TheFree Software Foundationhas developed
an open licence to cover on-demandsoftware-as-a-service (SaaS)applications.
The Free Software Foundation (FSF) has published the GNU Affero
General Public Licence version 3 (GNU AGPLv3).
This is a new licence and is based on version 3 of the GNU
General Public Licence (GNU GPLv3), but it has an additional term
to allow users who interact with licenced software over a network
to receive the source for that program.
Through the licence, the FSF aims to foster user and development
communities around network-oriented free software.
The GNU GPL allows users to modify the software they receive,
and share those modified versions with others, as long as they make
it open to recipients when they do so.
The FSF recommends that people consider using the GNU AGPL for
any software that will commonly be run over a network.
FSF board member Benjamin Mako Hill said, "The GNU GPL has been
the most successful free software licence because it makes a
program's source available to its users.
"This enables massive collaboration between developers, since
everyone gets the same benefits from this rule. The GNU AGPL will
enable the same kind of co-operation around web services and other
networked software."