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> FWIW, every company I've ever worked at bans AGPL products / code.

Is every company you've ever worked for a software vendor? Because those are the only companies that would be impacted at all by using AGPL products/code.




Any business that uses AGOL software needs to be able to provide the source code of that AGPL software to people who use their services

That is… just not something most online stores are interested in adding to their compliance burden.

And of course they will have changes. It’s a business software platform, the only way to accomplish some things is going to be through adding or modifying code.


> Any business that uses AGOL software needs to be able to provide the source code of that AGPL software to people who use their services

Step 1: add GitHub link to footer on website

...that's it, you have achieved compliance.

This "wah the AGPL is too viral" argument is the same FUDdy duddy nonsense Microsoft was whining about back in the early 2000's about the original GPL - and it's even less of a valid argument now than it was then, thanks to the existence of umpteen bajillion Git repo hosts that will gladly handle distributing said source code (and therefore making you compliant with the terms of said code's license) at zero cost to you.


Step 2: take responsibility for all the content of that GitHub link being free of copyright infingements, patent violations, etc.

And you missed step 0: convince the boss there’s a good reason why your e-commerce storefront needs to have a link to a GitHub page on it.


> Step 2: take responsibility for all the content of that GitHub link being free of copyright infingements, patent violations, etc.

You already do this when using any open-source software (because your legal right to use it depends on upstream's legal right to distribute it to you), so if any other FOSS license is okay then so is AGPL by this metric.

> And you missed step 0: convince the boss there’s a good reason why your e-commerce storefront needs to have a link to a GitHub page on it.

You already do this for license text / copyright info when using software under nearly any other FOSS license (unless you thought those attribution requirements in the MIT/ISC/BSD/etc. licenses were mere suggestions?).




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