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Relicense to AGPL-3.0 (adoption-first strategy)#20

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Andrew5194 merged 1 commit into
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relicense-agpl
Apr 19, 2026
Merged

Relicense to AGPL-3.0 (adoption-first strategy)#20
Andrew5194 merged 1 commit into
mainfrom
relicense-agpl

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@Andrew5194

@Andrew5194 Andrew5194 commented Apr 19, 2026

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Summary

Switches the license from Elastic License 2.0 back to AGPL-3.0 to optimize for adoption. The stated product strategy is adoption-first with a managed hosted service on top (Supabase/PostHog/Plausible playbook) — AGPL is the battle-tested license for that business model.

Why AGPL-3.0 over ELv2 for this strategy

  • OSI-approved open source. Lets the marketing site honestly claim "open source" without the ELv2 stigma.
  • Broader adoption. No enterprise bans on OSI licenses; developer community accepts AGPL in a way it doesn't accept ELv2.
  • Network copyleft still forces competitors offering a hosted clone to publish all their modifications — meaningful anti-proprietary-fork protection.
  • Dual-license revenue path. Enterprises that can't use AGPL (banks, Google, etc.) become commercial-license customers. AGPL creates the conversion mechanism.

What AGPL doesn't prevent

Acknowledging honestly: AGPL does not prevent someone from forking and reselling — it just forces them to do so under AGPL terms (no proprietary features, all modifications public, can't sell to enterprises with AGPL bans). The real reselling moat is trademark, not license.

Changes

  • LICENSE — full GNU Affero GPL v3 text
  • README.md — AGPL badge, rewritten License section
  • CONTRIBUTING.md — license reference updated
  • apps/marketing/src/app/page.tsx — CTA copy restored to "Free and open source" (accurate under AGPL), footer label updated

No changes to CLA.md / CLA-entity.md — the relicense-grant language is license-agnostic.

Test plan

  • LICENSE renders correctly on GitHub
  • AGPL badge displays on README
  • Marketing page shows correct copy and footer
  • Verify CLA still references correctly

Generated with Claude Code

Switches to AGPL-3.0 to optimize for adoption while retaining meaningful
protection against proprietary forks. AGPL is OSI-approved open source
(unlike ELv2), which unblocks honest "open source" marketing claims and
eliminates the enterprise stigma around non-OSI licenses.

Network copyleft forces any hosted competitor to publish modifications,
and the existing CLA preserves the option to offer commercial licenses
to organizations that cannot comply with AGPL's disclosure requirements.

- LICENSE: replaced ELv2 with full AGPL-3.0 text
- README: badge, License section
- CONTRIBUTING.md: license reference
- apps/marketing/src/app/page.tsx: CTA copy + footer label

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
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Project Deployment Actions Updated (UTC)
baseline Ready Ready Preview, Comment Apr 19, 2026 7:59pm

@Andrew5194 Andrew5194 changed the title Relicense from Elastic License 2.0 to AGPL-3.0 Relicense to AGPL-3.0 (adoption-first strategy) Apr 19, 2026
@Andrew5194 Andrew5194 merged commit c582a96 into main Apr 19, 2026
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@Andrew5194 Andrew5194 deleted the relicense-agpl branch April 19, 2026 20:08
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