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Re: Licence question: using AGPL and Odoo proprietary modules on the same server

Re: Licence question: using AGPL and Odoo proprietary modules on the same server

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Re: Licence question: using AGPL and Odoo proprietary modules on the same server

by
Acsone SA/NV, Stéphane Bidoul
- 11/09/2025 18:06:05
Hi everyone,

First of all, I want to say I have complete respect for authors to choose the Open Source license they prefer.

Yet, I am not convinced that using more LGPL would harm the OCA, let alone destroy it.

In general, using AGPL is a way to try and protect from proprietary derivative work.
I use it myself in some circumstances for that very reason.

I note, however, that for that to be effective one must be ready to act upon it (by suing or other actions).
In practice, there are plenty of license violations in the Odoo world (more on that below) that are never addressed.

Another very important aspect when building a community is attracting users, of which in turn a tiny percentage will lead to contribution. So, as any open source project which wants to grow, the first thing OCA needs is a massive amount of users.

It is interesting to examine what AGPL does from that angle.

One thing that is well known is that some enterprises completely ban GPL and AGPL out of fear of contamination to their intellectual property. So that repels a first pool of users and potential contributors.

Another aspect that is specific to Odoo, is that some long time open source experts like the OP worry about actual compatibility within Odoo Enterprise deployments.

Third, it is a fact that a vast majority of Odoo integrators commit license violations by making code that depends both on Odoo Enterprise and AGPL code.
Many by lack of knowledge. Some (a minority hopefully) just don't care. But the vast majority of code bases from other partners I have looked at that use Odoo Enterprise have such incompatibilities.
Genuine question: how many of you using OCA and Odoo Enterprise use 'manifestoo check-licence' in your CI pipelines? If you don't, try it, (bad) surprises are almost guaranteed.
And that does not even count grey areas where manually created server actions or Odoo Studio code combine fields or logic from AGPL modules with OE stuff.

So in effect, what happens is that AGPL is creating trouble for integrators who use OCA and Odoo Enterprise AND care about licenses.
Arguably those contribute a lot, but also constitute a big, partially untapped, pool of potential new contributors. 
And also importantly they are a source of potential funders via the partnership/sponsorship programme we are trying to build.

One could say that AGPL incompatibilities would force such integrators to use more OCA alternatives. Sometimes, yes, maybe.
But in other cases, it has the opposite effect, and such integrators develop proprietary workarounds and therefore contribute less to existing OCA AGPL modules.

So yeah, as much as I would love to live in a world where everything is open source, I am pragmatic, and I reckon that a big part of the Odoo market, and therefore existing or potential OCA participants, is involved with Odoo Enterprise one way or another. And I believe that there is more to win by being welcoming to those rather than making life more difficult for them.

So it is definitely not black and white, and there is a balance between protection and attractiveness. 
But for these reasons, yes, I do believe that all in all, doing less AGPL would actually be beneficial to OCA.

Best regards,

-Stéphane

On Mon, Sep 8, 2025 at 3:47 PM Ronald Portier <notifications@odoo-community.org> wrote:

I think the people complaining about the AGPL making it difficult to make private, closed source, modules, do not understand or accept a thing about free software.


Of course if companies do not mind paying extravagant license fees, for software where they have no insight in the code, let alone study or modify the code, where they will become dependent on the suppliers of their software, where if they ever want to migrate or export data, they have to beg their present suppliers for access, by all means let them go for the Apple/Microsoft way.


The whole idea of AGPL is to build a community of suppliers, users, even end-users, sharing development, making life easier (and more affordable) for everyone, and where there is no support or possibility of hidden back-doors, vendor lock-in etc.


If the OCA where to go for default LGPL or dual licensing, it would be the end of the OCA, as an organization that stands for free and open software.


Kind regards, Ronald


On 08-09-2025 15:32, Pedro M. Baeza wrote:
Raphaël, indeed both points are correct, but referring to the first one, let me point that sending the message from OCA board members that the "good" license to choose is LGPL will make people that are not informed/don't think on the consequences/don't care to go to that one, destroying great part of the current OCA ecosystem value. I would only do the exception on the website one that touches frontend templates, for being able to protect your customer in case of website custom theme.

Ivan, please read my previous reasoning why base/tool modules shouldn't be LGPL, because if so, the modules of the second type will start to disappear.

Regards.

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