The complicated world of open source licensing has become a bit more complicated (http://www.opensource.org/licenses/alphabetical), as the Free Software Foundation (FSF) (http://www.fsf.org/) announced details (http://www.fsf.org/agplv3-pr) of the final version of its Affero General Public License GPL (AGPL).

The so-called Affero (http://www.affero.com/ca.html) clause was originally considered earlier this year for inclusion in the revamped GPL3 license but the idea was controversially (http://www.linux-mag.com/id/3017) abandoned in favour of a separate license.

The license (http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/agpl-3.0.html) plugs a loophole in the original GPL3 that had allowed companies to circumvent one of the central principles of open source development. By claiming that network server software - such as software as a service (SaaS) - was not covered, they could use and enhance open source components without returning the improvements to the open source pool.®

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