Lila: Do we violate the license if we add AdSense?

[vodnicearv]

Do we violate the rules of licenses if we add ads from Google AdSense in copies of the script?

[niklasf]

As far as I can tell you won't be able to license the adsense code under the AGPL, so including it would indeed be a license violation.

[vodnicearv]

As far as I can tell you won't be able to license the adsense code under the AGPL, so including it would indeed be a license violation.

it is exactly? because I saw copies that have ads from Google AdSense

[ornicar]

I don't see how that's relevant.

Someone sent me a scam email today. Yet it still is immoral and illegal.

Because someone does something doesn't mean it's ok to do it.

[vodnicearv]

https://choosealicense.com/licenses/
@ornicar Can you comment?

[niklasf]

You can do anything, sell copies, sell support, and (dare I say, unfortunately) include advertisements.

But the conditions apply, in particular what's abbreviated in that summary as "Same license". As you are not the copyright holders of the AdSense code that you would have to include, and it isn't already licensed under the AGPL by Google, I highly doubt you can meet that requirement.

[vodnicearv]

I don’t use Google libraries.
The advertising code, Google itself gives for insertion on the site.
This code does not have a license.

Just like the Google Analytics tracking code.

[niklasf]

Exactly. Neither Google Analytics tracking code nor the AdSense embedded code are licensed under the AGPL, so neither can be included without violating the terms.

[vodnicearv]

It turns out that Lila also violate the license?
https://github.com/ornicar/lila/blob/master/COPYING.md

stripe, reCAPTCHA, Their code for insertion on the site is also not AGPL

[niklasf]

Good point. See https://github.com/ornicar/lila/labels/free%20software for a list of similar issues, and also the closed ones for many historical issues that have already been solved.

Of course, as the copyright holders, we don't have to follow our own rules, but that wouldn't be in the spirit of free software. (In fact, lila wouldn't be free software at all, if you cannot copy it without violating the license). As a pragmatic solution, Section 7 of the AGPL offers the copyright holders the possibility to unanimously add exceptions, where free alternatives are yet to be implemented.

For example we added such an exception for Highcharts, a non-free library (https://github.com/ornicar/lila/blob/master/COPYING.md#additional-permission-under-gnu-agpl-version-3-section-7).

If you modify this Program, or any covered work, by linking or combining it with Highcharts (or a modified version of that library), [...], the licensors of this Program grant you additional permission to convey the resulting work.

I guess we should explicitly add a similar exception for reCAPTCHA. And Stripe, but I believe Stripe it will soon no longer be embedded directly.

Anyway ... we will definitely not make an exception for AdSense.

[ornicar]

Thanks @niklasf for the explanations.

On a personal note, I will add that one of the goals of lichess, that motivated the people who worked on it, is to demonstrate that a free service can be provided without advertisements.
Using that work to display advertisements would be incredibly distasteful.

[ornicar]

As per the terms of the lila license, I request to see the source code for http://vochess.com/

[vodnicearv]

@ornicar https://github.com/Vodnicear/vochess