Network on Your License

GNU Affero General Public License v3.0

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

AGPL-3.0 is a strong copyleft license with one critical addition over GPL-3.0: offering the software over a network counts as “distribution.” Anyone who modifies the software and makes it available as a network service must make the complete corresponding source code available to users who interact with it.

This closes the “SaaS loophole” present in GPL-3.0, where a company can run a modified copy on its servers without ever distributing binaries and thus never triggering the copyleft requirement.

Server Side Public License v1.0

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

SSPL is MongoDB’s response to the AGPL “loophole”: if you offer the software as a managed service, you must also release under SSPL the source code of every program you use to offer that service — provisioning, monitoring, orchestration, backup. In effect, it is strong copyleft extended to your service stack.

The OSI rejected SSPL as not meeting the Open Source Definition, specifically on Criterion 6 (no discrimination against fields of endeavour). It is therefore fair-code / source-available, not open source.