The issue is one of evaluation: I am prohibited from using the software at all, even on toy problems, to determine whether I'd like to buy a commercial license. Crazy, perhaps, but that's how hostile the AGPLv3 is to businesses.
This seems incorrect, unless you are prohibited purely by fiat (in which case it's a demonstration of how hostile your particular business is to the AGPLv3, not vice-versa). Requirements of GPL or AGPL licenses don't encumber you if you're not interacting with others (distributing software to them, or - with AGPL - providing a service).
Could you define what kind of toy problem that would be hindered by the license?
I could speculate. Maybe your company has patents covering RStudio software and wants to go suing its customers. That would indeed pose a problem with AGPLv3.
Maybe your company produces devices which have web servers in them, and those servers are going to host "toy" pages which uses Shiny, and the devices are locked down with DRM which prevent modification to Shiny. I guess it would be possible...
Or maybe the company does not want to ever give out code under any circumstances, regardless if it's a toy project with no inherent value to the company. This is clearly possible, which is why a dual licensing scheme sometimes is a good choice.
Gotcha. Well, I'm sure we can arrange an eval if you e-mail us.
Forgive us for not having these options on our website (yet), it took us a little bit by surprise that some companies might want the option to relicense.
