Simple. Don't have contribution agreements. Contributors maintain their copyright so as they can prevent relicensing. Mind, FSF requires copyright for their submissions (I believe), but they're, arguably, a "good actor" in this space.

But, if the code base becomes a patchwork of contributors, it can become difficult to relicense.

FSF stopped requiring contributor agreements years ago.

Definition of freedom has changed in cloud era. The idea behind GPL was, if you modify your code and distribute it, you need to contribute back the changes, with the wider goal of increasing the commons. All the legalese was just to make sure that the idea worked.

In the era of cloud, distribution needs to include distribution over wire, because so many apps are now run in the cloud. And that's why AGPL. It preserves the spirit of GPL in modern times.

Yes, this idea that you must “contribute back” is itself an infringement on privacy, and is why copyleft licenses are falling out of favor of things like MIT.

The spirit of the GPL was never a good idea.

Not the OP, but here’s how I see it: freedom doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Whether it’s in society or in software, real freedom comes with some responsibility. You can’t just take, take, take and expect the ecosystem to stay healthy. That’s not how any of this works.

Same thing applies to free software. If we actually care about keeping that world alive, there’s gotta be some duty baked in—some expectation to contribute back, or at least not strip-mine the commons and bounce.

MIT’s blown up mostly because the big players don’t need the broader free software community anymore. They’ve got the scale, the headcount, and the cash to build and maintain their own internal ecosystems. So from their POV, permissive licenses like MIT are perfect—no obligations, no copyleft, no friction.

But let’s not pretend that’s “freedom” in the idealistic sense. It’s freedom to extract, sure. Freedom to integrate and forget where it came from. For a lot of people on HN, that’s fine. But if you care about the sustainability of the broader ecosystem? Then yeah, we’ve got to talk about duty, not just rights.

If you are distributing an AGPL software as a derivative work, you must also distribute the source. You can make as many modifications for internal use and not distribute them, if you're not making a derivative work.

> They see this as bad, because they think you should be forced to publish your modifications to the software you use internally, even if you don’t want to.

This is incorrect. You are only forced to publish if you are creating derivative works. See how overleaf uses propietary git integration with AGPL overleaf.

That article makes a lot of dubious claims. The central claim is that by breaking links to the source code in development on your own machine with no one else using it, then you are breaking the license by not showing a notice offering the source to yourself.

This is typical of software developers trying to interpret law. Can you imagine someone explaining to a judge that they are suing for a breach of license terms under the circumstances. "So, you are saying he did not give himself access to the code on his laptop?"

Even if that nonsense was correct, there is a dead easy workaround. Run a server with the code on it bound to localhost and you then have your network server for all users interacting with the code (yourself!). Not needed, just an additional layer of proof the claim "it is impossible to comply" is false.

Edit: to add, I am also not impressed by the author's other blog posts, such as a moan about not having PRs for FOSS projects accepted for good reasons (if you dig down into it). Lots of other complaining and nonsense too.

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