> I'm generally not a fan of GPL based licensed because it means that you create a massive dis-balance between the original copyright holder (who can dual license for commercialization) and everybody else. It might be fine for Sentry or another SaaS business, but then you cannot even take pieces of code and use it in another project that cannot be GPL licensed because for instance it needs to go the app store etc.
> GPL (and AGPL in particular) is considered such a tainted environment that many steer away from it entirely. AGPL also is from the v3 family of GPL licenses which have outright bans in many commercial environments. But GPL in general is a too complex topic to address in a HN comment for me.
This is very helpful, thank you.
I have no insider information about elastic or sentry.
Everything I know about the whole thing is from comments such as from HN.
What I am hearing from you is that you don't see big cloud providers such as AWS as a threat but rather as an insurance policy
so as users you can feel relatively safe in picking a SaaS product
knowing that in the future (two years from now?) if the vendor were to go tits up,
you can still have someone else who will step in and fill the void.
I thought your intention was to make it as difficult as possible for another SaaS provider to compete against you but... clearly not?
I appreciate the thoughtfulness of all of this
and the pain of SaaS customers
because just having the source code isn't enough.
Often times, I am simply not qualified to run something like sentry myself
and it is a matter of either spending tens of thousands of dollars
a year on a SaaS or
spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on another dedicated employee.
That being said, what I am reading from your comment
is that the problem with GPL
at least from the perspective of the user is all about perception
and not about substance.
From what I understand as a hobbyist,
I can essentially disregard licenses altogether.
I am not distributing anything.
You could license flask as Oracle Evil License (not actual name of the license, just making it up)
and it wouldn't matter as a hobbyist
because all I am doing is learning about flask.
What I mean is AGPLv3 should be fine for companies
who are not SaaS providers
and those who are SaaS providers,
should contribute back.
> GPL (and AGPL in particular) is considered such a tainted environment that many steer away from it entirely. AGPL also is from the v3 family of GPL licenses which have outright bans in many commercial environments. But GPL in general is a too complex topic to address in a HN comment for me.
This is very helpful, thank you. I have no insider information about elastic or sentry. Everything I know about the whole thing is from comments such as from HN. What I am hearing from you is that you don't see big cloud providers such as AWS as a threat but rather as an insurance policy so as users you can feel relatively safe in picking a SaaS product knowing that in the future (two years from now?) if the vendor were to go tits up, you can still have someone else who will step in and fill the void. I thought your intention was to make it as difficult as possible for another SaaS provider to compete against you but... clearly not? I appreciate the thoughtfulness of all of this and the pain of SaaS customers because just having the source code isn't enough. Often times, I am simply not qualified to run something like sentry myself and it is a matter of either spending tens of thousands of dollars a year on a SaaS or spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on another dedicated employee.
That being said, what I am reading from your comment is that the problem with GPL at least from the perspective of the user is all about perception and not about substance.
From what I understand as a hobbyist, I can essentially disregard licenses altogether. I am not distributing anything. You could license flask as Oracle Evil License (not actual name of the license, just making it up) and it wouldn't matter as a hobbyist because all I am doing is learning about flask.
What I mean is AGPLv3 should be fine for companies who are not SaaS providers and those who are SaaS providers, should contribute back.
What makes you not a fan of GPL?