Affero General Public License

The Affero General Public License (Affero GPL, AGPL, and informally Affero License) refers to two distinct, though historically related, free software licenses. The first is the Affero General Public License, version 1 which was published by Affero, Inc. in March 2002, and is based on the GNU General Public License, version 2 (GPLv2). The second is the GNU Affero General Public License, version 3, published by the Free Software Foundation in November 2007, and based on the GNU General Public License, version 3 (GPLv3).

Both versions of the AGPL were designed to close a perceived application service provider (ASP) loophole in the ordinary GPL, where, by using but not distributing the software, the copyleft provisions are not triggered. Each version differs from the version of the GNU GPL on which it is based in having an added provision addressing use of software over a computer network. This provision requires that the full source code be made available to any network user of the AGPL-licensed work, typically a web application.