f you follow open source, or at least this blog, you remember the debate around GPL and the ASP loophole. In a nutshell, companies using a trick to avoid returning changes to the code back to the community. The last chapter is that AGPL v3 (the GPL version that fixes the ASP loophole) was finalized in November, and we switched the Funambol project to it.

The future of software is in cloud computing," says Fabrizio Capobianco, CEO of Funambol, a company that provides mobile services. And if free and open source software (FOSS) is going to survive in that emerging market, he says, then the community needs to adjust by promoting greater use of the GNU Affero General Public License (AGPL), a license specifically crafted for software as a service.

Google open source guru Chris DiBona says that the web giant continues to ban the lightning-rod AGPL open source license within the company because doing so "saves engineering time" and because most AGPL projects are of no use to the company.

recently we, your mostly friendly Ftpmaster and -team, have been asked about an opinion about the AGPL in Debian. The short summary is: We think that works licensed under the AGPL can go into main. (Provided they don't have any other problems).

According to the Affero General Public License (AGPL), Saigonica must allow users to download the ‘modified’ version of this software. Furthermore, Saigonica MUST NOT remove the Source link from their Laconica site. By removing the Source link, Saigonica has openly violated of the AGPL.

The GNU Affero GPL v3 has recently been published, eventually closing the ‘Software as a Service Loophole‘, preventing code covered by AGPL to be offered as a service without modifications being published. Simon Phipps is surpised SugarCRM didn’t wait for Affero, while Michael Tiemann would like to see the AGPL tested in the marketplace.

Mobile open source player Funambol is certainly giving us plenty to watch these days with its Affero GPL licensing, its use of ad-supported mobile phone access to email and general bet on mobile open source software.

Google apparently likes open source that lets it "borrow" open-source software while giving comparatively little back, and always on Google's terms.

I’m a big fan of Free Culture and free open source web services too, licensed under the AGPL. The example I use most is probably Identi.ca, because I’m a noisy git and I like talking to people. I also wrote about the creation of Libre.fm a little while back, and I think we could really use more of these truly “free” web services.