Why we picked AGPL

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

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.