> GPL is pretty much toothless to stop SaaS companies using your software
That's because the GPL doesn't restrict use. It is not an EULA.
(Of course, it has disclaimers related to use: by using the software, you agree with the liability disclaimers, but you don't have to agree with anything else just to be a user.)
Users are free not to share their modifications. Until you redistribute, modifications are basically a form of use.
This is in line with the GNU philosophy; Stallman certainly doesn't want you to feel that you're restricted from privately inspecting a program and altering it to suit your needs.
This ought to be easy to see. If I take a modified emacs, put it on a web server, and provide access to it via a terminal emulator in a web browser, I've effectively distributed it without actually distributing it. It's an end run around the GPL.
That doesn't have anything to do with my argument, which describes a scenario in which there is a user who took some program and adapted it to suit his or her needs, running on his or her own equipment.
In this situation, the program has additional users. However, they equipment doesn't belong to them. They are only visitors to someone else's private property. Even if they had the source to the modifications, they would not be able to make further modifications and put them into effect on your server, since they don't have administrative access.
There is no run around the GPL; the GPL is simply not applicable. It can't give people the right to tinker with your private property.
Never mind not having the GPL-granted rights: if the users are getting a free service, they don't even have any right to expect that it will continue. Tomorrow you might pull the plug on the server (perhaps forced to, due to economics) and that's that.
The issue here isn't whether or not there is a GPL violation. There clearly isn't; the GPL simply isn't applicable.
The issue here is that gullible users make uninformed choices such that they throw away freedoms. The "takes away your freedom" rhetoric therefore rings untrue. That's like saying a contract that you irresponsibly signed without reading it has "taken" your freedom away. Where is the personal accountability?
The only genuine freedom-related problem is that widespread use of anything creates pressure on people to become users, simply in order to interoperate with the majority. The naive lemmings who unknowingly give up their rights create pressure on others to knowingly do so. I certainly don't want to be coerced into signing up for some SaaS just because it has turned into the only way of doing business.
> We don't see any sensible way to address the SaaSS problem with license conditions on particular programs. Even to write a legal condition to distinguish between SaaSS use and non-SaaSS use would be a challenge, and if we had that, it is not clear what we would want to require in the SaaSS case. Thus, our solution to the problem of SaaSS is simple: refuse to use it.
> If a program is meant specifically and only for SaaSS, you shouldn't write it. But many programs are useful for a variety of kinds of services, including some that are SaaSS and some that are not. It's useful to write and release these programs so people can set up non-SaaSS services with them, and good to release them under the AGPL.
So it seems like they do see it as an issue, but not one they can really do anything about in terms of licensing.
That's because the GPL doesn't restrict use. It is not an EULA.
(Of course, it has disclaimers related to use: by using the software, you agree with the liability disclaimers, but you don't have to agree with anything else just to be a user.)
Users are free not to share their modifications. Until you redistribute, modifications are basically a form of use.
This is in line with the GNU philosophy; Stallman certainly doesn't want you to feel that you're restricted from privately inspecting a program and altering it to suit your needs.