I’ve been, shall we say, debating the AGPL with the Neo4j guys for a few weeks now. I’d originally reviewed Neo4j for some uses at SimpleGeo, but ended up excluding it as a possibility for three reasons.
- It didn’t support replication.
- There wasn’t any inherent support for partitioning. This means we’d have to use Memcached’esque hashing to partition our data, which might work for many, but won’t work for our use cases.
- It was licensed under the AGPL.
The first two precluded me from using it merely on technical reasons, which aren’t huge hurdles because I was looking for a foundation to build on and would have gladly built that into Neo4j and released it back. The AGPL, however, was a deal breaker.
For those who don’t know, the AGPL is an incredibly viral license that says that not only do you have to redistribute your code changes, as the GPL states, but you must also publicly release any code that connects to an AGPL piece of software over a network. I fear the day that an HTTP server is built using AGPL. Think about it.
I’m extremely opposed to viral software. Since when is the term “viral” a good thing? Ultimately, though, my biggest complaint is the blatant hypocrisy of companies using AGPL. They’re basically stating that they’re “open” and “free”, when in reality they’re outsourcing free labor while retaining the right to charge for a proprietary license. The hypocrisy comes from companies trumpeting this so-called freedom when, in reality, they’re forcing certain behavior on their users. Reminds me of pious people saying, “You can live your life however you want! As long as you live it according to our rules.”
You want real freedom in software? Then release your code into the public domain, use CC0, or a BSD/Apache/MIT license. That’s true freedom. Anyone who tells you otherwise is either lying or delusional.
So do I have an issue with proprietary software? No, because Microsoft isn’t trying to play me for a fool. They’re up front saying, “Hey, it’s $199 to install Windows.” I can respect that. They’ve spent a lot of time building a product. They think it’s worth something. Consumers think it’s worth something. Simple economics come into effect after that.
What about services like SimpleGeo and AWS? No, because it’s not that you’re buying software. You’re buying a service. The crucial differentiator here is if your data is free. You’re not paying for AWS software or SimpleGeo software, you’re paying for service, support, and knowledge. What you pay SimpleGeo for is our knowledge in scaling, managing large server clusters, our data agreements with our various partners, and ease-of-use. It’s the same reason you go to the restaurant for a dish you could make at home.
What about Twitter or Digg? No, because those are communities. The notion that the software that runs Digg or Twitter is what makes them so special is ludicrous. The reason people keep going back to those sites is to participate with like-minded people in an environment they find fun and interesting. It’s like going to the bar.
So, in conclusion, if you’re going to release software then grow a pair and truly set your code free. If not, that’s fine too. Just don’t release your code using some zealot’s license and pretend your code is truly free when it’s not.