to: licensing@fsf.org date sent: Nov 5, 2020, 8:49 PM date reply: Nov 18, 2020, 9:16 AM subject: GPL & AGPL questions === Paulius Galubickas (Attorney-at-law, http://galubickas.lt/en/) via RT 9:16 AM (59 minutes ago) to me On Thu Nov 05 20:50:06 2020, zrtoogood@gmail.com wrote: > Hi there, Hello, please accept our apologies for the delay in getting back to you. We rely on volunteer effort and often have difficulties keeping up with the demand for our expertise. > > I hope you're doing well! I have a few questions about a codebase that I > work in, that I was hoping you could answer for me. > > I work on a well-established game server project that has historically been > GPL3 throughout, and that has always been well understood and easy to > follow. There has been a shift recently where a lot of people in our > community want to start shifting towards using AGPL3, to "activate" the > open-source-ness of the codebase from downstream users. > > Given the age of the project, isn't possible for us to just relicense all > of the existing work, so our only option is a progressive relicensing > through the project being rewritten. > - Do all modifications to a GPL work always have to be GPL? Or can > individual modifications be under a compatible license? Can any > modification to the GPL work be licensed under the AGPL? If someone modifies GPLv3 file (code) and adds copyrightable code to it, then that portion of the code can be under a compatible license (e.g. AGPLv3). Please see . The original portions of code would still only have to follow the terms of the GPLv3. GPLv3‘s section 13 states "The terms of this License [GPLv3] will continue to apply to the part which is the covered work, but the special requirements of the GNU Affero General Public License, section 13, concerning interaction through a network will apply to the combination as such." > > - What modifications are allowed to be AGPL? Are non-trivial changes to > lines and sections in a GPL file allowed to be AGPL? Or does the whole file > have to be modified/rewritten? The modified code should remain under the initial license of the code. > > - What counts as a modification? Am I correct in my thinking that "It > wouldn't be considered a modification of a GPL work if what you're adding > could stand by itself in a separate GitHub repository"? In order a modification could be qualified as a derivative work entitled for copyright, it should meet a copyrightability criteria. Such modifications shouldn’t be trivial, they should be original. > > - If I have a base class and then inherit from it, is the new child class > allowed to be AGPL, if it is otherwise entirely written from scratch? The child class written from scratch and having additional functionality could be regarded as a copyrightable work and be licensed by its copyright holder under AGPLv3 and linked to GPLv3 code. > > - Am I allowed to make a brand new source and header files AGPL, even if > they are compiled and linked to otherwise GPL content? AGPLv3 files could be linked to GPLv3 code and the source code of the combined work should be made available to users interacting with the combined work over a network. > > - If I have a scripting language, which calls out to bindings written in > GPL code, can those scripts be AGPL? The copyright holder of any copyrightable work can license it under AGPLv3 and call from it (link to) GPLv3 code. > > And finally, is it alright for me to host the body of your reply in a wiki > or similar, or should I paraphrase? We always ask that if someone is going to publish our reply that they should give the whole reply, so that people can get the full context of what we said. > > Thanks for your time, I really appreciate the work you guys do! > Cheers, Thanks for checking in, and I hope this helps. > Zach -- Disclaimer: please note that the above is not legal advice. The services of the GPL Compliance Lab are made possible by donations from people like you. Please consider supporting us today by becoming a member [https://my.fsf.org/join] or by making a donation [https://www.fsf.org/donate]. Regards Paulius (i4paga)