"BOSTON, Massachusetts, USA—Monday, November 19, 2007—The Free Software Foundation (FSF) today published the GNU Affero General Public License version 3 (GNU AGPLv3).

"The GNU Affero General Public License or GNU AGPL is a free software license published by the Free Software Foundation. The GNU AGPL is similar to the GNU General Public License, except that it has an additional section to cover use over a computer network. It closes what is commonly known as the Application service provider loophole of the GNU General Public License.

"The Free Software Foundation (FSF) today released the second discussion draft of the GNU Affero General Public License (GNU AGPL). This new license is based on version 3 of the GNU GPL. It has a new requirement to ensure that users who interact with the software over a network can receive the source for that program..."

"The GNU Affero General Public License is a free, copyleft license for software and other kinds of works, specifically designed to ensure cooperation with the community in the case of network server software...

"The GNU Affero General Public License is a free, copyleft license for software and other kinds of works, specifically designed to ensure cooperation with the community in the case of network server software..."

"Nearly five months after the release of the third version of the GNU General Public License (GPL), the Free Software Foundation (FSF) has completed the updating of its key licenses by the release of the GNU Affero General Public License (GAGPL). The GAGPL is designed for use with software distributed over a network, such as a Web application or software as a service..."

After 18 months of widespread consultation with community and corporate interests, the third versions of the GNU General Public License (GPL) and GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL) were released one year ago on 29 June 2007. In November, they were joined by the GNU Affero General Public License (AGPL).

"The license changes keep coming. While work is wrapping up on the GNU General Public License version 3 (GPLv3), the Free Software Foundation has released the first discussion draft of the Affero GPLv3."

Network services are one of the fastest growing areas in modern software. However, while network services have much of the convenience of free software, only a minority are available under a free license. In fact, it was only last November that the Free Software Foundation (FSF) released the GNU Affero General Public License for network services.