Proxmox as a base OS for a product

[troycarpenter]

Greetings,

I have a question about AGPL3 and its application to my situation. I have been reading around and found a wide range of opinions on this matter.

I have a product that currently uses Ubuntu 20.04 as the base OS, then a custom set of deployment scripts which setup and configure KVMs (using libvirt) to provide local on-site services to customers. I would like to switch to using the Proxmox distribution as the base OS in order to get better KVM and OVS networking management (and use the Proxmox software unmodified) for my VMs and containers, but I am concerned that inclusion of an AGPL3 licensed product (Proxmox in this case) will make all my independent proprietary code subject to the AGPL3 license even though at most it will be using Proxmox's REST API to create/delete/startup VMs instead of the usual libvirt commands. I do sell this product as a component in a larger solution, but currently as a support product. I mainly charge for the hardware of this device and not so much the software other than licensing fees associated with the guest software.

Does using the Proxmox distribution in that capacity make all my non-derivative deployment software and scripts used to provision my device also subject to the AGPL3?

Thanks for your insights.
Troy Carpenter

 

[mira]

All modifications to PVE itself have to be provided to all users if asked for. If you link your software to one of PVE's libraries that are released under the (A)GPL, you have to provide those modifications as well.
Otherwise if you only use the API you are fine. In this case you don't have to provide your scripts/solutions to your users.

I'd suggest reading the AGPL very carefully just to be safe.

 

[troycarpenter]

All modifications to PVE itself have to be provided to all users if asked for. If you link your software to one of PVE's libraries that are released under the (A)GPL, you have to provide those modifications as well.
Otherwise if you only use the API you are fine. In this case you don't have to provide your scripts/solutions to your users.

I'd suggest reading the AGPL very carefully just to be safe.

Thanks, I have read the AGPL, and a myriad of analysis, and there seems to be a wide variety of opinions by many non-lawyers (like you and me...unless you are a lawyer). My opinion concurs with yours...as long as we are not modifying or linking to anything directly in Proxmox itself, we should be ok. I think that's enough for me to pass the idea to my corporate lawyers for their opinion before we move forward.

Troy