2008/8/19 Arc Riley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > Greets. It's been awhile since I unsubscribed to this list, so a quick > introduction is that I'm the maintainer of the PySoy project, the game > engine being discussed here.
Thanks a lot for your input here, Arc :) > your modified version must prominently offer all users interacting with it > remotely through a computer network > > The terms of client/server/peer do not appear in the license text. A "user" > is thus any person operating software which interacts with the software > you're running, regardless of the network role your software is running in. > If you're running a 3d IM client connected to GTalk, and that client has > modified code, you're thus required to allow Google sysadmins to receive a > copy of your changes. It seems that the logic under AGPL is to consider a network connection (which doesn't have to be the Internet, it can be, lets say, bluetooth) almost at the same level as code linkage then. It makes sense from a certain point of view. AGPL seems to consider then more or less communication through a network as if it was "linking" server and client (or two peers) using a network protocol instead of a direct code call. This does not affect at all to one program calling another one, as far as I understand, and it would be possible to circunvent this kind of protection by, for example, having part of the server engine code in a different program and communicating to the AGPL-covered part via local pipes, files or a database, for example, the same way that it would be able to circunvent GPL in similar circumstances, am I wrong? I also understand that lower layers in the communication are not considered users, even though they interact with the program through a network. I mean that an http proxy wouldn't be considered as user of a web app, as it only transmits the information and doesn't use it in any way. Same thing goes for routers, for example. I'm not exactly sure how it would be technically possible to "prominently offer all users interacting with it remotely through a computer network [...] an opportunity to receive the Corresponding Source..." in certain kind of programs that do not have a textual interaction with people. I can think of many of those protocols, for example Network Time Protocol or DNS. In case that this textual interaction is possible, but you don't want to reveal your identity to protect your intimacy (thus, remaining anonymous), the only way of being able to transfer the corresponding source would be through some server in the same network connection. Even in that case, the license probably requires you to have the source code available some period of time afterwards (three years), because you might not be able to guarantee that the time frame in which you are connected to the network might be enough for the other user to download it. So, everything is pointing towards this situation: 1) The program must somehow inform the other user that the source code is available, which might be quite hard depending on the communication protocol. 2) The source code must be put in a more or less stable server, with the cost associated to that, because you cannot trust the current network link to be enough to fulfill the requirements of the license. 3) The user cannot remain anonymous. Some situations that bother me: 1) You use the code to make a game for your mobile phone or a games console 2) Embedded programs, or small lappies kinda OLPC or EEE 3) Unreliable connections like mobile ones 4) Games in which, for any reason, you'd prefer to remain anonymous (because of their sexual, ideological, or somehow controversial nature) I'm also quite bothered regarding to which extent does the AGPL applies to the libraries they depend on. If I have an AGPL-covered web application running on a modified version of Apache, or maybe I might have some some Apache modules, must I release all of them at the same time? If I buy a linux-based mobile phone, or a nokia 810 device, and I make a game based on an AGPL library that, lets say, allows playing in network through Bluetooth with other devices, am I not allowed to use that game in a private way, without having to set up a server, advertise that I'm using that game and where the server is and so on? At least those are some of my concerns. Greetings, Miry -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]