Violation of AGPL!

Alexander Plank alex at wrongplanet.net
Sat Jan 19 16:00:28 UTC 2008


A developer is violating the terms of the AGPLv1 by sub-licensing his
software under the AGPL.  His site is http://www.cmsimple.dk/ and
he distributes his software under the AGPL but adds a condition that users
must include an advert link to his website in a separate license
(also disturbed with the software) which he titles "the  cmsimple license"
http://www.cmsimple.dk/?Licence:CMSimple_licence .
He claims that section 2d of the agpl allows this but 2d of the AGPL only
requires that people using the software provide a facility to download the
original source code and does not allow additional licensing terms that are
not covered under the AGPL.
He writes:

"This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
under the terms of the Affero General Public License (AGPL) as published by
Affero, Inc. version 1. All files in the CMSimple distribution (except
language files other than English and Danish) are covered by this licence.

IMPORTANT NOTICE: As covered by the AGPL Section 2(d), the "Powered by
CMSimple"-link to cmsimple.dk must under no circumstances be removed from
pages generated by this program (except in print facility). If you want to
remove or hide this link from your pages, you must purchase CMSimple under a
commercial licence. The required link must be static, visible and readable.
This also applies testing purposes and setup at an intranet or internal
network."

However, his statement is not correct. 2d does not require a link to a
specific URL for users to download the source code.

It seems to me that users are still given the protections of the AGPL
because section 4 states:

"4. You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Program except
as expressly provided under this License. Any attempt otherwise to copy,
modify, sublicense or distribute the Program is void, and will automatically
terminate your rights under this License. However, parties who have received
copies, or rights, from you under this License will not have their licenses
terminated so long as such parties remain in full compliance"

What can be done about this?

Alex
-- 
----------------------
Alex Plank
http://AlexPlank.com

-- 
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Alex Plank
alex at wrongplanet.net
P: 213.325.2152
F: 213.325.2153
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