> It sounds like you agree that companies with proprietary code can't link GPL libraries
No. This is incorrect. One cannot create derivative works with AGPL code. Linking does not necessarily create a derivative work. Whether or not it does depends on the specific case, and the degree to which the code intertwines. If I have an AGPL back-end and a proprietary front-end for an online photoeditor, that's probably a problem. If I have an AGPL database and a proprietary web app using it, that's generally not a problem.
Even in the photoeditor case, it only becomes a problem at distribution. For an internal tool, AGPL+proprietary is often okay (depending on who the internal team is). AGPL means a consumer-facing web app becomes a problem.
There is a sensible decision path for avoiding linking, but it has nothing to do with this. The arguments are:
1) Engineers aren't lawyers. For a big company, it's easier to have a hard rule (no AGPL) than to train engineers to be lawyers. For small companies, more nuance is okay.
2) AGPL is as much a legal mechanism as a social signaling mechanism. If I'm using a tool not the way the authors intended for me to use -- in an open ecosystem -- that creates its own problems.
No. This is incorrect. One cannot create derivative works with AGPL code. Linking does not necessarily create a derivative work. Whether or not it does depends on the specific case, and the degree to which the code intertwines. If I have an AGPL back-end and a proprietary front-end for an online photoeditor, that's probably a problem. If I have an AGPL database and a proprietary web app using it, that's generally not a problem.
Even in the photoeditor case, it only becomes a problem at distribution. For an internal tool, AGPL+proprietary is often okay (depending on who the internal team is). AGPL means a consumer-facing web app becomes a problem.
There is a sensible decision path for avoiding linking, but it has nothing to do with this. The arguments are:
1) Engineers aren't lawyers. For a big company, it's easier to have a hard rule (no AGPL) than to train engineers to be lawyers. For small companies, more nuance is okay.
2) AGPL is as much a legal mechanism as a social signaling mechanism. If I'm using a tool not the way the authors intended for me to use -- in an open ecosystem -- that creates its own problems.