Are there software licenses out there that guarantee to the user the ability to receive updates and improvements to a piece of open source software?
I don't know of any license other than the GPL that provides this guarantee to the user.
I know that I'm more motivated to learn a new tool when it is protected by the GPL because of this guarantee that future versions will also be open source.
When I license my own software, I choose the Affero GPLv3 because it provides this extra guarantee to the users, even if the software serving the user is on a webserver.
@neptune22222 I don't think that's legally possible. After all, it's the author's copyright (not a right of the licensee) that any software licence is based on.
Sure, the author could agree on a contract that forces them to develop specific software for the licensee. Though, as far as I know, that isn't really possible via general terms and conditions (in the legal sense).
I know of no way for the author to legally oblige themselves to publish something for the public (not someone specific).
Section 5, "Conveying Modified Source Versions", of the Affero GPLv3 sounds very related to this protection.
It sounds to me that anyone is free to distribute modified versions of the software, but to do so, they must also release the source code for the modified version they release, also under the same license.
Your link is an answer to my question. The only other open source license that requires disclosure of modified source code is the Mozilla License. It's still not as strong as the AGPL, which defines distribution as network use.
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