>This is the problem: I've fought with IP lawyers we've had on retainer who always boil it down to: "It doesn't matter. We're not going to court to find out."
This is incredibly stupid. By this logic your business can't do literally anything. The AGPL simply does not do what Google states it does, and a basic reading of the AGPL text readily and clearly confirms this fact.
A more realistic explanation for why Google shouldn't use AGPL software is because of their giant monorepo development style. If they import a third-party codebase into their monorepo and don't put big shouty warnings next to it, it seems really easy for it to start to leak into other modules. So maybe the following is true: if you use monorepos, and you vendor third-party code into them, then using AGPL'd software is risky. But this statement does not (and should not, monorepos are dumb) apply to most companies.
This is incredibly stupid. By this logic your business can't do literally anything. The AGPL simply does not do what Google states it does, and a basic reading of the AGPL text readily and clearly confirms this fact.
A more realistic explanation for why Google shouldn't use AGPL software is because of their giant monorepo development style. If they import a third-party codebase into their monorepo and don't put big shouty warnings next to it, it seems really easy for it to start to leak into other modules. So maybe the following is true: if you use monorepos, and you vendor third-party code into them, then using AGPL'd software is risky. But this statement does not (and should not, monorepos are dumb) apply to most companies.