Is the License GPL3 as for the non-cloud version or is it AGPL? Please clarify.
@intelliant01 The ERPNext code is licensed as GNU General Public License (v3)
reference: erpnext/license.txt at develop · frappe/erpnext · GitHub
Regards,
Sambhaji Kolate,
New Indictrans Technologies Pvt Ltd.
@kolate_sambhaji So the cloud version could have code that is not opensource? Is this intentional? If not then I guess it should be covered with GNU Affero General Public License (v3).
Sharing for the uninitiated:
Why the GNU Affero GPL - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation
https://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-affero-gpl.en.html
@kolate_sambhaji As of now may be yes but AGPL and not GPL shall ensure it always remains that way in the future as well. Pls do read the link I have shared earlier.
@intelliant01 we can not predict future. Even if its AGPL, to make it close source it take only one day.
If Community and Developers not contribute back to open source product then core team can make product Closed Source like oodo.
As per my opinion, Community and Contributions will decide product future and not license of product.
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@kolate_sambhaji yes sure. Thank you. But I guess having my answer was important and awareness amongst all users of the cloud based version is critical as well. From a contribution perspective also this aspect is very critical as a contributor should be aware of what he is investing in.
And if the intent is noble then there should be no opposition to changing the license to AGPL.
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We are happy to do AGPL but the community gets very worried about such changes (e.g. Odoo). Also since all copyrights are shared with respective contributors, it is a logistically hard thing to get all their approvals or make another fork that removes their contributions.
Also I agree with @kolate_sambhaji in 2016, licence is not to as important as the attitude of the core team / maintainers / community. AGPL did not stop Odoo from going open core.
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@rmehta 2 points -
- How to make it AGPL and if any contributor shall ever oppose it? I don’t see any contributor having any issue with the move. Why would anyone object? How complicated could seeking their approval be? And does the CLA signed by them not already cover this, given that AGPL is a more liberal license and not a step back.
- What Oodo did and why is another story and surely nothing may stop any open-source project driver from making the switch on any day. However every existing contributor and every prospective future contributor will be more reassured if the move to AGPL happens. It will also reassure each organisation using the cloud version that the code base is the same as that in github as there is no other way to verify that.
Request you to please read the link I have shared earlier, if not done already, which gives enough reasons why move to AGPL is the wisest move for a cloud based open source project.
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In fact, for SaaS product AGPL is indeed more suitable license, than GPLv3 and I agree that all the contributors should welcome switching to it.
@strixaluco Thanks for supporting the correct cause. It will be a shame if it doesn’t happen for this very nice project.
I’ve just noticed that the header at ERPNext’s Github repo is showing AGPL-3.0 as a project’s license. On the other hand, license.txt remains unchanged for 2 years, stating license as a GPL v3.
Is there any mistake?
No idea how to change it - I think GitHub auto selects the license.
Are we using AGPL 
Haha. So are you going to switch to AGPL?)
No the license is the same, I think GitHub licence selector script is buggy.