terms of an agreement that says the terms cannot be changed... If the Ninth Circuit upholds the [original district court] ruling, it's likely to create a binding precedent that would limit one of the major freedoms that AGPLv3 and other GPL licenses aim to protect — the ability to remove restrictions added to GPL licensed code.
"Neo4j appended an additional nonfree commercial restriction, the Commons Clause, to a verbatim version of the GNU AGPLv3 in a version of its software..." according to an FSF announcement this week. "The FSF's position on such confusing licensing practices has always been clear: the GNU licenses explicitly allow users to remove restrictions incompatible with the four freedoms." (You can read their amicus brief here.)
Thanks to Slashdot reader jms00 for sharing the news.
question (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
The FSF claims that users are free to delete the additional terms, which is a very ... creative ... interpretation of how copyright works. Otherwise it's the first of your alternatives (the FSF doesn't think the Neo4j people should have modified a GPL version).
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It isn't that creative. You've been given a license that has a certain set of terms, one of which says that you're allowed to ignore additional attached terms.
This is ultimately a copyright issue -- of the license itself. FSF doesn't want their licenses used for non Free Software contexts, which is why you are only allowed to distribute the license unmodified and said license text is poisoned against trying to attach additional stuff to it.
From the point of view of FSF this wouldn't primarily be about anyth
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That's also how I see it. And if the FSF is right, the company would be guilty of copyright infringement but their customers would still be bound by the license terms. (Failing that, the license would be invalid and there would be no license until the company provides a new one.)
Re:question - which license terms? (Score:2)
but their customers would still be bound by the license terms.
That's correct, but the question is "what license terms", which are they? There are two contradictory claims, the one in the GPL, which lets you delete other terms and the one in the NEO4J license which doesn't.
Typically, when a company writes a legal agreement with contradictory claims, the customer gets to say which one *they* were relying on and they get to choose. That's normal and a thing which makes sense in law because the company that had the possibility of fixing the problem is the one that should
Re: question (Score:2)
Don't want creative interpretations of copyright, don't use GPL. It's that simple. Use something that's different that GPL, and, very importantly, do NOT use anything GPL-licensed in your product, and then these creative interpretations don't apply to you.
If Neo4j used others' GPL code in their product, then they violated the GPL license by using a modified GPL. If they did not, then the FSF doesn't actually have a say, except to rightfully call Neo4j out for their dick move (creating a licensing trap).
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There's nothing creative in the interpretation of copyright law in the GPL (merely a creative use of it). The basics of copyright are pretty simple: you have absolutely no right whatsoever to do anything at all with someone else's stuff*.
The copyright holder can grant you use of it under a license that has whatever terms they like+, and if you don't agree to those terms, however odd, you have absolutely no rights at all to use their stuff*.
If the license terms are that you have to post a yearly video if you
Re: (Score:2)
They copied the AGPL license verbatim, including the clause that says you can remove any restriction added to the license, then tacked on the commons clause restriction at the end.
I'm surprised a court didn't just say tough shit, you said this guy could do what he did in the license you distributed the software under.
I don't think the guy had a lawyer and I think he represented himself.
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It might still be an argument, because if a license is self-contradictory, which interpretation do you choose?
For starters It is probably going to depend on HOW the author informed you of what the software's licensing was. And how that "additional restriction" was added. There are obviously ways a copyright owner can license something to you and Not allow you to remove a restriction, even if one of the license agreements they are including had said so.
If a Contract contains conflicting terms, then th
Re: question (Score:2)
What the court decides, of course.
copyright (Score:5, Informative)
This is poorly explained in the summary, so... here goes:
The FSF holds copyright on the AGPLv3 -the license itself. The AGPLv3 states that any additional restrictive terms added to the license are not valid and can be disregarded -that the license is only valid in its original form as published by the FSF. It is specifically allowable to use the license as written, and to redistribute copies of the license, but not to modify the license.
Neo4j's use of a modified AGPLv3 is an unlicensed derivative work, a violation of the copyright on the AGPL.. But this does not address the point of whether the license is a valid license. (**MY TAKE is that it would still be a valid license and that the copyright violation in creating a derivative work would be a separate matter legally.**)
Neo4j added their terms to the end of the AGPLv3 (in violation of the license on the AGPLv3) -complete with the clause stating that the added terms are invalid. There is a conflict in the license as presented: Clause X says that Clause Z is invalid. What happens then?
The court ruled that Clause Z stands, because it was the intent of the publisher (Neo4j), and their mistake did not invalidate the intent.
This is being contested (by John Mark Suhy and his two companies PureThink and iGov) on the grounds that (per contract law statute and precedence) vague terms or conflicts within the terms of a contract MUST be interpreted in favor of the party that did not write the contract.
The FSF is writing as a "friend of the court" in assertion of their copyright on the AGPLv3 license and their intent as its publisher that the license not be modified.
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The likelihood that a court would sustain any cause of action based on copyright infringement of the AGPL or GPL itself is about nil.
Copyright infringement is copyright infringement.
You could argue it would be commercial/criminal copyright infringement, which comes with much bigger penalties.
But the license wasn't modified and they didn't violate the terms of the copyright.
Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this license document, but changing it is not allowed.
The copied it verbatim. Adding stuff on the end of their license isn't changing the verbatim copy they made.
Being a verbatim copy, means in included this little bit here
If the Program as you received it, or any part of it, contains a notice stating that it is governed by this License along with a term that is a further restriction, you may remove that term.
Re: (Score:2)
Do these random contracts have specific language in them saying you aren't allowed to distribute modified copies of their text?
It's one thing to fair use handwave-as-conventionally-accepted only-copyright-violation-in-a-hypertechnical-sense copying text of random licenses and contracts, but a typical conventional contract or license doesn't specifically ask you not to distribute modified copies of it.
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As far as my own experience on this matter, I spent a number of years working with Reynolds & Reynolds on LAW contracts, and they've successfully defended their copyrights and patents related to their contracts being used/modified/recreated by other companies without authorization over the years.
Re: you're not a lawyer (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I
You, A. Nonymous Coward?
am telling you, as someone who has worked in commercial law for literally decades, that contracts are copied from one another ALL THE TIME.
And?
Nobody writes a contract from a clean-sheet
No doubt this is true, if you don't skip labor that you're billing for, where's the profit?
California Association of Realtors [...] it's not realty.
It literally is realty.
I know I'm wasting my breath talking about something you probably don't know anything about
What we know is that not every violation of copyright is prosecuted. That makes your argument irrelevant. Cite the law which states that you can't violate copyright by copying a contract or stop your handwaving bullshit. Nobody is impressed by the "I'm a lawyer" argument here, we all do things where the complexity is underappreciated and most of us are capable of deci
Re: (Score:2)
You could argue it would be commercial/criminal copyright infringement, which comes with much bigger penalties.
I would argue that it is possibly Fair Use to modify the AGPL to create "John Doe's" AGPL and then apply that modified AGPL to your software. The Fair Use analysis would have to include the fact that the AGPL's purpose is not commercial to begin with, and it also has unlimited Verbatim distribution for free. Your modified AGPL does not affect the market for the original license, and, A key c
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I wouldn't say it's fair use when used with a commercial product, to stop others using the work for commercial purposes.
It's not "John Doe's AGPL", it's "Neo4J Inc's AGPL"
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It's not "John Doe's AGPL", it's "Neo4J Inc's AGPL"
Doesn't matter if it's John Doe's AGPL or Microsoft's AGPL. The only Fair Use pillar concerned with whether they're commercial would be the Purpose and Character of their use of the work that gets considered after the Nature of the work. And many commercial purposes are still fair use.
The AGPL is a largely non-creative work whose purpose is to specify a set of rules. Contractual language has similar copyrightability to the rules of chess, or any o
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I don't think there is any copyright issue with Neo4j adding clauses to the end of AGPLv3. They're not modifying the license, they reproduced it in full.
If they removed the clause that allows any restriction added to be removed, that would be a violation of the AGPLv3 copyright.
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That's exactly why the license is written like that, so it can't be combined with an enforceable commons clause.
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If you take a book, reproduce it exactly, and add commentary at the end, the resulting work is a derivative work and you need permission of the original copyright holder to distribute it. FSF has only granted permission to use the AGPL exactly as it is with no modification or additions, so Neo4j had no permission to use their modified version of the AGPL, and doing so was violating FSF's copyright.
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This isn't the issue. Neo4j didn't violate FSF's copyright.
You distribute your top level license that includes the original text of AGPL alongside some additional restrictions. This is a 100% expected thing to do. The original license has in section 7 a permitted set of restrictions, and then a clause saying that if you find any other "further restrictions" you can strip them out.
The problem is that Neo4j actually did that -- they added an "other further restriction", and someone went and distributed a
Re: (Score:2)
Neo4j added their terms to the end of the AGPLv3 (in violation of the license on the AGPLv3) -complete with the clause stating that the added terms are invalid.
In violation of the Distribution agreement for the text of the AGPL
However, the modified AGPL is still the license that applies to the software. The author could have complied with the Distribution Agreement for the AGPL by shipping the AGPL in its original form And specifying that the software is licensed under "An Amended AGPL" with the
Re: (Score:2)
The court ruled that Clause Z stands, because it was the intent of the publisher (Neo4j), and their mistake did not invalidate the intent.
This is where it seems pretty foolish to me. the contract is absolutely crystal clear in its wording as is the intent of the AGPL, which verbatim forms the majority of the contract. Somehow the "intent" of Neo4j matters more than the wording of the contract and the intent of the majority of the contract. And you have to guess the "intent" is the rider clause, not the main
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