Consider license Anytype under a open source license

[anyproto]

Consider license Anytype under a open source license

[fuksman]

@danny-laa, sorry for the delayed response, there were a lot of activities after the launch.

@danny-laa, @louwers
We'll fix our marketing messages to better reflect the nuances of licensing: protocols and infrastructure layer are open-source (MIT), apps are source-available.

We have published the reasoning behind this approach in the article: https://blog.anytype.io/our-open-philosophy/

BSL is not an open-source license either, but we do consider changing the license in the future. We did not include a "timer" in the license text because there are examples of projects which regularly move this timer further into the future due to business reasons. In our opinion, it is better to avoid such situations.

AGPL or GPL could be "uncomfortable", but still, as open source licenses, they don't have any restrictions on reselling the product, hence, they don't protect from rivals' abuse.

When we thought about implementing a license that would protect the team and contributors from competitive commercial use, we had several possible options (of course, we didn't take keeping the source code closed, as it would contradict our promise to users):

1. Source-available license for everything: great level of protection from abuse, but there are risks for user data.
2. Source-available infrastructure and protocols, open-source clients: good level of protection from abuse, unrestricted use of app code, but there are risks for user data.
3. Open-source infrastructure and protocols, source-available clients: good level of protection from abuse and no risks for user data. The license for apps created by us has restrictions for competitive commercial use, but everyone is and will be able to develop alternative clients relying on open-source protocols and infrastructure.

So, thinking about all these options, we see that the best option is open-sourcing infrastructure and protocols, and providing limited restrictions for clients' code in terms of competitive commercial use. And we did it, as it answers the demands of both users and creators.

This and other popular questions are answered on https://legal.any.coop/, and we're happy to address more questions.

I hope it answers all raised questions and close this issue as not-to-be-implemented in the scope of anytype-ts. It doesn't mean that the discussion is over: we would like to answer any licensing questions in the contributor's community (this can be the best place) or via email.

[louwers]

The Business Source License is not an "open source" license either.

I don't understand why the server backend is released under MIT but the client code is released under a non-free license. If you are afraid others will sell the client code you can use a GPL license and everyone who distributes the software needs to do so under a free license as well.