[gentoo-dev] Re: Anti-spam changes: proposal to drop spammy mail

[Duncan]

Niels Dettenbach (Syndicat.com) posted on Sat, 23 May 2015 08:39:36 +0200
as excerpted:

>  Some
> of the very large mailers today still holding on postfix usually have
> developed their own strongly modified and mostly („crapped") "version"
> of it (more or less giggling around GPL barriers here) - this is not
> THAT postfix anymore most people get with their linux distri. ß)

FWIW on those GPL barriers... and with the usual "no lawyer here" 
disclaimer...

It's worth noting the difference between the GPL and the AGPL, the latter 
of which considers usage of a server-based service to be distribution of 
that service, thereby triggering the traditional GPL sources distribution 
requirements.

The GPL, by contrast, normally applies only locally, making the company 
doing the mods the only direct user, and they normally have access to the 
sources already, since they're either making the mods or commissioning 
them, themselves.

Thus it is that many cloud-based services can legally avoid the otherwise 
restrictions of the GPL, because they are their own user and are not 
considered to be distributing.  But the AGPL, unlike the GPL, never 
really developed a following of critical mass to create a self-sustaining 
ecosystem.

So it isn't that these providers are giggling around the GPL 
restrictions.  Those restrictions simply don't apply to the license 
chosen for the apps and libs they tend to use, and if they did, because 
the AGPL never developed that strong an ecosystem, it's always reasonably 
simple to simply go with a different "open source", or even "free 
software" alternative.

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman