Liberal License

[sirinath]

Could you consider a more liberal license like MIT + ASL 2.0?

[marketcalls]

The decision to license OpenAlgo under the AGPL-3.0 (Affero General Public License) was made to ensure that any modifications or improvements made to OpenAlgo, even when used as a hosted service (SaaS), remain open-source and benefit the wider trading and algo-development community.

Why AGPL-3.0?
Freedom and Open Innovation – OpenAlgo is designed as an open-source trading framework, and AGPL-3.0 ensures that anyone who modifies or extends it must share their changes under the same license. This prevents proprietary forks that lock improvements behind closed systems.

SaaS Protection – Unlike GPL, AGPL explicitly closes the "SaaS loophole", meaning if someone runs a modified version of OpenAlgo as a cloud service, they are legally required to release their modifications. This aligns with the vision of OpenAlgo as a community-driven, transparent, and open-source platform.

Encouraging Contributions – AGPL-3.0 ensures that companies or developers using OpenAlgo in their projects contribute back to the ecosystem rather than keeping improvements proprietary.

Ethical Considerations in Algo Trading – Algorithmic trading platforms often rely on open-source innovations while keeping their proprietary enhancements closed. By using AGPL-3.0, we encourage ethical collaboration and prevent exploitation of open-source contributions.

Why Not a More Liberal License like MIT or ASL 2.0?
While MIT and Apache 2.0 (ASL 2.0) are permissive licenses that allow proprietary modifications and closed-source usage, they would enable companies to:

Use OpenAlgo in commercial trading systems without contributing back.
Modify and extend OpenAlgo without sharing improvements with the community.
Create closed-source, SaaS-based versions of OpenAlgo, reducing transparency and community participation.
Since OpenAlgo is designed for traders and not just developers, the AGPL-3.0 license ensures fairness, transparency, and shared progress, rather than allowing proprietary forks to dominate the ecosystem.