The output from running a covered work is covered by this License only if the output, given its content, constitutes a covered work.
So, what is 'covered work'? The license says this:
A "covered work" means either the unmodified Program or a work based on the Program.
Do you still think it's clearly written license? To me it's dubious enough that I wanted an explicit answer from the authors of Minio. Failing to get it, I decided to move away from Minio.
Fyi... a few Google employees talked about similar ambiguous interpretations of AGPL's terms and clauses by Google's legal team review in a past thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23966778
> Perhaps if random engineers stopped calling legal opinion FUD and falsehoods and took a moment to listen to the feedback from lawyers who didn’t write the license, we’d get somewhere with finding a palatable license for all parties. Instead, we get a holy war.
My corollary: an argument is not a document. When I need a strong resolution on an issue, I want in writing and in a single organized voice, not spread across a bunch of comments and commenters, whose goal is often to shout down doubts or to keep the peace between participants.
Besides the internet, I've seen "the-argument-is-the-document" occasionally inside companies and very strongly in a hype-driven programming language.
this is basically talking about compilers and things like dumping a memory image from gforth or emacs
if someone said 'no, the output from my gpl-licensed compiler is never covered by the gpl', then would-be infringers would have an easy escape from the gpl: just compile the compiler with itself, and its author guarantees that the compiled output isn't covered by the gpl! so that's why the fsf carefully says 'only if the output, given its content, constitutes a covered work'
similarly, emacs or gforth has the ability to dump a memory image after loading up a bunch of source code and compiling it to bytecode; that way it can instantly load the image without taking the time to recompile all that code. this memory image includes all the code that's loaded, including not just your code, but also all the standard library code that comes with the system. but that shouldn't give would-be infringers an easy escape from the gpl for the standard library code
If the output of your program is an copy of minio then it is also covered by AGPL is what that means. I think it's just covering the case where you are redistributing minio in a way such as decompressing and producing the output.
I still don't think it's that confusing. Unlimited running of it is already covered without exception. The next line only refers to the output of the covered work.
If the output of your web server is redistributing minio then you are under AGPL
