LICENSE: _may be_ licensed to use source code; incorrect license grant

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

License structure and perceived ambiguity

  • Commenters dissect Mattermost’s LICENSE.txt and find it unusually complex:
    • Binaries from Mattermost are under MIT, but the referenced MIT-COMPILED-LICENSE file is missing.
    • Source code is described as “may be licensed” either under AGPLv3 (with “exceptions”) or a commercial license.
    • Some directories (templates, i18n, public, webapp) are explicitly Apache-2.0.
    • There is also an explicit “promise” not to enforce certain AGPL copyleft provisions under some conditions.
  • Several people call this “source-available” rather than clearly open source and see the multiple overlapping grants as a major red flag.

Debate over “may be licensed” and legal clarity

  • One camp argues “you may be licensed” is straightforward permission language (like “you may enter”), expressing a choice between AGPL or commercial terms.
  • Others read it as conditional or discretionary (“you might be licensed if we decide so”), especially in passive voice, and note it’s narrower than “you are licensed”.
  • Multiple commenters stress that licensing should not rely on linguistic nuance or “reading comprehension”, especially for non-native speakers; if there’s doubt, the text is defective.
  • The focus on “use source code to create compiled versions” is also criticized as narrowing AGPL rights (modify, share source, etc.), causing further uncertainty.

Legal risk, ethics, and business trust

  • Many say they would avoid using, hosting, or contributing to Mattermost because unclear licensing creates unacceptable legal risk and suggests poor governance or bad faith.
  • Some see the wording as intentionally vague: looking “open source” for marketing while nudging serious users toward paid licenses.
  • Others defend the intent as a reasonable dual-licensing/open-core model, just poorly executed.
  • There’s discussion of AGPL’s handling of “exceptions,” whether Mattermost’s extra conditions are compatible, and how ambiguity would likely be interpreted against the drafter in court.

Responses, alternatives, and meta-points

  • Several commenters state they are moving or would move to alternatives like Zulip, Rocket.Chat, Matrix, IRC, or XMPP.
  • Some argue the company should fix the text via lawyers, not ad-hoc GitHub comments; others say leaving it unclear for 7–8 years looks deliberate.
  • Broader tangents cover misconceptions about “no license = public domain”, historical US/Berne convention issues, and copyright-troll tactics exploiting ambiguous attribution terms.