New Saigon Food Blogger in Town

Saigonica is no longer in compliance with AGPL for failing to to provide a Download Link to their modified source code.

There is a new Twitter-clone in Vietnam called Saigonica.  It is based on the open source micro-blogging tool called Laconica, currently one of the most popular Twitter-clones.  It is nice to see the Vietnamese technology community embracing open source software.  Their contribution to the open source community will be very valuable in the upcoming years.  The Vietnamese localization of Ubuntu, OpenSUSE, and OpenOffice are some clear examples of their contributions so far.  Their contributions demonstrates a willingness to give back to the open source community and keeping the open source software free.

Unfortunately, Saigonica does not seem willing to give back to the open source community.  According to the Affero General Public License (AGPL), Saigonica must allow users to download the ‘modified’ version of this software.  Furthermore, Saigonica MUST NOT remove the Source link from their Laconica site.  By removing the Source link, Saigonica has  openly violated of the AGPL.

For some people, this may mean nothing to you but to the open source community, it is a big deal.  Saigonica is denying the Authors, Developers and Users of Laconica the freedom to see the modified source code for their own personal gain without contributing back.  If they do not want to share their modified source code with the open source community, then Saigonica should either develop their own micro-blogging tool or purchase a propriety one.

Saigonica even took their name from Identi.ca, the creaters of Laconica, without giving them any credit.

Saigonica will be a good test for open source developers here in Vietnam and around the world.  If successful, I am curious to see how the Laconica community, Free Software Foundation, and most specifically, the Vietnamese Linux Users, such as HanoiLUG, will react to their violation of the AGPL.

Read more about the Affero General License here -> http://www.affero.org/oagf.html

This link contains a list of sites using Laconica that abide by the AGPL rules -> http://laconi.ca/trac/wiki/ListOfServers

Edit 1: Vietnamese language discussion of Saigonica, AGPL violation, etc., here  -> http://linkhay.com/link/t/Saigonica-Vua-chat-vua-blog-Vui-lam

Edit 2: Saigonica says they are trying to abide by AGPL: http://www.saigonica.com/notice/6801

Edit 3: Saigonica is starting to abide by AGPL.

Edit 4: Saigonica is now in compliance with AGPL according to Laconica.

Edit 5: Saigonica is no longer in complaince with AGPL by not providing a link to their modified source code.

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