Christopher Allan Webber

Christopher Allan Webber at

I like AGPL for client to server systems, but I've become convinced GPL is better for peer to peer. Maybe worth writing up reasoning eventually...

If you want to hear my rough thoughts on GPL over AGPL for p2p systems, more here

(I still believe in AGPL for C2S, and think it's the right choice for MediaGoblin fwiw!)

Christopher Allan Webber at 2017-07-19T23:11:11Z

I don't get it.  why wouldn't e.g. a magnet link be enough for any peer to satisfy the AGPL requirements?

Alexandre Oliva at 2017-07-20T04:21:39Z

I assume by that you mean "here's where the source repo is" link, which we do in MediaGoblin. That's fine enough for GMG and the "few" C2S applications you set up, but not all p2p systems might even provide a decent way to deliver those, though is suppose most could. But anyway, my experience is that those are easy to accidentally misconfigure; if you're running a new branch of some code, will you really remember to update the link? That's a lot of manual configuration. Now imagine you've taken sysadmins entirely out of the mix, and imagine you have to set these up for about 40 or so applications that are currently talking to the network on your desktop machine.

I'm also making the case that GPL does a better job in the P2P world than it does in the C2S world. Both because the power dynamics are more flat in P2P than C2S (and the power dynamics of the emerging C2S world were largely what motivated the AGPL), and because the direction things may be heading also includes more ambiguity between what's data and what's code (look at Ethereum smart contracts). An example of "what's data and what's code?" that's pretty clear that isn't currently covered under the AGPL is someone's .emacs file. Some parts of that someone might want to keep private, such as anti-spam or blocklist type rules, or even just what mailing list you're on. My thesis is, any code sent across the network in such a distributed sandboxed environment you should have full rights to, as the GPL provides! But I'm not sure the AGPL does what we want here.

Anyway, I still think AGPL is a good license choice for where it was designed to tackle the space of, and I think it was the right choice for MediaGoblin. I'm just saying I think GPL is a much better choice for peer to peer applications.

Christopher Allan Webber at 2017-07-21T13:11:29Z