Why is CiviCRM licensed under the AGPL?

The Social Source Foundation believes that the CiviCRM community of users, partners, and developers should have certain rights to its software if they begin to interact with it. Since interaction with CiviCRM often occurs over a network, such as through an Application Service Provider (ASP) model, GNU GPL license does not fully protect their freedoms.

The concerns to protect the rights of those who interact with software through a computer network were addressed in the Affero General Public License, which adds section 2(d) to the GNU GPL 2, and in GNU AGPL 3, which is a GPL 3-compatible license from FSF.

CiviCRM 1 is licensed under the (old) AGPL, CiviCRM 2 is licensed under GNU AGPL 3.