Re-license code base for distribution under AGPLv3

[goodboy]

This commit obviously denotes a re-license of all applicable parts of
the code base (not including the minor patch setl not yet verified by
contributors). From here henceforth all changes will be AGPLv3 licensed
and distributed. This is purely an effort to maintain the same copy-left
policy whilst closing the SaaS loophole the GPLv3 allows for. It is
merely for this loophole, to avoid code hiding by any potential firms
who are attempting to use the project to make a profit without either
compensating the authors or re-distributing their changes.

I thought quite a bit about this change and can't see a reason not to
close the SaaS loophole in our current license. We still are (hard)
copy-left and I plan to keep the code base this way for a couple
reasons:

• The code base produces income/profit through parent projects and is
  demonstrably of high value.
• I believe firms should not get free lunch for the sake of
  "contributions from their employees" or "usage as a service" which
  I have found to be a dubious argument at best.
• If a firm who intends to profit from the code base wants to use it
  they can propose a commercial license to purchase with the proceeds
  going to the project's authors under some form of well defined
  contract.
• Many successful projects like Qt use this model; I see no reason it
  can't work in this case until such a time as the authors feel it
  should be loosened.

There has been detailed discussion in #103 on licensing alternatives.
The main point of this AGPL change is to protect the code base for the
time being from exploitation and hijack as we move into the next phase
of development which will include extending into the multi-host
distributed software space.

---

ping @guilledk @chrizzFTD @overclockworked64.

As all of you are contributors with varying levels of patches to the codebase this is a formal reach out to ask for approval to re-license and distribute henceforth each of your changes as the code base is continued to be developed into the the future.

You are of course not expected in any way to re-license your changes but know that changes to your changes will be further more redistributed under the new license.

Cheers!

[guilledk]

The following is my opinion only:

In an ideal world no intellectual property law would exist and real free market competition would ensue.
But in reality those systems are well put in place and there are those who routinely abuse them.

With that and the ethics of emergency in mind I fully support merging this PR in order to change the licensing to AGPLv3.

All source code I contributed to this repo should also be re-licensed to AGPLv3.

[goodboy]

For those interested here's some non-legal discussion on SO around this change:
https://opensource.stackexchange.com/questions/12276/how-to-change-the-license-of-a-project-from-gpl-to-agpl

Of note:

The most important point you need to consider is that software licenses are irrevocable - i.e. once you have released a specific version of the code under the GPL, it is available under the GPL for ever, and there's nothing you or anyone else can do about that.

Your third option - just stating that the code is licensed under the AGPL - you cannot do without the permission of all copyright holders, because you do not have permission to change the license on any code to which you are not the copyright holder. And even if you did do this, it still wouldn't stop people using the GPL code.

From that last point any code that is not officially acked here as being re-licensed will continue under GPL until it is changed by someone contributing with the new license (likely myself 😂).

Iirc @chrizzFTD has some minor fixes for windows in the code base and @overclockworked64 did some work bringing in cluster api stuff that we worked together on.

@guilledk has the most contribs and already has stated the re-license above.

Options for those who aren't comfortable with this change:

So, what can you can do? You can license any new code you write under the AGPL. At this point, anything which includes the new AGPL code could be used only under the terms of the AGPL; the people using the GPL version would then have two options if they wish to keep up with any new functionality you release: either to switch to using the AGPL version with all that implies, or to fork the code from the last GPL version and do independent development of their own.

[overclockworked64]

I'm fine with relicensing the code.

[goodboy]

Lol updated the version post haste. Not sure why 4 was in my head 😂

[goodboy]

Bah I guess the commit message was wrong too 😂.
No idea why 4.

Anyway, license files and headers are all correct just commit message lul.

Being real pro at licensing details 🏄🏼, "tractor"