alt Hacker NewsEven more critically, dual-license commercial and AGPLv3 to avoid the AWS loophole (hosted services or source modifications without licensing it commercial.)
AGPLv3 is perfect for kernel and userspace tools because, while it doesn't guarantee licensing revenues, as soon as they do anything to modify it they have to release those changes to ANY users of the system, whether downstream distributors or simply users of the network services they provide. Since they have to provide any IP/patents they used to do it under copyleft terms, QNX would get publicly visible benefits, albeit with changes that might not be useful under the commercial license without negotiating a CLA with the modifying party, but under the commercial license you could negotiate terms/a discount to trade their new code for a reduction in their cost of licensing. It's a win/win from either an open source PR or a behind the scenes commercial negotiation point. Obviously your lawyers, bean counters, and C-suite have to get onboard, but if you are serious about growing QNX's marketshare now that Linux is gaining real-time kernel support in mainline, you had better point out to your bosses they need to make the decision quick and stick to it, or there won't be a next time.
Edit: Adjustments made to clarify my position and suggestion.
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My honest opinion is that the prevalence of licenses like GPLv3 and AGPLv3 end up indirectly leading to people recreating the wheel, rather than using the wheel that exists already.
> AGPLv3 is perfect for kernel and userspace tools because, while it doesn't guarantee licensing revenues, as soon as they do anything to modify it they have to release those changes to ANY users of the system, whether downstream distributors or simply users of the network services they provide.
This is actually fairly ambiguous in the text. It says "if you modify the Program, your modified version must prominently offer all users interacting with it remotely through a computer network (if your version supports such interaction) an opportunity to receive the Corresponding Source of your version". This is fairly straightforward when applied to a database—if you modify an AGPL database and offer it as a hosted version then your users are obviously interacting with it over the network—but much less straightforward when talking about an AGPL program that doesn't intentionally build in network connectivity.
The GPL FAQ addresses this provision [0] and it seems to support a more conservative reading. My understanding from the FAQ is that a Program that is not "expressly designed to accept user requests and send responses over a network" derives no benefit from being AGPL vs GPL, even if a web app interacts with that AGPL code over IPC or similar.
[0] https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#AGPLv3InteractingR...