The terms of the AGPL are pretty easy to comply with - <AUTHOR> https://drewdevault.com/2020/07/27/Anti-AGPL-propaganda.html <comment><USER3> > Obligatory: I'm not a lawyer; this is for informational purposes only.

and

> Google states that if, for example, Google Maps used PostGIS as its data > store, and PostGIS used the AGPL, Google would be required to release the > Google Maps code. This is not true. They would be required to release their > PostGIS patches in this situation. AGPL does not extend the GPL in that it > makes the Internet count as a form of linking which creates a derivative > work, as Google implies, but rather that it makes anyone who uses the the > software via the Internet entitled to its source code.

This is the problem: I've fought with IP lawyers we've had on retainer who always boil it down to: "It doesn't matter. We're not going to court to find out."

Is it FUD? Yes. But I am also not a lawyer, and I can only do so much to fight upwards as an IC. I've seen this exact mindset at every company I've ever worked for or with.

The real fear is that once you have an AGPL dependency, it's _possible_ that it makes it way into something you really don't want to release publicly, and now you have a huge mess of a problem. The easy solution: don't use software with that license.

(FWIW I hate this, and fully believe competent developers can not shoot themselves in the foot so extravagantly, but alas.)

<comment><USER4> I've taken AGPL through two FAANG reviews. Both arrived at the same very-much- not-FUD legal conclusion.

Paragraph 1 of section 13 requires modifications to be disclosed and source code for them to be offered to remote users. The license uses the term of art Corresponding Source for this.

Corresponding Source is defined in section 1 in a crystal clear way. Two separate teams of lawyers concluded that they could coherently argue the Corresponding Source definition implied not only the modified AGPL software, but also stuff that merely _uses_ it, on the basis that "scripts to control" among other things implies the infrastructure most shops build around software, such as Borg configuration and possibly by extension Borg. After all, a modified version of PostGIS is only useful to run in context, and Corresponding Source requires the context.

AGPL is unchallenged in court. The risk to being wrong about it as huge. It's risk aversion, not ideology, and it's important to remember that identifying an argument as part of legal review does not call it the correct one. Anyone who's ever worked with legal matters knows there is no such thing as "correct," there are rulings. The existence of the argument condemns the license for FAANG, not its validity. Testing that validity against a claim is perilous.

Perhaps if random engineers stopped calling legal opinion FUD and falsehoods and took a moment to listen to the feedback from lawyers who didn't write the license, we'd get somewhere with finding a palatable license for all parties. Instead, we get a holy war.

Strong disagree on developers not shooting themselves in the foot. If it's on GitHub, it ships. If you think about licenses in your day to day engineering, you are the 1%.

<comment><USER5> > AGPL is unchallenged in court. The risk to being wrong about it as huge. > It's risk aversion, not ideology, and it's important to remember that > identifying an argument as part of legal review does not call it the correct > one. Anyone who's ever worked with legal matters knows there is no such > thing as "correct," there are rulings. The existence of the argument > condemns the license for FAANG, not its validity.

Having worked with lawyers, this largely overstates the risk. Companies are happy to discuss, modify and sign new contracts every day.

All these contracts are "unchallenged in court", by definition, because they are entirely custom.

A lot of software licensing contracts for closed source have complex and restrictive clauses to prevent "renting" such software through SaaS or weakening limitations using legal loopholes.

Yet companies still sign such contracts.

Another type of custom and complex contract is employment.

Furthermore, companies sue each other every other day over contract violation around IP, copyright, trademarks, patents but also employment contracts, rent, building regulations, shipment delays, all of that.

The idea that a FLOSS license is some scary monster is propaganda.

The goal of such propaganda is to drive the FLOSS community to provide valuable software for free and with zero strings attached - aka free labor.

<comment><USER6> No, companies are not happy to discuss, modify, and sign new contracts every day. They are quite hesitant to. At Matasano, it became our practice simply to tell new clients we'd be happy to sign their paper and not ours, because we'd lose weeks just to get to the point where their legal would consider looking at our contracts. At my last company, we non-negotiably used our own contracts, and budgeted a month to legal review for every signup. New contracts are a big deal.

And, what's more, the contracts we're talking about are all basically pro- forma. They're nothing like the AGPL, which has, in reasonable interpretations, far-reaching impact on IP across the whole company.

<comment><USER5> > No, companies are not happy to discuss, modify, and sign new contracts every > day. They are quite hesitant to.

[citation needed]

> And, what's more, the contracts we're talking about are all basically pro- > forma.

I had very custom employment contracts with 2 well-known large tech companies. When asking to remove some clauses and add new ones they did not flinch at the ask and let me have meetings with their lawyers.

I have many other examples but a quick search on the internet can show how many contract-related discussions happen between large companies, suppliers, local governments & so on

Matasano is not the size of a FAANG and similar or maybe it has a small legal team by choice.

<comment><USER6> The authors of AGPL packages are also not the size of a FAANG! That's the point! If they were, they wouldn't be negotiating AGPL with Google; they'd be negotiating an actual contract.

(I have zero problem with AGPL and happily use it myself for things, but I use it the same way I feel most of my peers use it, as an explicit "no, FAANG, you can't use this code, pay me instead" marker.)

<comment><USER7> >If they were, they wouldn't be negotiating AGPL with Google; they'd be negotiating an actual contract.

This would stop being true if (and when) FAANG figured out how to effectively use AGPL internally. In my opinion, this is inevitable as long as software continues to be published under this license. From their perspective it seems they don't even have to do anything besides wait for other smaller companies to get in legal disputes and set a precedent. Or better yet, wait for a potential acquisition to come along that happens to have won one of these disputes.

<comment><USER6> If you're trying to pivot this to a place where I'll concede that AGPL is a good thing, you're wasting energy, because I already think AGPL is a good thing. I'm not making this point about contracts because I'm motivated to talk down AGPL; I'm doing it because, in my experience over the last 15 years, it has definitely _not_ been the case that companies are comfortable entering into arbitrary contracts. It's just not true.

<comment><USER8> Precisely. Also the negotiation takes a long time and usually the risk is not as high as agpl, since these contracts dont have clauses like 'all your ip is mine'(except one player here known to try to sneak such a clause in every time).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Disclaimer - As a CTO of a company I have to take a stance on these issues. As a matter of fact, as you raise money, part of the due diligence is to audit the libraries that you use to make sure that you don't use libraries that can jeopardize the future of the company.

 _Using an AGPL library for a Saas company will be flagged as a risk by lawyers during the due diligence process._

At Truework, we love open source and try to contribute when we can, but the reality is that if a library is AGPL, I'll ask my team to not use it. It's just not worth it to risk so much for a single library. Yes, it's unlikely that you will have to go to court because you use that one library, but if you do... well that's bad news for you.

If you build a business, it's about making sure that there there is a reasonable ROI for risks that you take. APGL tilts the balance towards "we shouldn't use this, it's too risky". Make your own decisions, but keep that in mind.

<comment><USER10> And if you rely on large companies as clients they will have a line asking about GPL/AGPL library use during contracting for similar risk reasons.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Hello, While I'm employed to develop an agpl software, and I fond of this license, it's clear that with the wrong actors it can be a threat to some businesses.

I'll tell you a little story that happened around 10 years ago:

I got a call from a representative of Oracle, he asked me if we where using MySQL, and if I could described him how, because he wanted to help us make Better use of this tool.

We where pretty happy about MySQL at the time, and I went into deep details about how we used it. At the end, he told me point blank that the PHP's MySQL driver was licenced under the GPL and that we had to licence our whole codebase under the GPL since it was contaminating our code as a whole. (Even if we had encapsulated all the accesses to the driver around a single class)

The alternative was to pay the right to use it under a non GPL contaminating way.

Oracle then called and threatened us many times.

The argument that made them stop was when we told us that we where hosting the applications. This argument would not have been sufficient with the agpl.

There claim was unfonded but I can assure you that I didn't sleep well for a while!

<comment><USER12> Stories like this are the reason I tell everyone to _never_ touch MySQL and anything related to Oracle. If you need a relational DB, look no further than PostgreSQL.

<comment><USER13> Alternatively, if arbitrary, highly-litigious vendors start probing your private business activities, politely roll them to voicemail and your spam folder.

Unless you are already under contract or other legal order to do so, you do not have to tell anyone anything regarding the nature of your business. Every piece of information you give to one of those assholes is something that will be used against you in a lawsuit. Don't make things harder on yourself.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> > Obligatory: I'm not a lawyer; this is for informational purposes only

That's the main point, though. You aren't, in fact, a lawyer. And this is not, in fact legal advice. You are presumably expert in a non-legal field, and you are giving expert opinion on something you are not an expert on.

The GPL is tested. The LGPL less so, but lawyers seem to be more comfortable with it.

There's the extra complexity that Google compiles its binaries statically.

You're calling Google liars. There's an alternative interpretation of events where a whole legal department, with great lawyers, and backed by great engineers to clarify the technical aspects for the lawyers, come to a different conclusion than yours.

And you just dismiss that as lies. I don't think that's fair at all. You wouldn't want a lawyer to come and say "bah, you should just make that inherently NP problem complete fast for all inputs. How hard could it be? If you say it's hard then you're lying.".

> this is for informational purposes only

This is pretty arrogant. "I'm not a lawyer, but here are the real legal facts to ACTUALLY educate you".

You should say it's "for speculation purposes only", or "for entertainment purposes only".

> Don't be afraid to use the AGPL, and don't be afraid to use software which > uses the AGPL.

This is ignoring one big problem though. Agree or not, call them liars or not, but Google _and it 's employees_ will NOT touch your software. Not only will you not get Google as users (though if you dual-license yes in fact Google DOES buy software, if they can buy it as non-AGPL), you will not get Google employees as _contributors_.

<comment><USER15> > You're calling Google liars. There's an alternative interpretation of events > where a whole legal department, with great lawyers, and backed by great > engineers to clarify the technical aspects for the lawyers, come to a > different conclusion than yours.

Google claims that they care about your privacy. Entire teams of engineers and lawyers will say the same thing. But when you look at it, you can plainly see that they are probably just saying that because their main business is collecting data about you. Similarly, Google runs many projects with a closed- source server-side component, and using the AGPL would not let them do that. Do you see why it is not surprising they would come to a different conclusion?

<comment><USER14> So your legal interpretation as a lawyer (I assume) is an ad hominem on Google for unrelated reasons?

<comment><USER16> When you complain about someone calling Google liars, the fact that Google has a long history of flagrant lying is not an ad hominem but relevant background.

<comment><USER14> Background yes, argument no.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Awesome article! I was in an organization which had an AGPL ban. After a couple of months with lawyers, it's now a major AGPL supporter. AGPL lets you build ecosystems around your software, where everyone contributes, and no one can parasitically compete with you. It's absolutely the right tool for a lot of uses.

I'm no longer with the organization, but it had:

* Hundreds of open-source contributors

* Millions of users, mostly paying

* Zero direct competitors using the software. With equal ground for technology, it'd be almost impossible to overcome first-mover and branding advantage unless the organization really messed up

* Hundreds of major open source users doing interesting things with the software and using it in non-competing contexts. That translated into product enhancements.

With GPL or BSD, it almost certainly would have played out as lots of competitors doing an extend-and-proprietize, and instead of a successful open company, it would have been a dead organization.

So many misconceptions abound.

The flip side, though, isn't that everyone should use the AGPL. You should have the right license for the right context.

<comment><USER18> I find this comment puzzling. You're arguing from an IP owner's perspective. Whether you support using AGPL for your own software is completely orthogonal to whether you should use someone else's AGPL code in your proprietary product (assuming being proprietary is a done decision).

(Btw, one can argue that you have a vested interest in strengthening AGPL so that other companies would more readily choose your AGPL software and then be locked in to your ecosystem, so you're knowingly minimizing the associated risks on this thread.

You see what I did there? Yeah, attack on your integrity based on speculations, exactly like TFA.)

<comment><USER7> The simple solution there is to not make a proprietary product to begin with. Sorry, not trying to be snarky, but that (among other things) is the price you pay for that decision. It's baffling to me how some companies are so resistant to having to conduct legal reviews to use open source, which in a lot of cases will directly make them money, but at the same time these companies will gladly wave a giant NDA at someone just to start a negotiation.

<comment> kube-system It's not always a choice. There are people who cannot open source their software due to other legal, organizational, or practical factors.

<comment><USER7> That is still a choice. It may just be that your boss is ignoring your input and making the choice for you, which is a different problem.

<comment> kube-system No, there are plenty of circumstances where there laws and/or contractual obligations other than software licenses become involved in software development which can conflict. See healthcare, government, finance, regulated industries, etc.

<comment><USER17> I've worked in several of those industries. Oddly enough, open source was always easier there. I'd challenge you to find a regulation which prevents open source in any of those industries.

I think the one exception -- and this was an extreme example -- was the firmware of a medical device which could endanger human lives if modified. Things were locked down.

But generically? I'm batting maybe 75% with open source in highly-regulated industries.

<comment> kube-system ITAR? Any contract work under an NDA? Sensitive government work? Any code that implements trade secrets? Any custom enterprise software with hard-coded exceptions for controlled data?

You can certainly _use_ open source in regulated industries -- the question is, can they risk the legal possibility of being forced to open source _the rest of their stack_ if the a court determines AGPL requires it.

<comment><USER17> I'm not saying everything done is open source. I'm saying it's less common in regulated industries.

NDA / sensitive government work -> FOIA makes restrictions tough. I can request government source code.

Trade secrets -> The government can't really keep trade secrets. I guess if I were working with classified code?

Hard-coded exceptions -> Not specific to regulated industries but bad design.

Legal possibility -> This is not a legal possibility. A legal possibility is paying damages. It's the same if I break a proprietary license too (for example, accidentally ship out a copy of a library I paid for just one license with my product).

<comment> kube-system FOIA has a substantial list of exemptions, and many of them would apply to a lot of code that the government uses.

Above, I was referring to trade secrets in the private sector, but actually, that is one of the FOIA exemptions too.

Also, a lot of code running in production is poorly designed. I'd bet the vast majority of it is poorly designed.

Damages are one part of it, but you also have to return to compliance, which means you either have to follow the license or stop using the code. Given that the AGPL doesn't have linking exceptions, the concern is that might be _all_ of an organization's code.

That's not to say that you can't use open source in industries where these might be concerns -- almost all other common open source licenses _don 't_ have this problem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I have significant responsibility for setting open-source policy at my company. We require specific review on a facts-and-circumstances basis of any AGPL usage.

Why? Because for most open-source licenses, it's clear how to avoid any license controversy entirely by simply never conveying the licensed work. If I don't ship you ("convey to you") any binaries, I have no obligations to you under GPL (or MIT or Apache, obviously). For the most part, we don't ship anyone outside the company binaries, so compliance (both in fact and in provability of that fact) is relatively easy. Not so with AGPL.

If there was critically useful code only licensed under AGPL, we'd consider it, of course. But it would get a lot more review than a typical Apache/MIT/GPL license situation. I have no philosophical objection to AGPL; I just find it a much less practical license than most of the other, much more commonly used, licenses.

<comment><USER17> It's neither more nor less practical in general. It's less practical for your company.

It depends on what you're trying to accomplish. If your goal is to build a low-friction library for others to adopt (e.g. JQuery), it's a horrible, horrible license. If you're trying to build an ecosystem around an end-user tool (e.g. I'm making a web-based competitor to Adobe Illustrator), it can be an awesome license. Lots of open source tools aren't intended to be integrated into other systems, but used stand-alone. That's where licenses like the AGPL really shine.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I haven't commented on HN in a while, but this article actually pretty much complains about me, since I wrote the text in question and enabled the policy to be released.

So i'm just going to say:

1\. The author claims the Google states something, then doesn't actually quote anything google stated, but instead writes their own interpretation of the words and a made up example. That's not a good start.

2\. Having set up their own example, the author then proceeds to say it's wrong because of an appeal to authority, asserting no reasonable disagreement is possible - when not only is it possible, but large numbers of IP lawyers disagree on what the AGPL requires. It's true that someone wrote it, and there are FAQ's, but depending when and where, their opinion on what it means is not as relevant as one might think.

In truth, lots of people disagree over interpretation of the AGPL - many more than disagree about GPL interpretation or LGPL interpretation (which are fairly settled at this point). Searches over any legal licensing list in existence will you this.

When I wrote the interpretation you see here, it was the best available info at the time, guided not just by own views, but by listening to a lot of smart lawyers, counterparts at other companies, etc.

Even if you ignore all the lawyers and whatever as useless, the author has the huge problem that _There are people who make AGPL software that take the view listed in the google policy_

So it's not just Google or lawyers, it's _software authors_. Not just a few, either.

While companies are generally happy to ignore one or two people whose interpretation is outside the norm (and just not use their software), that's much harder when there is such widespread difference in view of the AGPL.

3\. For no particular reason at all, the author then decides to assert a tremendous amount of bad faith in interpretation of the AGPL and reasons for publishing such policies.

We published our policies because over the years I (and others) were repeatedly asked by counterparts at other companies, various communities, and others to understand what our policies look like, for a variety of reasons (to understand for themselves, to use as a template, etc)

Period. That's the whole reason. It even says this: [https://opensource.google/docs/](https://opensource.google/docs/)

The author here has decided that's clearly all lies or deliberate misinformation, without even bothering to even ask anybody.

<comment><USER21> Thanks for having publiished these policies publicly! You gave a pretty clear summary of Google's motivations for banning AGPL on HN five and three years ago two of the previous times this came up, and having worked at Google 2011-2015 (including some interactions there with you), your public explanations of why from back then are extremely credible and rational given the logistics of what's easy and hard inside Google.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9956542](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9956542)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13979443](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13979443)

Not that I'm surprised, as you've always been pretty forthright and honest. Thanks for continuing to be that way.

<comment><USER20> Of course. I appreciate the thoughts. I try my best to be transparent and straightforward.

I actually do think it's reasonable to expect companies to re-evaluate every few years (at a minimum) because the world changes. At some point, the reasoning from X years ago will not make sense anymore.

One of the top rules of sane policy making is to write into the policy the conditions that should cause you to re-evaluate it, whether it's time, or change in evidence you relied on, or ...

You want people to understand your rationale and what might change your mind, otherwise you shouldn't expect them to go along with it.

Even though such a rationale exists in various emails, etc, I actually failed to do that in the resulting police here, unfortunately (the internal version is not any better in this respect). That one is on me and I think would be a more legitimate complaint here.

I don't think it would have changed yet (if anything, the AGPL has become more contentious as the economy has gone south), but that's just an at-a-glance view.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > Google states that if, for example, Google Maps used PostGIS as its data > store, and PostGIS used the AGPL, Google would be required to release the > Google Maps code. This is not true. They would be required to release their > PostGIS patches in this situation. AGPL does not extend the GPL in that it > makes the Internet count as a form of linking which creates a derivative > work, as Google implies, but rather that it makes anyone who uses the the > software via the Internet entitled to its source code.

Is there an existing national court case which supports this assertion? Otherwise it's a valid concern given that lawsuits and judges may have different interpretations than engineers. Just look at the Oracle vs. Google debacle over Java.

<comment><USER17> Eben Moglen wrote the AGPL. There's a standard process courts use to figure this stuff out. Intent fits into it. Eben Moglen clearly states what he meant in many talks. Courts favor intended interpretation of a contract. That makes the risk pretty small.

<comment><USER22> In the case of ambiguity in a contract, courts look at the intent of the parties to the contract. In almost all cases Moglen will not be a party, and at least one of the actual parties will not be aware of those talks or their content, so Moglen's talks on the matter won't really be of much use.

Courts will also look at the bargaining power of the parties. If the party offering the contract is a lot more powerful than the party accepting the contract, they will tend to favor the accepting party when it comes to ambiguous terms.

<comment><USER17> It's a little more complex than that. The intent of the parties /drafting/ the contract do matter. Public writings clarifying the intent do as well.

<comment><USER23> This is probably one of the reasons why the Free Software Foundation has such an extensive FAQ, because it's the easiest way for them to document their intent.

<comment><USER17> Indeed. It's hard to go back and argue a different interpretation later in court, if the intended interpretation is so clearly stated and defined.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> So. From the POW of a total lay person as far as it comes to law.

Someone writes a blog post with an 'IANAL' disclaimer on top saying that what Google's army of lawyers have gathered from reading a legal document is false, and I should favor his interpretation instead. I don't know, I'm not exactly convinced.

<comment><USER25> >Someone writes a blog post with an 'IANAL' disclaimer on top saying that what Google's army of lawyers have gathered from reading a legal document is false, and I should favor his interpretation instead. I don't know, I'm not exactly convinced.

Microsoft with their giant army of lawyers also said GPL is a cancer and they promoted this idea a lot but today Microsoft "loves" GPL. I think you can conclude that you should use your own brain to decide and not let a giant company decide for you, they might have a huge financial interest to promote a certain narrative. It is clear in this case that Google would prefer their employees won't work on their free time on AGPL code.

<comment><USER24> I was not actually talking about the totality of Google's verdict about AGPL. For some projects in some companies it might just be the right license to use. Rather, I was talking about the particular example of Google Maps and PostGIS.

Google's army of lawyers say: If PostGIS 'this' => Google Maps must be 'this'. And the author says, 'no, that's false'. Someone must be wrong here. And if I had to place a bet on which side is more likely to have gotten it the way a court of law might interpret it, I'd put my bet on a bunch of people with law degrees.

<comment><USER23> I would be careful about that. People with law degrees _rarely_ provide useful generic guidance. They're paid _not_ to, and there's a lot of downsides for them to do so.

Consequently, _always_ treat guidance from folks with law degrees with a degree of skepticism. Do your own research and ideally get your own person with a law degree to develop an opinion you can trust.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Big corporations avoiding AGPL like the plague makes it a much better "don't be evil" license than any other attempts at making one of those. If anything, I'd love to see some dual license scheme where a different license is available only to small developers or non-profits, rather rather than corporations with bags of cash. I wonder how that can be enforced - <USER2> some sort of a CLA that only gives limited rights to relicense instead of just handing over the copyright entirely.

And yeah, this goes entirely counter to making profit, but hey, I think we're privileged enough to afford to try ideas like this.

</comment><comment><USER27> Truth or falsehoods aside, the reason one of the places I have worked (large 10's of k's of employees, big legal staff) refused to let us use AGPL is that it had never been decided in court, and they didn't want to be the ones to foot that bill.

"No" is pretty cheap, and they were pretty good at it.

<comment><USER15> > "No" is pretty cheap

Now, is it really? Paying a team of software engineers to recreate every AGPL project surely isn't…

<comment><USER28> Nobody is using every AGPL project and there aren't that many AGPL projects to begin with.

The problem is not just the risk associated with AGPL, it's also that the benefit is actually quite small. I think most companies would be a lot more willing to use AGPL, if there were any compelling projects using it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> > Any derivative works of AGPL-licensed software must also use the AGPL.

TBH, I'm interpreting this statement just like Google is:

> Google states that if, for example, Google Maps used PostGIS as its data > store, and PostGIS used the AGPL, Google would be required to release the > Google Maps code.

What's the definition of 'derivative work' here?

<comment><USER30> A derivative work of PostGIS would be a fork or patches to PostGIS (i.e, a set database extensions for geographic/spatial queries). A mapping application that used PostGIS is not a derivative work of PostGIS, in the same way that a C program linked against glibc is not a derivative work of glibc.

At least, that's my layperson's understanding of it.

<comment><USER31> > in the same way that a C program linked against glibc is not a derivative > work of glibc

I believe this is only as a result of the linking exception; I don't know if this has ever been tested, but my understanding was that linking (either statically or dynamically) against a library was generally considered enough to be a derivative work.

<comment><USER32> My last heads up a fiew years ago was:

Legally people can't decide which form of linkage count as deriving and if the linkage form even matter, but static linking with LTO is most times seen as causing a derivative to be produced.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> > Google states that if, for example, Google Maps used PostGIS as its data > store, and PostGIS used the AGPL, Google would be required to release the > Google Maps code. This is not true. They would be required to release their > PostGIS patches in this situation. AGPL does not extend the GPL in that it > makes the Internet count as a form of linking which creates a derivative > work, as Google implies, but rather that it makes anyone who uses the the > software via the Internet entitled to its source code.

I don't really follow this.

The fact that the linking exception and the LGPL exist at all is enough to infer that the FSF/license authors consider linking against or otherwise using a piece of software as a component of a larger system is enough to make that larger system a derivative work of the smaller component, thus "tainting" (I use this work non-disparagingly) it with the copyleft provisions of the license.

If Google Maps (that is the suite of software running on Google's servers) uses PostGIS as its data store then it seems that without a judicial ruling on whether there's a legal difference between interfacing with a software component by linking against it and interfacing with a software component by using some other software interface, it's not possible to be so certain that there isn't an issue here.

</comment><comment><USER33> "The Google page about the AGPL details inaccurate (but common1) misconceptions about the obligations of the AGPL that don't follow from the text."

"The reason they spread these misconceptions is straightforward: they want to discourage people from using the AGPL, because they cannot productize such software effectively."

"Ask yourself: why is documentation of internal-facing decisions like what software licenses to use being published in a public place?"

To be perfectly clear, your claim is:

\- Google internally knows they can comply with the AGPL without trouble

\- Has consciously chosen to write policies prohibiting it based on misleading reasons

\- Google adheres to that policy

\- Most importantly: they are doing this because they believe that the influence this would have in discouraging use of the AGPL is valuable enough to substantially benefit Google

Have I understood correctly?

<comment><USER34> I don't know exactly what the author of this post means, but it doesn't have be a "conscious" decision on the part of Google to spread misleading information for their own benefit. It's very easy (I contend) for humans to believe things that are poorly supported by the evidence but which are beneficial for them.

So even if it's obvious that the AGPL doesn't have the effects that Google's policy suggests it does, it doesn't require active deception on the part of Google for them to believe it does. It just requires that they be deluding themselves for their own benefit - which I think is a very common practice for humans.

<comment><USER33> This is a good point. My two thoughts are:

1\. I don't find it easy to read the original post as implying Google is honestly convinced of its viewpoint.

2\. It's a huge difference in meaning. Assume for the sake of argument that Drew is right about the interpretation of AGPL.

How should we interpret Google's actions? If they're paranoid, and afraid that the AGPL might require them to open-source their entire code base, that's unfortunate. You might still call them greedy assholes making open source worse, but it is a real fear that most commercial entities would be concerned about if it's realistic.

But if they knew better, and were lying, that's a completely different level of shitty behavior. If there's any ambiguity about that in Drew's post, it ought to be resolved.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Companies like MongoDB release a 'free' version using AGPL and a commercial version under no such provision, and use this in marketing material to convince commercial users to buy licensing so they can incorporate their DB into web based products.

If this distinction is without merit for those simply using MongoDB as an unmodified DB, this seems like it wouldn't actually work so well as a sales tool.

<comment><USER36> Current versions of MongoDB are not available under an AGPL at all. It is effectively no longer open source.

Older, (unpatched) versions are still AGPL, but there were no commercial restrictions at that stage.

<comment><USER37> The current free license has this interesting snippet:

13\. Offering the Program as a Service. If you make the functionality of the Program or a modified version available to third parties as a service, you must make the Service Source Code available via network download to everyone at no charge, under the terms of this License. Making the functionality of the Program or modified version available to third parties as a service includes, without limitation, enabling third parties to interact with the functionality of the Program or modified version remotely through a computer network, offering a service the value of which entirely or primarily derives from the value of the Program or modified version, or offering a service that accomplishes for users the primary purpose of the Program or modified version.

"Service Source Code" means the Corresponding Source for the Program or the modified version, and the Corresponding Source for all programs that you use to make the Program or modified version available as a service, including, without limitation, management software, user interfaces, application program interfaces, automation software, monitoring software, backup software, storage software and hosting software, all such that a user could run an instance of the service using the Service Source Code you make available.

I know a bunch of startups using Mongo... i wonder if i could make them give me their systems source, given this clause.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> > Google states that if, for example, Google Maps used PostGIS as its data > store, and PostGIS used the AGPL, Google would be required to release the > Google Maps code.

I can't see that statement, or anything like it, in the linked article. Am I missing something?

<comment><USER39> You're not. The author writes "Google states" and then follows it with his own example/interpretation of Google's policy. That's really not "Google states" at all, it's "My example of Google's policy is...".

The nearest statement in TFA is the sentence beginning "Because Google's core products are services that users interact with over a remote network interface (Search, Gmail, Maps, YouTube)...".

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> After much consideration we finally released our core software ([https://github.com/kiprotect/kiprotect](https://github.com/kiprotect/kiprotect) \- a privacy & security engineering toolkit) under the AGPL. In the past we've released other software under more permissive licenses like the BSD-3 or MIT licenses, but we've decidedly picked the AGPL for our toolkit, for the following reasons:

\- We want to encourage people and organizations to use the software as a data processing & protection tool, just like they use other Linux/Unix tools.

\- Using the software does not require integrating it into a software project as a library (though you can do that).

\- We want to ensure that any extensions and modifications of the software (e.g. new anonymization or pseudonymization methods that people would implement) will make it back into the main software as open-source, so that everyone can benefit from them.

\- We want to keep potential competitors from being able to just resell our software as a SaaS offering or integrate it into a commercial, closed-source product.

For me, the AGPL fits this bill quite nicely, and that it deters organizations to use the software for free in their closed-source projects is actually a bonus. We offer dual-licensing by the way, so organizations can just buy a commercial license if they want to integrate our tool into their closed-source software. That at least should allow us to refuse such a license to a potential competitor and the funding we (hopefully) will generate via the commercial licenses will help us fund the development for everyone. Win win.

<comment><USER41> > \- We want to ensure that any extensions and modifications of the software > (will make it back into the main software as open-source, so that everyone > can benefit from them.

isn't that a contradiction with

> We offer dual-licensing by the way

since dual licensing requires every contributor to agree to a CLA and not merely contributing the code under the terms of the AGPL?

<comment><USER40> Maybe, but I don't think so. In general we plan to have every contributor sign a CLA as we want to make sure we can keep control over the development of the project, in case we will have to change its license later.

Some companies don't want to contribute back to open-source software and that's fine, if they pay a license fee instead we can use that money to pay ourselves and build new features for the open-source version, so everyone benefits. I'd even say that maybe open-source software is licensed too liberally these days. Right now for-profit companies make boatloads of money on the back of open-source software, without giving back much. I think if more projects were to use contagious licenses like the (A)GPL it might actually benefit the whole open-source ecosystem. Imagine what we could build if just 1-5 % of the largest companies would pay a small license fees for the open- source libraries they use.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> I think that the AGPL is a fine language in cases where the code being released is a complete system, that you want many people/organizations to use and improve it, but you don't want anyone cloning it as their own standalone product.

I understand why Google would not want to use it, and also other large companies.

For individuals and smaller companies I think the AGPL can make good sense, especially for complete web applications.

<comment><USER14> > I think that the AGPL is a fine language in cases where the code being > released is a complete system, that you want many people/organizations to > use and improve it, but you don't want anyone cloning it as their own > standalone product.

Yup. In the same way that you could have a license that requires people to publicly criticize <Politician> to use your software.

You'll get some. But most will just not agree to your terms.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> The author makes the following claims:

> In truth, the terms of the AGPL are pretty easy to comply with. The basic > obligations of the AGPL which set it apart from other licenses are as > follows:

> \- Any derivative works of AGPL-licensed software must also use the AGPL.

> \- Any users of such software are entitled to the source code under the > terms of the AGPL, including users accessing it over the network such as > with their web browser or via an API or internet protocol.

That first claim is debatable at best. Nowhere in the entire document will you find the term "derivative work." Instead, the AGPL forces on the reader a bunch of other terms that may or may not add up to "derivative works."

Other licenses have no problem coming out and using the term. Doing so connects _those_ licenses to a well-understood body of intellectual property law. Not so with AGPL. See the discussion in the book by Rosen (an actual lawyer) for more [1].

So right out of the gate, the AGPL is not easy to comply with.

[1] [https://www.rosenlaw.com/oslbook.htm](https://www.rosenlaw.com/oslbook.htm)

</comment><comment><USER12> Yeah. People often resort to some fear-mongering when it comes to AGPL. When we released our software under AGPL, one developer of a somewhat competing app didn't find anything better but to claim that 'AGPL license makes it a useless toy'. Well, we don't agree.

</comment><comment><USER44> Sorry, this isn't really the case. The AGPL can be used in a predatory fashion. Projects that are AGPL'd are often dual licensed, with a commercial license for commercial applications and AGPL for experiments. I once negotiated for a couple of weeks to pay for an open source package that was dual licensed under the AGPL. I wanted to make small modifications to the source. The commercial terms were available on request, and I requested and got sort of tangential answers until finally the company's lawyer told me that I'd be liable for 15% of all revenue connected to the library in any way. If I had used the library first and asked for the terms later, I could have been in a very serious situation.

</comment><comment><USER45> It reminds me of the story I heard around a campfire once, about a programmer who decided to fix a bug in a single AGPL module, and they were forced to make their entire code open source. Even today, long after the bankruptcy, they say you can still hear the screams in the shuttered, decaying boardroom. And the bug somehow got unfixed. It's out there now, waiting ... for its next victim.

<comment><USER46> Is this a story lawyers tell around the campfire to scare new law school grads?

<comment><USER45> Not quite. That version ends with the line: "and their lawyers ... never got paid."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> Yeah, making some of my recent projects AGPL truly scares away contributions from Googlers (as their internal, low friction patching process doesn't apply to AGPL software, and they have to go through explicit approval). Fun.

</comment><comment><USER48> > Ask yourself: why is documentation of internal-facing decisions like what > software licenses to use being published in a public place? The answer is > straightforward: to influence the public. This is propaganda.

Or maybe it's just something that many people have asked about? And why wouldn't they publish it?

<comment><USER49> The blogger is reading _way_ too much into the existence of this page. The site is clearly just a wholesale export of internal Google documentation. It is not generally intended for the public audience and I don't think you can read intent into specific pages being here. Look at this page for example. Nothing on it is relevant to you outside Google. You can't reach "go/" pages, you can't check out //third_party from their repo, etc.

[https://opensource.google/docs/thirdparty/r/](https://opensource.google/docs/thirdparty/r/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> Agree that some of the examples cited are misrepresentations of what the AGPL requires, but I think, for many companies, just the requirement to publish changes (if any) would be a showstopper. Which is unfortunate, but I think is the reality of the situation.

</comment><comment><USER51> I think the author is misreading Google's policy ([https://opensource.google/docs/using/agpl- policy/](https://opensource.google/docs/using/agpl-policy/)). They're not saying that communications over the internet constitute a linkage, they're saying that:

* Because of free and open development practices within Google, it's impractical for developers to be constantly aware of what libraries get linked into their binaries. (This is exacerbated because of their monorepo, but even in a multi-repo setup it's very easy to end up with random libraries in your dependency chain.)

* If an AGPL library did end up linked, because all Google's services are accessible through a remote network, the virality provisions kick in and they might have a legal duty to distribute the entire binary.

* Therefore, they have to ban AGPL libraries so that no core service developer accidentally depends on one.

</comment><comment><USER52> Back when I was a postdoc I talked to my advisor about GPL and BSD. The advisor (who was a supremely intelligent person) said the simplest, clearest possible thing I could imagine: "I wouldn't license software under GPL because I read the GPL license and couldn't understand what it was saying. I read the BSD license and it was totally clear. I want to license something using a license that makes technical sense to me."

The fact that we see pages and pages of hackers arguing over what the implications of a license family (GPL and AGPL) are based on the legal text suggests that many people don't understand the GPL.

<comment><USER53> Yep, this is precisely why I refuse to use GPL or AGPL, but am completely comfortable with BSD.

If I'm going to be bound by T's and C's, I need to be able to understand the implications - there is just too much ambiguity and room for bad actors (e.g. Oracle) with GPL and AGPL.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> > Any users of such software are entitled to the source code under the terms > of the AGPL, including users accessing it over the network such as with > their web browser or via an API or internet protocol

That doesn't seem to be quite right. It makes it sound like the source code entitlement applies to all users. The "including users accessing it over the network" is redundant then because they are a subset of all users.

What's actually in the text of the license is:

> Notwithstanding any other provision of this License, if you modify the > Program, your modified version must prominently offer all users interacting > with it remotely through a computer network (if your version supports such > interaction) an opportunity to receive the Corresponding Source of your > version by providing access to the Corresponding Source from a network > server at no charge, through some standard or customary means of > facilitating copying of software.

The user source entitlement only applies to users remotely interacting with the software through a computer network.

<comment><USER15> Surely the user source entitlement also applies if I interact with the software without a network in between? Otherwise, that would make AGPL a strangely more-but-also-less permissive license than GPL…

<comment><USER22> It is almost literally GPLv3 with the interactive remote network source obligation added in.

If you diff GPLv3 and AGPLv3, the differences are (ignoring differences that are just in the name of the license):

1\. The preamble has a few differences where they describe why they wrote each license and what ills they are trying to address.

2\. In the actual terms and conditions, the first 13 sections and last 4 sections are identical (except for the name of the license). Only section 13 is different.

In AGPLv3, 13 is the section about remote network user source access, and about how AGPLv3 and GPLv3 interact.

In GPLv3, 13 is about how GPLv3 and AGPLv3 interact.

Finally, after the T&Cs is a section on how to apply the license to your programs. That has differences, such as including in the AGPLv3 version a reminder that you have to handle your section 13 obligations for remote network users.

<comment><USER15> Then I guess I am confused by this statement:

> The user source entitlement only applies to users remotely interacting with > the software through a computer network.

It applies to all users under the GPLv3 as well, is certainly more than just those interacting with it over a computer network, right?

<comment><USER22> GPLv3 does not have a source entitlement for _users_ of the software. Its source entitlement is for people the work has been conveyed to. It defines "convey" thusly:

> To "convey" a work means any kind of propagation that enables other parties > to make or receive copies. Mere interaction with a user through a computer > network, with no transfer of a copy, is not conveying

and propagate is:

> To "propagate" a work means to do anything with it that, without permission, > would make you directly or secondarily liable for infringement under > applicable copyright law, except executing it on a computer or modifying a > private copy. Propagation includes copying, distribution (with or without > modification), making available to the public, and in some countries other > activities as well

Using software does not necessarily involve conveying the software to the user.

A good example is given in the GPL FAQ [1]:

> Does GPLv3 require that voters be able to modify the software running in a > voting machine?

> No. Companies distributing devices that include software under GPLv3 are at > most required to provide the source and Installation Information for the > software to people who possess a copy of the object code. The voter who uses > a voting machine (like any other kiosk) doesn't get possession of it, not > even temporarily, so the voter also does not get possession of the binary > software in it.

This is what makes AGPL so different from previous licenses. As far as I know it is the only free software license that has a source entitlement that triggers on mere use. The others trigger on distribution or possession of copies.

[1] [https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl- faq.en.html#v3VotingMachine](https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl- faq.en.html#v3VotingMachine)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> For fans of AGPL I suggest checking out EUPL. Half the length of AGPL. Changing/removing portions of the license is allowed.

More info: you may have seen this on Hacker News recently: [https://www.arp242.net/license.html](https://www.arp242.net/license.html).

<comment><USER15> > Changing/removing portions of the license is allowed.

Note that licenses that can have random bits changed or removed have the issue that you need to read them in their entirety each time you encounter them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> My problem with GPL is that the term "derived" is defined to vague or not in the way I like it, which in turn opens up all kind of legal uncertainty.

(I don't know if this also applies for AGPL.)

I would love to hear that AGPL legal reliably works like he describes (or there is a different license which does).

<comment><USER55> None of the V3 licenses say "derived".

Derivation is a specific concept in US copyright law, so in fact it doesn't need to be derived in the license. But it also doesn't apply elsewhere.

So the V3 licenses use the term "modify", which they define to specifically include the more internationally-understood concept of adaptation.

Where things get more complex is in each license's concept of linking. But that's only a problem if you want to be a free rider. Like Apple or Google.

<comment><USER32> GPLv2 does use that wording.

It's still widely used.

AGPL is also originally based on GPLv2.

Through there is the _GNU_ AGPL license which is often abbreviated as AGPLv3 which is based on GPLv3.

GPLv3 makes many things more clear but not necessary better. It also includes some cases I would explicitly not include as "derived work" (or more explicit wok which will need to be GPLv3 compatible as yes the terminology changed).

> But that's only a problem if you want to be a free rider. Like Apple or > Google.

No, it's a problem for many other use-cases which have nothing to do with free riding but protection of trade secrets and similar.

If you want to make sure your software is FOSS sure go ahead, but why force all the software directly around it to be FOSS, too?

I mean it makes sense for complete services and similar (like a database or the Linux kernel). But it IMHO is not very good for any kind of library.

In my opinion forceful open source is good for modifications and extensions of a given service (in the very general CS definition of a service which includes most kinds of libraries). But should be avoid to extend to any user of a service independent of the way the service is interacted with (static linkage, dynamic linkage, etc.) with an additional exception wrt. LTO.

Sure you can't sell such software well. But most FOSS software isn't meant to be sold. What is sold are products like support, service and maintenance around it and similar. There are very view companies which had success with a selling software based on a GPL vs. proprietary dual license schema as far as I know. I think, and might as well be wrong about it, that it's better to then have a license like mentioned above but restrict commercial use in some way with the option to pay to lift the restriction.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> Rather heavily editorialized title? Original says: "The falsehoods of anti- AGPL propaganda"

</comment><comment><USER57> I use software with GPL and AGPL, and may even contribute, but when I write my own software, I make it to be the public domain instead, because I don't like copyright, and because public domain will make it we don't have to worry about the license conditions, in case it may be confusing.

I have a program which links with AGPL software. My program is itself public domain, and is released only as source code, but I would think if anyone distributes it, or makes it available to access over the network, that they would have to do so in a way which is not contrary to AGPL. If you know how it is work, then hopefully you can comment too, to say what parts I did wrong, I suppose.

</comment><comment><USER58> I can't comment on the "true" motivation for releasing these documents, but I noticed the same site includes [https://opensource.google/docs/thirdparty/oneversion/](https://opensource.google/docs/thirdparty/oneversion/) which is a very Google-internal-only kind of problem, complete with broken links to Google-internal-only tools and processes (rosie and lsc). That page at least is definitely just a dump of the internal documentation.

</comment><comment><USER59> > Network use is distribution

I use the Open Software License for this same reason, I dont think companies should be able to get the benefit of open source libraries with the cost of publishing any modifications, regardless if its a webapp or desktop app. I am curious the difference though:

[https://choosealicense.com/appendix](https://choosealicense.com/appendix)

seems to only be different with regard to trademarks?

</comment><comment><USER60> Even as an individual user, I try to avoid using software licensed under GPL or its derivatives.

I'm against copyright laws, and any second that I have to spend thinking about how to comply with them is a second wasted to me.

BSD and MIT make me waste the minimum practically possible amount of time.

I like knowing that I have the freedom to not care about infringing on anyone's copyright as long as I only develop software using permissive licenses.

<comment><USER21> BSD and MIT maximize freedom for developers, which seems to be your primary concern so that's totally understandable. You're right that they're much easier for developers to comply with than the GPL family.

GPL and AGPL maximize freedom for both direct and indirect downstream users, such that users of any software derived from that GPL/AGPL software are guaranteed strong rights to be able to understand / modify / pay others to modify their software. BSD/MIT allow proprietary derivatives which withhold this freedom from users.

Both are pretty valid concerns, even if they're opposed to each other. But for cases where you're a pure user and not a developer, there's no compliance hassle involved with either the BSD/MIT family of licenses or the GPL family.

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> I love the AGPL, and I love that it is more and more used by larger and larger projects. For example, the widely used Overleaf. This is a good world.

</comment><comment><USER62> The new title is misleading. It is a charitable interpretation of a half- screed/half conspiracy theory.

> The reason they spread these misconceptions is straightforward: they want to > discourage people from using the AGPL, because they cannot productize such > software effectively.

Statements like this can be encompassed by its original title, as the author intended.

</comment><comment><USER63> > Any derivative works of AGPL-licensed software must also use the AGPL.

That's why people don't use AGPL, and why I personally don't release any code under (A)GPL. If you want to make free software, make _free software_ and release your code under Apache or MIT. And if you really care about attribution, use CC BY 3.0. Legally, you don't want to deal with the burden of constantly checking if you're complying with some license that a dependency of a dependency of a dependency is using.

> By discouraging the use of AGPL in the broader community, Google hopes to > create a larger set of free- and open-source software that they can take for > their own needs without any obligations to upstream...

This is true, and I don't see much wrong with it. I don't like the idea of other code _mandating_ how I should release my code. What if I just don't feel like _up-streaming_? Free is meant to be _free_ , and (A)GPL _does_ incur a cost -- at the bare minimum an ideological one.

A lot of reactionary down-voting going on; I'm quite open to debate. Why are _you_ so passionate about AGPL?

<comment><USER15> > Legally, you don't want to deal with the burden of constantly checking if > you're complying with some license that a dependency of a dependency of a > dependency is using.

If you're not modifying that dependency, you don't need to do anything since your dependencies are handling it. Especially with GPL, since it's likely that your dependency's dependency will make it GPL as well–but you should be doing this anyways, of course.

> I don't like the idea of other code mandating how I should release my code. > What if I just don't feel like up-streaming?

Then you're just not in agreement with how GPL works. It's meant to be an explicit guard against people taking projects, forking them, and never contributing back.

<comment><USER63> > Then you're just not in agreement with how GPL works. It's meant to be an > explicit guard against people taking projects, forking them, and never > contributing back.

I'm definitely not in agreement with it, I just don't like that it tries to present itself as some kind of purist "free software" license, but in reality it mandates how code can be released. How is that free? To take a page out of the blog post, it sure sounds like propaganda to me.

<comment><USER15> GPL is about freedom for software users, not for software authors. It places restrictions on what software authors can do in order to give users more privileges. (Which I personally believe is the right trade-off, as users are usually in lesser-privileged positions to begin with.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER64> Great explanation, and I hope people get the message. I've tried to explain this to people and companies before, but Drew does it better.

Thanks!

</comment><comment><USER65> I see a lot of reflections from a business point of view.

I guess if your sole purpose is to conjure money out of thinware then yes, AGPL is going to be poison to your wallet. Capitalism and AGPL simply does not mix well.

But we tend to forget, that the end of the day we're all users and have to consume what we've cooked.

As a user I tend to lean towards AGPL alternatives, It's comfty and let's me relax my legal muscle after the hard workout of summarizing this thread.

</comment><comment><USER66> Why should I listen to the cigarette salesman talking about the harmlessness of smoking?

</comment><comment><USER67> I release my software under AGPL whenever possible—even if it couldn't conceivably be used to provide services over a network—because it means that Googlers aren't allowed to use it on their work machines. If Google ever changes their policy on AGPL, then I'll either switch to the JSON license or a custom one that will arbitrarily exclude companies and people that I don't like.</comment>


The end of Facebook - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.forbes.com/timworstall/2011/06/15/the-end-of-facebook/

<comment><USER2> This is borne out by my experience. A slowly increasing number of my friends are cutting down their use, and eventually leaving. This might just be due to my cohort of friends getting older, but the article claims it is a general trend.

What is definitely true, is that _nobody_ I know feels anything positive about facebook, _at all._ It is seen simply as a sinister, addictive[1] necessary evil. This is the case regardless of technical expertise. They continue to use it purely because of inertia and lock in. Yet they are not interested in twitter either.

Much like smoking, many people get into it as teenagers because everyone's doing it, now in their 20s they've realised that it sucks but they can't stop.

There is definitely a market for a social network thats simpler, but still full-featured like facebook, but above all one that's less "evil." One that's vocally dedicated to your privacy, and whose every move doesn't seem so machiavellianly calculated to keep you coming back, to the point where you begin to feel like you're living in a dystopian future world.

I realise that's just a long way of saying "less profitable" or even "not profitable," but there we are.

[1] The main slang term for facebook amongst it's younger users in the UK is "facecrack." It has been called that for years.

<comment><USER3> _A slowly increasing number of my friends are cutting down their use, and eventually leaving._

I know what they say about the plural of antidote, but I've personally noticed the same. I use it less, and when I do use it, I notice the people I care about on facebook are using it less too. Everything you say mirrors the response to facebook I've been seeing. Its no longer a toy, its just that thing you have and slowly working towards being a burden.

I think a post I saw about facebook email says it the best: "Facebook, you're giving me email? You're now one ugly paintjob away from being aol". Its initially funny, but the parallels you can draw between AOL and Facebook are huge and I wouldn't be surprised if facebook followed a similar trajectory.

<comment><USER4> I agree, but it's interesting that Google is doing so much more than just search today and they're not inviting the same response. Is it because the main search service has stayed the same without suffering from feature bloat?

<comment><USER2> Google makes separate products. They're well integrated, but you can use gmail without ever seeing maps, and vice-versa.

Facebook on the other hand is monolithic, and that gives it a much greater appearance of omnipresent intrusiveness.

<comment><USER5> I wonder if this is true of each company's management style too - I don't know anyone in Google or Facebook personally but it does seem to me that Google values engineer autonomy more than any other company (and that is one reason for its huge success, trusting its engineers).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This was a rather pointless article. Yes, every company will reach a point where growth slows. Yes, every company will have users who quit. Yes, valuations are high right now. Yes, many companies will get replaced by better ones that come along. And yes, it is implied that Facebook is a company.

How does any of this lead to "the end of facebook"?? The author even states "Facebook is still growing very fast in terms of page views and number of users."

Major linkbait.

<comment><USER7> I completely agree, but one point that he briefly mentions that I think is even more interesting is the idea of a Facebook IPO.

Consider that Facebook isn't going anywhere (most likely) and will be a major company for a long time. That still doesn't change the fact that if they've already done all of the their major growing (user-wise, I'm assuming that they will continue to look for new revenue sources), their IPO could be a significant letdown for investors if there is simply no where to go but flat.

That said, I don't know any more (or less) that this guy..

<comment><USER8> Yeah, at this point why would they IPO (except to get rich[er], of course)? Obviously they could grow in some unforeseen way, but if they don't have an ace up their sleeve, what business reason would they have for needing additional capital?

<comment><USER9> Well, there may or may not be a pressing business need for capital, but I'm sure a lot of the current shareholders would see an IPO as a good exit.

I suppose it's possible that facebook could still be acquired, but given how large they are, and the huge amount of cash/stock it would require to buy them, that seems unlikely to me.

<comment><USER10> Too big to float.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm not the biggest fan of facebook, but this guy is completely unqualified to comment on the intricacies of long-term growth and sustainability in social media... just look at his profile: <http://blogs.forbes.com/people/timworstall/>

He has nothing to do with the technology industry.

Also, he doesn't back up his rhetoric with data... this is an opinion piece and a flaky one at that.

<comment><USER12> Appeal to authority is a logical fallacy.

<comment><USER13> Asking the dude who stayed at a Holiday Inn how to shutdown the nuclear plant will fail 99.999% of the time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I like this line in the submitted article: "But to value every company as if they are the next Google, rather than valuing them all as if one of them might be, is pretty much the definition of a bubble." I think there is insight in that. Not every big new online service can have the long-term revenue growth and user engagement that Google has managed to achieve. (Some of the stories about Groupon point out aptly that Groupon spends much of its revenue on Google promotions, so who is the winner when Google, a profitable company, is paid by Groupon, a company that is losing money on every sale?)

That said, Facebook is the one online service that gets more engagement from me, by far, even than HN or all the Google properties other than Gmail. Facebook's algorithm for prioritizing posts from friends into my home page works amazingly well at showing me the content I want to see. The Facebook secret groups feature works well for me at forming more tightly knit communities. All in all, what's cool about Facebook is that I see FRIENDS there, people I'm glad to see in real life or online.

Back when nobody needed to buy floppy disks, because AOL was endlessly mailing those out to everyone in America, I was subscribed to AOL for a while. I couldn't understand why people preferred the chat-like user discussion interface of AOL to the more threaded discussions available on other online services at the same time. I found AOL rather tedious, and eventually unsubscribed, but millions of users stayed on AOL long after I thought it had lost all of its competitive advantage over other ways of getting on the Internet. AOL had the financial strength and reputation to take over (and drain of value) Time Warner, and it still hasn't completely disappeared. I think Facebook will do at least that well for at least that long. Maybe Facebook is already in a long decline, but it will be a long, slow decline.

<comment><USER15> Is that really the definition of a bubble though?

A bubble implies irrational valuations. Trying to value a company as if they are the next Google is the purpose of the stock market and can be perfectly rational.

Google sets a standard, and by its success, it demonstrates what other similar companies could do, which gives investors more confidence in upstarts like Facebook, which then leads to higher valuations. The state of our economy also leads to higher valuations - as money is worth less today than it was when Google went public, and there are fewer productive places for investors to put their money than when Google went public.

At times when valuations become increasingly irrational you could say we are approaching a bubble, but this article's author did not offer a rational argument to back up his points.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> "The more you tighten your grip, Zuckerberg, the more users will slip through your fingers."

To me, the end of facebook was when facebook started trying too hard to dictate to me how I would use the site.

I don't see a chronological timeline of what my friends are doing (a la twitter), I see some posts that facebook _thinks_ I'll be interested in.

What the hell is that, facebook? Most of the things I see now are from people I really don't care about at all. The only reason I ever log in anymore is to see what a group I belong to on there is up to.

And what have you done to the pictures? Why can't I right click them and send a link to one of my friends? Facebook, maybe you've forgotten this part, but those annoying people using your website are the reason that your website exists at all. When you take stuff like that away, and when it's obvious why you're doing it (you don't want people to see _facebook's_ pictures without _facebook's_ branding on them [the container page, I mean, that you'll see if you use an approved sharing mechanism to share pictures]), it feels like a giant slap in the face.

There is nothing _fun_ happening on facebook anymore, and the things that I've posted to it in the past are now impossible to find (keep scrolling and scolling and scrolling and triggering that javascript to load more things, right!?).

I don't really feel like I'm connected to the people that I'm supposedly "connected" to anymore. It sucks.

The other reason I pretty much never use facebook, is <http://thingist.com/> \-- a few people have said that it reminds them a lot of '05, '06 era facebook, which is cool to hear. There are no apps, there is no algo to determine what it shows you, it's just a very simple way of sharing things with a group of people (and, more importantly, keeping it organized into a list [songs I like, quotes, tools for programmers, documentaries you should watch, etc]).

Full disclosure: thingist is my side project, and my addiction. Obviously I'm not a designer, so the design is horrible, but the functionality works, and I'm addicted to it.

</comment><comment><USER17> So, what problems do facebook/social networks solve?

* sharing photos

* keeping in touch with friends and families and getting the latest updates from them

* events

* games

* sharing links and stuff

and all these things from one place!

is there any other site/technology that provides all these benefits in one place?

<comment><USER18> The problem is, after an extended use maybe we feel sick of it all. Facebook was new and fresh when it arrived, but now it's beginning to feel like an overstayed welcome. They have accomplished the goal of making life seem, in a way, commoditized, and that makes me feel like I never want to use such a service again.

I don't think social networks are going to be entirely displaced, maybe just the ones that attempt to mirror your personal life. I think it's a kind of impedance mismatch issue--a kind of uncanny valley vibe that they give off. After doing it so long, it just feels so artificial and flaky.

I know everyone doesn't have such negative thoughts about Facebook, but I also know I'm not the only one who feels this way right now. I can't see what they or anyone could do to fix this problem, but I know a solution isn't out of the realm of possibility either.

I predict future successful social networks will be somewhat like HN or reddit --semi-anonymous, with no real connection to real life. If they can surround you with peers clustered around your interest profile, perhaps we could grow organic communities around professions and hobbies that dynamically or elastically determine membership and open channels of communication (as opposed to the current process of self-selection and direct messaging). I don't know, I'm rambling now.

<comment><USER17> > _I predict future successful social networks will be somewhat like HN or > reddit--semi-anonymous, with no real connection to real life. If they can > surround you with peers clustered around your interest profile, perhaps we > could grow organic communities around professions and hobbies that > dynamically or elastically determine membership and open channels of > communication (as opposed to the current process of self-selection and > direct messaging). I don't know, I'm rambling now._

Isn't this problem already solved by discussion boards? :D Or is your idea different from them in some way? Please feel free to share your views.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I think Facebook has gotten boring in the same way that Google has gotten boring to me: it's become a reliable, efficient tool that I can use so quickly it's almost invisible to me. I throw up a picture every so often and get feedback from friends and family. I can plan a party and quickly/easily organize invitations. I can quickly reconnect with someone if they come to mind, whether or not I have their current phone number or e-mail (which used to be a real problem). I love how they seem to focus on their core products and speed rather than rapidly expanding the feature set (like seemingly every other social network).

The News Feed has become less and less "engaging" and chatter-filled which might be a problem for their business model, but not for me. I'm interested in most of the people on my friends list in some way, but their stray thoughts aren't the best way of relating to them.

</comment><comment><USER20> First wave of SNs were aimed at dating as the lure (Friendster). Second wave of SNs were/are aimed at social sharing of everything and anything with everybody and anybody (FB). Third wave of SNs are aimed/will be aimed at "real" social sharing of everything and anything with _only_ people you choose (Tusulog.com, our start-up).

We're focused on one main thought: you don't, by default, socialize with all your friends plus "acquaintances" at once. Just impossible. When you're with your family you socialize in the context of family. You don't talk about the crazy party last Saturday with your family. This is the idea we focus on.

People return to FB because of inertia basically, not necessarily because they _need to_. That's why they start to whine and mainstream media have been reflecting this situation.

<comment><USER21> Honest feedback:

I visited Tusulog (the name should be re-evaluated) and there was very little description of what it is, what it does, why its good, etc.

I then registered and was told that the service was meaningless unless I invited friends. Ok. Try to wedge out of the chicken and the egg, or piggyback on something else, because in all honesty, theres no way I'm inviting friends to a service of questionable value.

Something something "its not what your service does, its how people use it". Right now, for all I know, Tusulog is the most genius website ever made, I just wouldn't get to the part where I discover that.

<comment><USER20> Thanks for all the feedback. These will help us greatly. Appreciated.

First of all, we don't say it's the most genius site ever or the next Facebook. All we say is that our product makes socializing with your friends easier.

There are very few things on our to-do list before going to work on improving the home page and so. After that there will be a lot more explanation of what it is and what it does. Last but not least I hope you all will be using our product!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Facebook's biggest blunder could be their continued focus on increasing engagement at the expense of giving more granular privacy options.

There is no reason I should not be able to maintain all my different identities--as an employee, as a friend, as a son--on facebook. With the influx of my younger cousins and older family members, I had to pick my facebook identity. Now, I play it a lot more safe and don't post half the stuff I would usually do.

I like to see facebook as kind of like a physical world hangout spot. Before, it was just people of my generation. Now it is all generation mixed together in one room. And yet, there it is very possible to let me create multiple rooms and pick who I choose to have in each of my rooms.

<comment><USER23> Exactly -- facebook has turned into a giant, semi-awkward graduation party (here is your life!) where you can't really speak your mind.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I don't buy it. There's no Facebook-killer at the moment to drive these people away, and they aren't going to just give up on social networks...

So instead, I think it's something else. Facebook closing invalid accounts, or something.

<comment><USER25> Agreed, currently there no real competitor to facebook, if people are closing their accounts its because they want to remove themselves from social networking all together (my one friend did this) rather than move to a different service.

Facebook is so ubiquitous now, it's like email. It will take one hell of a competitor to kill it.

<comment><USER26> It's usually not competitors that can hurt or even kill a product, it's substitute goods. Cart manufacturers in the early 20th century didn't see their business diminishing because of the sudden emergence of a better cart manufacturer, it has happened because of the invention of the automobile.

Similarly, if something threatens Facebook's position, it's quite possible that it will be a substitute product, not a direct competitor. A significant substitute product of Facebook is real life interactions with your friends, for example.

<comment><USER27> _A significant substitute product of Facebook is real life interactions with your friends, for example._

I think that's totally missing the point. I don't think anyone uses Facebook as a substitute for real life interaction. I imagine that most people use it partially to coordinate the meeting up with said friends and partially to interact with people whom, due geography or various life circumstances, it is infeasible to meet up with in real life. I doubt there are many people who'd rather sit at home and read their friend's Facebook updates if they have the option to pop around the corner and meet them face to face.

<comment><USER26> I know way too many people personally who do exactly that. I'll let other decide if it's a good or a bad thing, but in my experience an awful lot of people use social networks _instead of_ real life interactions. I think those of us who live far away from our friends and family are in minority.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> This recent spurt of articles about how Facebook is supposedly declining is based entirely on the Facebook self service ad tool as far as I can tell. An initial study of the numbers that the tool was reporting back was compared more recently and the differences supposedly indicate drop off in numbers.

None of the subsequent articles that I've read seem to mention how the data was gathered, just that Facebook has lost X amount of users in Y country. I for one dont think that Facebook's publicly accessible ad tool is a very sophisticated or accurate way of measuring FB's user numbers.

<comment><USER29> And Facebook themselves has said the the tool (which they own and maintain) provides a provides a useful sample of data, _not_ a comprehensive data set. This is much the same way that Google Adwords estimator tool works.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> I'm not a huge fan of Social networking and/or providing Facebook with my personal info, but as a musician and small business owner the idea of not having a social profile seems a little ridiculous. I also agree, it's going to be difficult to find or build a Facebook killer, but what about a network that works with Facebook offering some of the services they offer with less non- sense, more utilities and a level of customer service that is not possible with a user group of hundreds of millions. There is no doubt that Facebook is great at social networking but that still doesn't mean it's annoying. I use my Facebook account almost everyday but rarely do I post status updates or even look at my news feed. I do, however, like the access it gives me to other utilities on the web with the little effort it requires once you have a FB account. Much of what I do for work would not happen if I needed to create accounts for every service I wanted to check out.

With that said, sorry for the plug...I created <http://fishtaank.com>, AKA, my weekend project... for the last three years. It's a small collection of open source scripts I've found on the web that allows musicians and businesses to create a better social profile thats focuses more on what they do/offer as opposed to what they say. Trivia question of the day? who cares...

<http://fishtaank.com/profile/Beerfarmer> -

</comment><comment><USER31> My comment would be that the author is conflating growth in users and page views to revenue growth. While the two are very highly correlated, they are not the same thing. How Facebook monetizes its users and page views doesn't have to be a 1:1 relationship. The question should be how Facebook will derive ever more revenue from each user over time. Slowing user growth is certainly an easy proxy to use in lieu of real revenue numbers, but it is a gross oversimplification.

<comment><USER32> Yes, there is oversimplification, but one observation I believe is correct:

IPO in 2012 is too late.

People will cash in their options by the dozens and move on. If you IPO at peak, this effect is multiplied. If you IPO way before that peak, some might leave, but since the stock is still going up, they will continue to work those 12 hours a day for you.

However, I'm no expert on this stuff! It's just what I would do.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Maybe its the progression of the web as a communication medium vs fads. Initially there was geocities and webpages, then blogs came along.

The next step was Myspace with its Geocities like system, but actual network style functionality. Along with the rise of the social network ecosystem was user-gen content websites and comments. Comments on blogs and discussion forums mixed with shared links pushed through 4chan, forums, and then Digg.

Along with these useful mediums was also the fad like rush. If its cool then you have to use it. Myspace was to ugly though and Facebook brought along format, and styling, like the Apple way.

Facebook has some brilliant underlying concepts - Events and Messaging mediums in an online world. Much better than email and sms.

There are also several layers of society and how they interact. The social to be social groups, and the not so noisy users who like it when they visit a city can see old mates.

Facebook will still be the top web-based social communication medium (besides email for business). When HTML5 comes out and web-gaming increases more, you'll see a bigger explosion of Facebook usage I think.

</comment><comment><USER34> I used to be on it all the time because everyone was on, but as my friends got older, their companies blocked use of it at work, the people left just blab about how awesome their significant others are, hawk their business products & nightclub parties, or post baby pics all day.

The people really care about are on now for a few hours/minutes from 6 to 11:45 (if that) so my usage has cut down as well ... once in the morning, at lunch and at night.

I use twitter a lot more now as a result. I guess facebook has a new challenge, keeping older folks engaged and selling facebook to younger kids who are growing up on twitter instead of facebook as the dominant social media scene.

</comment><comment><USER35> TL;DR: Author had a deadline to meet so he wrote about how nobody, himself included, knows whether or not Facebook will be big and awesome forever. Attached a catchy title for the pageviews that his performance will be judged by.

</comment><comment><USER36> I am so terribly sick of this: The headline is "The End of Facebook", followed immediately by the lede "Perhaps a little premature, this idea that the end of Facebook is nigh, but certainly the end of the beginning," which essentially completely debunks the entire headline right off the bat.

Writers: If you can't write anything compelling enough to not need to be carried by an overly sensationalist headline, please put your pens down and go sell used cars.

</comment><comment><USER37> It really seems that facebook may have overextended their good will with the public in repeatedly forcing privacy concessions. Only time will tell.

In any case, I'm not sure that this link isn't more than phishing for hits.

</comment><comment><USER38> Yes, some people it's committing facebookcide but is pretty much irrelevant for you!

Go make a good damn startup yourself and stop procrastinating wasting your attention on overdramatized utterly irrelevant headlines.

</comment><comment><USER39> This is a little off topic, but did anyone else immediately discredit this article when they saw "to" where "too" was supposed to be? On Forbes of all places...

<comment><USER40> Even Michael Jordan missed the occasional dunk. It wasn't a reason to kick him off the team.

There is nothing less interesting or meaningful than a typo.

<comment><USER41> (Even more off-topic)

You really reminded me of Jordan's "Failure" commercial, which everyone should see: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45mMioJ5szc>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> This article, and it's source article, fail to reveal the new adoption rates. It's one-sided, and I agree with makeramen, it's linkbait.

</comment><comment><USER43> Damn, all these hyperbolic, link bait titles are killing me.

</comment><comment><USER44> facebook is the new myspace

</comment><comment><USER45> For some reason all this makes me grind my teeth. I'm not a Facebook apologist, and I definitely don't side with the 'FB is utter shit' camp, but it just seems like articles like this, and so much of the discussion they generate, totally sail past the point of what the rise of social networking (and the rise of these dissatisfactions) signifies.

This article: [http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/willheaven/100092236/is- th...](http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/willheaven/100092236/is-this-the- beginning-of-the-end-for-facebook/) the article the link leeches off, is more fleshed out but also has some 300 comments. Most of it is inane but somewhere in there in all the shit people are talking and all the haughty know-it-all declarations of what is and isn't worthwhile, and what will and will not occur in the future, there's something really significant encapsulated about how our society is changing, and how Facebook and the internet is linked in to that change. There's a big clue in all this discussion - but these newspaper 'experts' sure as shit aren't going to point it out for us.

</comment><comment><USER46> it will be disastrous for facebook to go public if their network is seen as being in decline or even flat. investors care more about losing users in the US than they do gaining users in developing markets.

facebook needs to IPO yesterday. facebook fatigue is real and won't go away, and if it picks up momentum things could get ugly for a group of investors that have banked on massive potential gains</comment>


Want to kill health insurers? This start-up is teaching hospitals how. - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/07/05/want-to-kill-health-insurers-this-start-up-is-teaching-hospitals-how/

<comment><USER2> "We wanted a Steve Jobs feel so we decided not to bath for months."

But more seriously -- I see two real weaknesses in this idea. First, hospitals typically don't have the doctors directly on staff so they have visibility but relatively little leverage. They provide an army of nurses but the doctors are independent contractors. Second, you need scale to make it work. It's not clear that a single hospital has the right scale to be an insurer.

I think the right way to kill health insurers is just by fiat. Medicare for All.

Health Insurance is not, and has never been, a real market with normal economic behavior. Imagine if car insurance that let you drive like an maniac but only based your premium of age of the car, then if you had an accident, it would spend unlimited amounts of money to fix your existing car. And after your car is ten years old, the government takes over. That's our health care system.

A rational system would accept that everyone dies, share the risk of rare accidents across a large pool of people, and spend a lot of money earlier in peoples lives rather than waiting until they get to the emergency room.

I'm a capitalist to the core but it just doesn't work with you don't have a free market with a normal price-elasticity curve.

<comment><USER3> > I think the right way to kill health insurers is just by fiat. Medicare for > All.

However desirable that may be, the reason it is unlikely to happen is that the incentives are aligned the wrong way for the relevant decision makers. Insurance companies are funding congressional campaigns; as long as this goes on, Congress is unlikely to try to put insurance companies out of business.[1]

The approach discussed in the article, for all its weaknesses (which you have nailed, IMHO), at least has the incentives in the right direction. Congress may love insurance companies, but hospitals and doctors do not.

[1] Indeed, one of the primary points of "Obamacare" is that Americans are now required by law to purchase insurance companies' offerings.</comment></comment>


3 Pillars Of The New Business World: APIs, Identity, and Data - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2012/11/15/3-pillars-of-the-new-business-world-apis-identity-and-data/

<comment><USER2> Not sure if 'pillars' is the right word. Dimensions and/or Vectors are perhaps words that comes to mind first. In any event: the promise of greater integration (productivity/growth) brings with it the potential for greater betrayal (potential for destructive use).</comment>