AGPL is not an appropriate license for libraries

[DemiMarie]

The GNU AGPL is an appropriate license for web applications, but not for libraries. In many cases, there is no practical way to provide the offer of source code that the AGPL requires, so the AGPL becomes a nonfree “redistributable, no modification permitted” license.

[diamondburned]

In many cases, there is no practical way to provide the offer of source code that the AGPL requires, so the AGPL becomes a nonfree “redistributable, no modification permitted” license.

How does this apply to gotk4? The source code is already here, what more would have to be done to "provide the offer of source code that the AGPL requires" (that is different from GPL)?

[DemiMarie]

In many cases, there is no practical way to provide the offer of source code that the AGPL requires, so the AGPL becomes a nonfree “redistributable, no modification permitted” license.

How does this apply to gotk4? The source code is already here, what more would have to be done to "provide the offer of source code that the AGPL requires" (that is different from GPL)?

The program itself needs to provide the offer when the user interacts with it over a network. Many programs have no way to do that, because the network protocols they use have no way to return information that will be displayed on a screen.

[diamondburned]

In many cases, there is no practical way to provide the offer of source code that the AGPL requires, so the AGPL becomes a nonfree “redistributable, no modification permitted” license.

How does this apply to gotk4? The source code is already here, what more would have to be done to "provide the offer of source code that the AGPL requires" (that is different from GPL)?

The program itself needs to provide the offer when the user interacts with it over a network. Many programs have no way to do that, because the network protocols they use have no way to return information that will be displayed on a screen.

gotk4 has no networking on its own; it is on the user's duty to provide this information when they're using it over the network.

What exactly do you mean by this? Do you just want cmd/gir-* tools to print the license out or is this being overly pedantic?

[DemiMarie]

gotk4 has no networking on its own; it is on the user's duty to provide this information when they're using it over the network.

I’m saying that that is not possible in general, becuase there is nowhere in the network protocol to insert the information. That’s why AGPL only really makes sense for web applications, where there is a place to insert the information.

For a library, the GPL or LGPL would be much better choices.