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.
>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.
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.
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.
I think you mean "your own lawyers". And my experience says that the AGPL opinion among these experts are about as one-sided as scientists and climate change.
I mean use your judgement, say you want to do npm install X, do you call your lawyers all the time or use your judgement?
Don't do X because Google is doing it, think for yourself and if you consider that you are not sure then ask for an expert. My point is if Microsoft says GPL is evil and you believe that and later when MS is open sourcing stuff and contributing to Linux you will have to admit that maybe MS had a giant interest to say that. those interests changed so MS changed, you should have never listen to MS without thinking for yourself and considering what MS interests are.
> I mean use your judgement, say you want to do npm install X, do you call your lawyers all the time or use your judgement?
Before starting to use code for my business, I'd check the license, yes. Almost all the time it's a standard one, so I know approximately that yes BSD, MIT, GPL, etc… means. Though I have to be careful about BSD with advertising clause.
Before starting to depend on code for my business, yes I would make sure that I am not violating a license.
Your "only if you decide you need a lawyer" seems to be saying that your opinion is necessarily right. You don't decide if you need a lawyer, you either do or you don't. And you make the right choice or you don't. (and their guidance is right or it isn't)
> Don't do X because Google is doing it, think for yourself and if you consider that you are not sure then ask for an expert.
Sure. You can peruse the AGPL, and if you think your amateur interpretation of this legally untested license does not add unacceptable risk, then you can choose to go ahead with it.
Google got sued for reimplementing an API. And they may lose (currently awaiting the supreme court).
People have been suing much smaller companies for GPL violations. It's a matter of time before someone sues for perceived AGPL violation due to what Google's lawyers are describing.
> My point is if Microsoft says GPL is evil and you believe that and later when MS is open sourcing stuff and contributing to Linux you will have to admit that maybe MS had a giant interest to say that.
Yup. That doesn't mean they're factually wrong. But yes there's the aspect of "It's hard to make someone understand that they are wrong when their income depends on them not understanding it".
But just because someone has a reason to do something, doesn't mean they did it. It's not an argument about correctness.
>But just because someone has a reason to do something, doesn't mean they did it. It's not an argument about correctness.
Exactly, Google using or not using a license or some shady practice does not mean it is correct. It sucks that in US you have this weird thing where until someone is brought to court you are not sure what the rules actually are interpreted, from what the other comments mentioned the author(a lawyer) responded to this concerns and clarified things but yeah, we might need to forever wait or find some more courage
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.