free software
You've probably heard of free and open source software. Perhaps you've heard about GNU or Linux. Maybe you're using Firefox or a WebKit-based browser (such as Apple's Safari) right now. Your next mobile phone could very well run an open operating system (such as Google Android, or "LiMo"), or run on an operating system where the underpinnings are open source (such as iPhone OS).
These are all examples of software where the code is completely available. We love open source code. Our servers run on open source code. Our web applications run on an open source framework. We consider the software we use to run our infrastructure as the best stack imaginable -- and it's all open source.
It would be somewhat hypocritical of us if our own software's source code wasn't available as well, so we decided to make it a priority to begin auditing our code to put all of the web-based software we have in development under a free software/open source license when they launch.
But we didn't decide to put our code under just any license; we decided to put it under the GNU Affero General Public License version 3. While the AGPL is similar to the GPL, the big difference is that it was designed for web services. The copyleft is also applied to redistribution over the network -- in other words, as opposed GPL'd web services where the copyleft only applies if you specifically redistribute your code as a separate software package, the AGPL requires you to release any changes you make as putting the web application online for others counts as redistribution.
We think this approach is marvelous and can only spur innovation.
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