alt Hacker NewsWhat's the rationale for the dual licensing? It looks like the Go backend is AGPL but the TypeScript frontend is Apache 2.0.
Why not keep it all AGPL?
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ricardobeat • today at 5:05 PM
AGPL stops others from running a competing cloud service using the Go backend. It does nothing for the frontend except scare off enterprise users.
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Backend under AGPL prevents someone hosting it as a service. AGPL specifies that hosting _is_ distribution. Therefore, anyone hosting it must do so with public code. This provides a soft form of exclusivity to run their own Cloud.
A frontend, permitting customizability, white-labeling, and so on, makes more sense to be more permissive.
Grafana is a solid example to illustrate why.
Moved from Apache to AGPLv3 in 2021 specifically so cloud providers couldn't host modified versions without contributing back, while keeping plugins Apache-licensed.