Please clarify your position on the AGPL license
chadkirby opened this issue · 2 comments
I was evaluating this library for use in a new (commercial/not-open-source) service, when I noticed the AGPL license, which some consider to be a 'viral' license.
Do you believe that the AGPL requires me to open-source my software if my software uses the wink-bm25-text-search library (without making any modifications to wink-bm25)?
Or by licensing the library under the AGPL, did you intend to allow me to use and distribute the library (as-is) in a commercial and closed-source application?
Hello @chadkirby
You are welcome to use wink-bm25-text-search along with other wink npm packages on an "as-is" basis in any commercial closed-source application. There are no restrictions on that and you are not required to make your source code as "open source" at any point.
Our motivation of keeping it under AGPL is to encourage users to open source any modifications that they may want to make in wink-bm25-text-search source code; so that those changes are also available to the community members like yourself! Therefore, if you choose to enhance/modify wink-bm25-text-search, we do expect you to make those changes available in open source so that the community can benefit from them!
If you are planning to modify wink-bm25-text-search, consider contributing to this project and help the open source community grow!
Best,
Sanjaya
Thanks.