We decided to switch from AGPLv3 license to MIT recently.

Almost one and half years ago we commenced our journey to open source our intellectual property that has been used in solving business problems and also develop all new code as open source.

We felt that AGPLv3 license was the way to go! Our thought was driven by the fact that AGPLv3 will allow developers to use the wink packages on an "as-is" basis in any commercial closed-source application and there are no compulsions to make their work as "open source”. Only if they choose to enhance or modify any of the wink packages, AGPLv3 expects them to make those changes available in open source so that the community can benefit from them!

Over time we had several interactions with the developer community and realized that it curtailed their freedom in certain ways and the eventual benefit of promoting open source was not being achieved by binding developers. The desire to contribute in open source has to originate from deep within and can not be enforced. It triggered an intense debate within the team.

We decided to switch the licensing of our packages to MIT. This is permissive, has no restrictions and the choice to open source any enhancements is left to the developer.

Starting today, all our packages are available under the MIT license. Long live open source!

ASCII Art Credit: AsciiWorld & Patorjk. Image made using Carbon.