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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
Tecnativa. S. L., Pedro M. Baeza
- 11/09/2025 19:45:07
OCA should defend against such violations. That's why we signed the CLA, and it should be the difference between publishing your modules on your own in your organization GitHub against publishing inside OCA.

About the "pragmatic" approach, we have the potential promise of possible contributions against the high risk of not having contributions at all because everyone does things in private, or that are reduced to mere tools, not finished business applications. And there will be more fights because the private implementations on top of the tools will provoke hidden interests of technical decisions going one way or another, or at least, a lot of maintenance vigilance work each time a change is done. Being all open, the change can be spread properly for keeping instantaneous compatibility.

AGPL is usually described as "infectious", but I would say that more infectious is to put something enterprise in your instance:

- It constrains you with all this license stuff.
- You can't share the extensions done on top of them, not by the license itself, but because you may disclose secrets of the enterprise private code, having also a big legal risk/grey area. Only because of this you are losing a lot of contributions, as you can't legally contribute.
- It has a very big vendor lock-in. While you pay, you have it. The moment you quit from paying, you are losing both the functionality, ¡¡and your data!!

So don't let your Odoo instance be infected with this enterprise virus, and keep it free from it.

Think a moment about it: all the money you are giving to Odoo S. A. in license fees in one year from one customer, can serve to fund the development of one OCA free alternative. A bit organized, we would have full enterprise replacement right now. From the Spanish Odoo Association (AEOdoo), we have already funded the development of VoIP, WhatsApp/Telegram and automation alternatives, and we will continue doing so. And I think this is good for all, because having this funded by other actors, the usual contributors won't need to spend time or customer funds on them and will be able to contribute things that benefit all. Because it's naive to think that if something is not in enterprise, people will sell enterprise or conform without it. So better to have it shared with fair rules (AGPL) inside OCA from again all to benefit from this collaborative effort.

You can say: oh, "how selfish you are that you don't want Odoo SA to earn money", but they are the ones that have made the play to be "with me or against me" and "all or nothing". Some comprehensive services packaged another way would have a lot of acceptance, but they have done it so that you can detach certain things from others, and provoke by both the commercial techniques ("The godfather" OST playing now) and the product commercialization itself. I really tried to balance and distribute my incomes, but their strategy only gives me the crumbs. So they have got to not have anything at all from me.

Just some food for thought I believe, and why I keep saying that going through that strategy is the end of the collaborative work.

Regards.

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