Licensing: what you can do with Vornik

Plain answers to the questions companies and fork maintainers actually ask. This page explains; the licence texts govern. Vornik Community Edition is AGPL-3.0. The companion plugins under contrib/ are Apache-2.0. The full path-by-path map is LICENSING.md at the repository root.

This is not legal advice. If a decision turns on it, have counsel read the licence.

Using Community Edition

Can we run it inside our company, for commercial purposes, without paying anyone? Yes. The AGPL does not distinguish personal from commercial use, and unmodified use carries no obligation at all. You do not need to tell us, sign anything, or publish anything.

We run it unmodified and our staff use its web UI and API over the network. Still nothing to do. The source-offer duty in AGPL section 13 applies only to a version you have modified.

We modified it and our staff, or our customers, use it over the network. Then the people who interact with your modified version must be offered its source, under the AGPL. In practice: put your fork on a Git host they can reach, or add a link in the UI. That is the whole obligation. You do not have to send anything to us.

We modified it for an internal batch job. Nobody interacts with it over a network and we do not distribute it. No obligation. Private modification is free.

We ship it inside our own product or appliance. That is distribution. The recipient gets AGPL rights to the Vornik part and to your modifications of it. Code that merely talks to Vornik over its API or MCP is not a modification and is not affected. If you need to ship a closed derivative, that is what the Enterprise licence is for.

Does the AGPL "infect" the code our agents write, or the projects Vornik works on? No. Output produced by running the software is yours. The licence covers the Vornik program, not what it produces.

Forking

Can we fork and keep our fork private? Yes, as long as nobody outside your organisation interacts with it over a network and you do not distribute it.

Can we fork publicly and never contribute back? Yes. Contributing back is welcome and never required.

Do we need to sign the CLA to fork or use Vornik? No. The Contributor License Agreement applies only when you send a change to the upstream repository. Using, forking and modifying need no agreement with anyone.

What may our fork be called? Anything except Vornik. "Fooer, a fork of Vornik" is fine. The name and logo are trademarks and are not covered by the code licence; the rules are in TRADEMARKS.md.

Is there a licence check, a phone-home, or a kill switch we would have to remove? No. Edition is compiled in; Community builds simply do not contain the Enterprise code. There is nothing to remove and nothing to circumvent.

Contributing

Why is there a CLA? Vornik is open-core. The Community Edition is AGPL; the same core also ships inside the proprietary Enterprise Edition. The CLA grants EaseIT Labs the right to include your contribution in both. You keep your copyright, and your contribution stays available to everyone under the AGPL forever.

Does the CLA assign my copyright? No. It is a licence, not an assignment. You remain the owner.

I contribute as part of my job. Your employer may own what you write. The CLA asks you to confirm you have the right to contribute; if your employer needs to sign, ask for the corporate CLA at [email protected].

Enterprise Edition

What is different about it? It is a closed binary with the capabilities in the feature matrix, sold under a commercial licence with support. It is not AGPL and its source is not published. Buying it is also how a company gets Vornik without AGPL obligations for a modified or embedded deployment.

If we stop paying, what happens? Your Community Edition rights never depended on the Enterprise licence and are unaffected. Configuration written for Enterprise loads on Community; the Enterprise capabilities simply are not there.

Who owns Vornik

Copyright in the Vornik code is held by EaseIT Labs s.r.o. (Czech Republic) together with the contributors who license their work under the CLA. The Community Edition is published by EaseIT Labs under the AGPL-3.0, which is irrevocable for every version already released.

Questions not answered here: [email protected]. We would rather answer than leave a grey area.