Another victory for AGPL

If you read this blog, you know I am a vocal supporter of the AGPLv3 license, the version of GPL which maintains copyleft also in the SaaS model ("copyleft in the cloud"). I always said, and I guess I will always say, that AGPL is the open source license for the future. The only one that covers the SaaS model, the only one you can build a sustainable open source project (and business) on, in the years ahead.

There have been some discussions within Debian about AGPLv3. Even if we pushed AGPLv3 to be approved by OSI, Debian was not considering it as a "good" license to be embeddable in the OS... It all changed today, as explained in the Software Freedom Law Center blog.

Late last week, the FTP Masters of Debian - who, absent a vote of the Debian developers, make all licensing decisions - posted their ruling that AGPLv3 is DFSG-Free. I was glad to see this issue was finally resolved after months of confusion; the AGPLv3 is now approved by all known FLOSS licensing ruling bodies (FSF, OSI, and Debian).

It was somewhat fitting that the AGPLv3 was approved by Debian within a week of the one year anniversary of AGPLv3's release. This year of AGPLv3 has shown very rapid adoption of the AGPL. Even conservative numbers show an adoption rate of 15 projects per month. I expect the numbers to continue a steady, linear climb as developers begin to realize that the AGPL is the "copyleft of the Cloud".

Hear to AGPLv3. Mark, this is another step forward... I am getting close to maybe one day have a slight chance to win the bet.