A web api which a GPL-licensed program exposes, does it enforce the clients to be under GPL as well? [closed]

Question

Closed. This question does not meet Stack Overflow guidelines. It is not currently accepting answers.

---

This question does not appear to be about programming within the scope defined in the help center.

Closed 8 years ago.

Improve this question

I've created a program that's exposing a RESTFul web API. I want that program to be under a free software license and was first leaning to license it under MIT, since I wanted the clients utilizing the API to be able to be proprietary. Later on I realized that they won't be integrating any of the code since the program runs on itself on a HTTP-server and then clients are simply interfacing with it across HTTP. Am I correct in assuming that it would be safe to license it under GPL and still have proprietary commercial clients using it?

Answer 1

You would be correct but still the GPL won't be of much use there. You should use the AGPL then if you're looking for an effective copyleft, it closes the server loophole of the GPL. Proprietary services can still interact with your RESTFul web API.