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This is tangential, but, speaking of intellectual property, was MongoDB entitled to strip the FSF copyright in the SSPL ? (as per https://webassets.mongodb.com/_com_assets/legal/SSPL-compare... line 5)



Given that the text of the SSPL amounts to a minor edit to that of the AGPL (at best): no.

The SSPL text is still a derivative of the AGPL text, which is copyrighted and licensed under the following terms (from https://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.en.html):

Copyright © 2007 Free Software Foundation, Inc. <https://fsf.org/> Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this license document, but changing it is not allowed.


I thought so. IANAL, but it looks like a blatant copyright violation to me. This indicates that the SSPL may not have been written by a lawyer.


The FSF gives people permission to modify the GPL as MongoDB did https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#ModifyGPL

They do not require in that license to modify the GPL license that you keep the original copyright attribution around.

(IANAL - not legal advice, etc etc)




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