Good morning,
according to wikipedia, OnlyOffice is released under AGPL 3.0 while analyzing the source code, I found that (I’m not sure if I chose all the necessary components):
Ascensio: This program is freeware. You can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU Affero General Public License (AGPL) version 3 as published by the Free Software Foundation.
So does OnlyOffice belong to FOSS (with the “best” protective license)? Or does it belong to proprietary software (even if not commercial)?
I think this is a fundamental point as I consider OnlyOffice the best open source alternative (I hope) to microsoft, even better than LibreOffice.
Thank you
Thank you for your question! ONLYOFFICE is indeed FOSS, as its source code and other components are distributed under the GNU AGPL v3.0 - one of the strongest copyleft open source licenses approved by both the FSF and OSI.
This means that ONLYOFFICE can be freely used, modified, and redistributed under the terms of AGPL v3, which requires that the source code of any distributed or network-accessible modified versions be disclosed, original copyright notices be preserved, and derivative works be licensed under the same terms to ensure that the software and its improvements are kept open and free.
Best regards
Ascensio: This program is freeware. You can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU Affero General Public License (AGPL) version 3 as published by the Free Software Foundation.
The statement “This program is freeware. You can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU Affero General Public License (AGPL) version 3 as published by the Free Software Foundation” remains accurate.
For additional details, please refer to our copyright notice regarding AGPL v3 at the following link
ONLYOFFICE remains available as open-source software under the AGPL v3.0 license.
Thank you for your reply. It’s probably a my limitation, generally a freeware software is proprietary and closed source. In this case it is released under one of the most copyleft FOSS licences in existence. I don’t know of any other such examples. This is very strange.
According to the FSF, the author of AGPL 3 and many FOSS licences: Proprietary software The term “freeware” has no clear accepted definition, but it is commonly used for packages which permit redistribution but not modification (and their source code is not available). These packages are not free software, so please don’t use “freeware” to refer to free software.
