Why we picked AGPL

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Choosing the AGPL license for a new Postgres-based Elasticsearch alternative has reignited long‑running arguments about copyleft, software freedom, and sustainable business models. Supporters say AGPL plus dual commercial licensing is the best way to stop cloud giants from monetizing their work without contributing back, while still guaranteeing users access to source code. Critics counter that AGPL’s network-use provisions are legally ambiguous, hostile to corporate adoption, and often paired with contributor license agreements that let companies relicense community code under closed terms.

ParadeDB’s technical scope

  • Seen as an Elasticsearch alternative built on Postgres, but currently lacks horizontal scaling; some view it as more like a “hosted/queryable Lucene.”
  • Partial API compatibility (e.g., faceted search) but not a drop‑in ES replacement.
  • Author says single-node setups have been sufficient so far; horizontal scaling planned.

Reasons for choosing AGPL (supportive views)

  • Protects against cloud vendors forking and reselling the project without contributing back.
  • Enables dual-licensing: AGPL for the community, commercial licenses for customers needing proprietary use.
  • Advocates say it:
    • Preserves user freedoms in a SaaS world (closing the “ASP loophole” of GPLv2).
    • Encourages contributions to flow back instead of proprietary forks.
    • Works well for academic/non‑profit use and for commercial consulting around the code.

Critiques of AGPL

  • Some argue AGPL restricts “use,” making it more like an EULA and thus “non‑free” in the free‑software sense.
  • Dispute over whether requiring source disclosure for networked use violates “freedom to run the program as you wish.”
  • Others counter that AGPL, like GPL, only conditions modification + distribution, not mere execution.
  • AGPL criticized as vague regarding:
    • What counts as “interaction over a network.”
    • What constitutes a “derivative work” (APIs, RPC, SaaS stacks).
  • Concern that AGPL may conflict with OSI’s “technology-neutral” criterion.

CLA and dual‑licensing controversy

  • ParadeDB requires a Contributor License Agreement granting the company broad rights to relicense contributions (including proprietary).
  • Critics see this as a “poison pill” that undercuts the community-friendly framing of AGPL and enables rug‑pulls.
  • Defenders say:
    • CLAs are common and needed to sell commercial licenses and avoid legal risk.
    • Contributors keep copyright; forks can remain pure AGPL without signing the CLA.
  • Several commenters say CLAs deter outside contributors and tilt power heavily toward the company.

Copyleft vs permissive philosophies

  • Debate over whether true “freedom” prioritizes:
    • End‑user rights (copyleft: GPL/AGPL).
    • Developer flexibility and commercial reuse (permissive: MIT/BSD/Apache).
  • Some characterize permissive use without contributing back as “free riding”; others insist using code under its stated terms is not “stealing.”

Practical and corporate reactions

  • Many large companies reportedly ban AGPL entirely due to unclear boundaries and lack of case law.
  • Examples (e.g., Minio) show developers frustrated by non‑answers on whether integrating unmodified AGPL services forces AGPL on surrounding code.
  • Some commenters recommend AGPL + commercial license as a pragmatic compromise; others prefer Apache/MIT or weaker copyleft (MPL, LGPL) to maximize adoption and contributions.