Select Podcast E637 – The Business of Open Source  🔗 **Source:** [Select Podcast E637 – The Business of Open Source](https://share.snipd.com/episode/cf69fc79-7f20-453b-8775-589b1047008d) ## Highlights - **Open Source Is About Rules Not Free Stuff** - Open source licensing defines what you can legally do with software, not just whether it's free. - Adam explains licenses answer questions like modify, sell, redistribute, keep changes private, or host as a service with real consequences. Transcript: Adam Open source licensing. Yeah. And before you think, oh my gosh, this sounds like a lot of legal paperwork and your eyes glaze over, just stick with me for this, okay? Because it's important because this actually connects to you more than you might realize. And it did for me. Yeah. I mean, WordPress and plugins, yes, but it connects to us in so many more ways these days. It also includes SaaS products, AI, ownership, subscriptions. And to be honest, whether you truly control the tools or not, how it affects you, do you own the stuff that we're using? Anyway, lately, this conversation has been heating back up from my point of view, from what I pay attention to online, especially with companies changing policies, locking down ecosystems, And moving things behind subscriptions. We see all the time. I read things all online about it's being open, but it's not really being that open, different platform. So this week, all that being said, I'm going to break down the major open source licensing categories, what they mean, why they matter, and how this connects back to WordPress. Okay, so first of all, most people hear open source and think, oh, cool, free software, right? And yes, but sometimes that's not true. Open source does not mean no rules, no ownership, no obligations, or do what you want forever. Okay, those are just, that's not what it means. Every open source project has a license attached to it. And that license basically ([Time 0:02:41](https://share.snipd.com/snip/1e4df260-17f1-4e3e-8190-37df5631b2bb)) - **Choose Permissive Licenses To Maximize Adoption** - Use permissive licenses like MIT, Apache 2.0, or BSD when you want broad adoption and allow proprietary use. - Adam notes require keeping original attribution and license notice, and Apache adds patent protections useful for businesses. Transcript: Adam So let's start with the easiest category, permissive licenses. This includes things like MIT, Apache 2.0, and BSD licenses. These are basically the, hey, have fun license. They're very relaxed. You can usually use the code, modify the code, sell products using the code, include it in proprietary software, basically do almost anything you want as long as you leave in original Attribution and the license notice in place. Let me say that again. You have to leave in the original attribution and the license notice in place. So the MIT license is very popular in JavaScript. Apache 2.0 is similar, but it adds patent protections. Now, BSD is also similar, though there's a three-clause version that has some language about not using contributor names for endorsement, which is interesting. Overall, these are very business-friendly licenses, and a lot of startups love permissive licenses because they encourage adoption. It's basically take this and go build cool stuff. ([Time 0:04:13](https://share.snipd.com/snip/aa560030-f40b-4172-b2d4-d170903a3f66)) - **GPL Shaped WordPress Ecosystem Growth** - Copyleft licenses like the GPL ensure improvements remain open when distributed, shaping ecosystems. - Adam ties GPL to WordPress growth, noting it protected the ecosystem from being closed off by single companies. Transcript: Adam Now, on the opposite side, we have copyleft licenses. This is where the WordPress world enters the chat because WordPress itself is GPL licensed. By the way, GPL stands for general public license. And GPL has a very different philosophy. The idea is if you improve or modify the software, those improvements should also remain open. Make sense? Okay. Meaning you can absolutely charge money for GPL software, but if you distribute the modified versions, the modified versions also remain GPL. Okay. It's kind of like, you know, parent child, the child gets ideally the attributes. If a parent gets stronger, the child gets stronger. Okay. I think it's kind of, I kind of want to use that analogy. Anyway, this is why WordPress has for years and years, I have debates around premium plugins, redistribution, plugin clubs, forks, ownerships, and the spirit of open source versus The legality of open source. There's a big thing there. There's always these debates, right? So it's one of the reasons why WordPress became so huge, because the GPL protected the ecosystem from being completely closed off by one company. ([Time 0:05:12](https://share.snipd.com/snip/46e28a87-cd0a-4b5d-87f6-51a95293a5d0)) - **AGPL Closes The SaaS Loophole** - Network copyleft (AGPL) closes the SaaS loophole by requiring sharing modifications even when software is only run as a service. - Adam highlights AGPL's relevance today as companies run modified code on servers without distributing binaries. Transcript: Adam Now there's something called weak copy left, things like LGPL and MPL. And again, I didn't know what those were until I started doing research here. And these are sort of the middle ground licenses. The basic idea is you can connect proprietary software to this without needing an open source of your entire app. And this becomes useful for libraries and frameworks it's basically trying to balance openness flexibility and commercial reality and then we get into what's probably the most interesting Modern license category another one i had never heard of agpl or cop or it's called a network copyleft this is where things get very relevant to today's world because the original gpl Was written long before cloud computing and SaaS products took over everything. So back in the day, software was distributed physically or downloaded locally. Isn't that crazy? I mean, on hard drives. I'm not hard drives. Floppy disks. I mean, I guess cassettes, floppy disks, 3.5, et cetera. You get zip drives. I'm just dating myself here. But that's how it was kind of distributed. Now, companies take an open source software, modify it, run it entirely on servers, and technically never distribute the software, which created what people call the SaaS loophole. So AGPL came along and basically said, nope, we can't do that. If you modify AGPL software and run it as a network service, you still need to share those modifications. ([Time 0:06:25](https://share.snipd.com/snip/2ec51790-23be-4ae4-a006-a5b8b1be9178)) - **Louis Rossmann Example Of Tightening Control** - Adam references Louis Rossmann and Bamboo Labs to frame how companies can tighten control after building community trust. - He uses right-to-repair and 3D printing examples to question whether buyers truly control purchased ecosystems. Transcript: Adam OK, because now we're debating what does open even mean anymore? And this is where I started thinking about the topic again recently, because I've been watching some videos by a guy named Louis Rossman over on YouTube. He's become a major voice around right to repair, ownership, consumer freedom, and closed ecosystems. His content's amazing to me. I watch it all the time. And one recent discussion involved bamboo labs in the 3D printing space. Now, this isn't really about attacking one company. It's bigger than that. The real conversation is what happens when companies build communities around openness and then slowly tighten control later. And we're seeing it everywhere. Hardware, software, SaaS, AI tools, smart devices, cloud ecosystems. I could go on here. But you buy something, you build a workflow around it, but do you actually control it? Can you self-host it? ([Time 0:07:55](https://share.snipd.com/snip/1be1f1f0-5455-49c9-ac3a-da09b3fb9a39)) - **You Pay For Support Not Just Code** - With WordPress, customers pay for support, updates, hosting, and convenience rather than the code itself. - Adam emphasizes sustainable open source requires paying for maintenance, support, and trust, not just access to source code. Transcript: Adam WordPress is open source. The plugin ecosystem is heavily GPL influenced, but businesses still need to make money. So what are customers paying for? Not the code itself, but they're paying for, and I've always known this, you're paying for updates, support, hosting, convenience, documentation, ecosystem, and trust. And that's a really important distinction because sustainable open source is hard. Everybody loves free software until it's time to maintain it or support it or fix bugs at 2 a.m. Or deal with security patches or answer support tickets from someone running PHP 5.0 on a old server from 2011. Anyway, and now AI is making this even messier because suddenly now we have open source, open weights, closed APIs, hybrid licenses, hosted AI models, self-hosted models. And many companies just use the word open in very different ways. Some things are truly open source. Some are source available. Some are technically open-ish. And while ([Time 0:09:02](https://share.snipd.com/snip/95f8a839-5ee3-447f-b055-c77bf26e5966)) - **Open Source Is A Philosophy With Real Consequences** - Open source is a philosophy encompassing ownership, freedom, collaboration, and sustainability rather than a narrow license checkbox. - Adam warns licensing choices affect workflows, business continuity, and long-term control beyond developer debates. Transcript: Adam It's a philosophy. It's about ownership, freedom, collaboration, sustainability, trust, and long-term control. And even if you're not a developer, this stuff really does matter because the tools you build your business on, your content, your workflow, those choices have consequences. So maybe, just maybe, take this week, take a look at the tools you rely on most and ask yourself this. Is this actually open source? What happens if this company disappears of something you might use from them? Can I export my data? Can I move away if I needed to? ([Time 0:10:11](https://share.snipd.com/snip/3f3db401-770e-471f-abd0-09508e3ef27b)) - **Audit Tools For True Ownership** - Audit the tools you rely on and ask whether they're truly open source and what happens if the company disappears. - Adam suggests checking exportability of data, ability to self-host, and whether you're paying for convenience or ownership. Transcript: Adam So maybe, just maybe, take this week, take a look at the tools you rely on most and ask yourself this. Is this actually open source? What happens if this company disappears of something you might use from them? Can I export my data? Can I move away if I needed to? Am I paying for software or am I paying for convenience and support? ([Time 0:10:29](https://share.snipd.com/snip/4d9b6bbf-1d59-4edc-9352-849305de2e8b))