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0 pointszerocrates9y ago0 comments

The action that subjects you to the remote network interaction restriction at the heart of the AGPL is "modifying" the covered work.

Modification is defined exactly the same in the AGPL as in the GPL. I don't think putting a reverse proxy in front of an AGPL app means much of anything in terms of either the letter or the spirit of the license.

Mongo's separation of Apache-licensed drivers from the server is about making it so that applications don't have to link to the AGPL'd server code, thereby avoiding "modifying" it. Without a modification, the network interaction section isn't triggered at all.

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mnutt9y ago· 1 in thread

The "work" in this case would be the modified AGPL service. Using a reverse proxy, the "end user" would be the person running the reverse proxy, so you would owe source modification code to yourself, but nobody else.

zerocratesOP9y ago

There's a possibility that courts would interpret the remote interaction clause very narrowly as you suggest, allowing people to sidestep the teeth of the license easily. I think that possibility is fairly small, but you never know for sure of course.

Still, my main point was that the route taken by Mongo is intended to remove this kind of uncertainty: normal applications using it don't modify or include any AGPL code, so the question of just how far "remote interaction" goes never comes up.

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