Contributors

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

Hello everyone,

Thanks for all the insightful contributions shared so far. At Escodoo, we believe in a balanced approach:

As Ivan pointed out, “core modules, eg widgets, APIs, helpers” make sense under LGPL, enabling broader adoption.
And as emphasized by Pedro and Enric, business applications should remain under AGPL, ensuring that complete solutions stay open and collaborative within the OCA.

From a commercial perspective, we also recognize Daniel’s point: the Enterprise ecosystem exists and generates demand — and part of OCA’s own code base is funded by EE customers. For this reason, we see a hybrid model as a way to avoid alienating those who operate in that space, while still preserving the collaborative spirit of free software.

In short: LGPL for core/framework modules, AGPL for business apps. We see this balance as a way to respect contributors, attract new users, and integrate both CE-only actors and those working with EE in a healthy way.

Best regards,

Em sex., 12 de set. de 2025 às 12:23, Raphaël Valyi <notifications@odoo-community.org> escreveu:

Hello, I think I need to share how I see the big picture.

But first, let me exemplify again with an Odoo market I know very well. You may know that OCA/l10-brazil is the most active OCA repo (14k commits, 4000+ PRs, 150k lines of code, 70 contributors). Not because Brazil is an ERP eldorado but exactly because it is often pointed as the hardest ERP market (you need 200+ tax fields on an invoice line, a company doesn't use all of them but certainly some 60-80, a diversity of 80% companies use may be 180 of them. Same thing e-invoicing has 800 fiscal fields and is over SOAP...).
Well there are now 50 official Odoo partners in Brazil, I'm pretty solid, the large majority is a scam of disposable noobs (half life = 1.5 year) who believed it was just about reselling Odoo EE. The vast majority just fail their projects like lemmings (they call us later) as soon as they venture outside of CRM or project management. As I follow the Github notifications I can guarantee you these 50 partners never contributed a SINGLE PR to the OCA. In fact it seems only people unable to do a line of code or use Google to get an overlook would partner. So the selection is pretty inverted (Dunning Krueger)... Instead, aside from Akretion, you now have Escodoo and Engenere who are serious people, CE only, and contributing many PRs to the OCA (outside of OCA/l10-brazil as well). But when I read this from Quartile https://www.quartile.co/en_US/blog/odoo-bits-pieces-1/essential-criteria-for-selecting-your-odoo-partner-as-an-end-user-company-120 let's say it matches my experience.

I also know the French market very well as I pretty much started it 15 years ago (remember openerp.com used the open source ERP whilepaper I wrote at Smile on their frontpage for some 3 years). And I can tell you the quality of the official partner network dropped a lot. 10 years ago they were a well intentioned elite (before Odoo turned it into a "market for lemon", and now, aside from a few exceptions they are mostly a scam, mediocre at best. Less than 5% of these French partners contribute PRs to the OCA on a yearly basis...

Overall, I feel Odoo is doing an unassumed transition from an innovative customizable ERP framework to a SaaS product. In fact they grew a bubble since the start. Since they had to rival with the $ 20 millions inflated Openbravo bubble, continuing with their 10x exaggerated SaaS business model from 2010 for Sofinnova (Fabien shared it with me, as the 2nd partner on the American continent, I helped convince Sofinnova, I protested to Fabien it was inflated but kept quiet as he suggested). Then came the "sorrySAP" crap in 2013, the invention of the millions of happy users worldwide, the $ 500 millions secondary market investments...

Odoo themselves raised little money (on the primary market), less than $ 15 millions I think. In fact, since the start that is the partner network who fueled the growth. Then Odoo "pivoted" and dumped the "stupid partners who believed in that free software concept", made all the impossible early cases possible, did a crazy R&D... Remember that the 1st TinyERP web client didn't come from TinyERP themselves but was a 3rd party contribution (by Axelor)...
In a way Odoo externalized the cost of the bubble to its partner network: "sign your project with the latest noob Gold partner who paid for its status and it will be like you will be doing your project with an Acsone or Akretion engineer with 10+ years of Odoo experience". Pretty much what they sold before Odoo EE was a product in itself...

It worked for a while. It grew in quantity while dropping in quality. This is exactly what is called a "market for lemon" with a quality converging to zero as it was shown by Nobel laureate George Akerlof
https://saylordotorg.github.io/text_introduction-to-economic-analysis/s19-01-market-for-lemons.html
At the same time Odoo has been improving its product a lot that is very True. Odoo is now quite well coded and is even pretty solid.

Finally, I think Odoo is in the middle of a transition: It is very likely Odoo Enterprise succeeds as a limited SaaS product for micro-companies (like Salesforce, Netsuite). Success will obviously depend on the country. And I think it's quite nice if they meet this success while funding the Odoo CE core under the LGPL license. Much like Basecamp or later Shopify funded the Rails framework.

What I find very "questionable" in fact is that they use the money from these partners they are fooling and their own customers to fund their transition toward an unassumed double agenda of a SaaS ERP for micro-companies. Indeed, Odoo will never assume the average quality of its partner network is crashing to zero.

But this is my vision: yes the partner network will stick to a very low quality for years and years (read again the implacable mechanics of the Market for Lemon) to come and an Odoo Enterprise code and license which is not designed for customizations or extensions but solely to protect the Odoo own IP.
And no, I don't see a bright future for this ecosystem of EE partners so that's why I suggest the OCA don't fool itself too much into trying to accommodate with the Odoo SA business roadmap.

And finally, while I said all this, I do share the concern that AGPL is a bit business unfriendly and I do agree we need some LGPL in the OCA to make it easy for companies using Odoo+OCA to protect some of their IP.
What is a good mileage? I don't know, maybe 20% LGPL and 80% AGPL would be nice.

@Tom:
About dual licensing again: it should be an opt-in option for the module authors but not forced otherwise you are simply hijacking the AGPL projection the modules authors might expect.
And also, the OCA will never be able to check if some business is using a valid LGPL exception module they purchased from the OCA. This simple fact would make it possible the AGPL would be violated massively meanwhile.

Thank you if you read it through ;-)

On Fri, Sep 12, 2025 at 1:57 PM Stéphane Bidoul <notifications@odoo-community.org> wrote:
Pedro,

Please don't assert things you can't possibly know about how other companies operate and why.

Best,

-Stéphane

On Fri, Sep 12, 2025 at 3:32 PM Pedro M. Baeza <notifications@odoo-community.org> wrote:
So you have provided the perfect example for confirming the hypothesis that going LGPL, the number of contributions will be reduced: how can it be that Tecnativa, having only 10 persons, contributes 4x more than companies like Camptocamp/Acsone, that have 40/50 persons?

They develop on top of enterprise modules, which they can't share, so they don't contribute to OCA.

They develop more private things, as they are allowed due to the license being LGPL, so they don't contribute back to OCA.

And again, remember the big vendor lock-in you are imposing on your customers installing enterprise modules, being the vendor Odoo S.A., not you. And even not advertising that to your customers (by ignorance or complacency). That's the big win of Odoo doing that the conversation doesn't turn around this.

Regards.

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Raphaël Valyi
Founder and consultant
http://twitter.com/rvalyi
www.akretion.com

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		Marcel Savegnago
		marcel.savegnago@escodoo.com.br
		+55 16 99122-7649

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by Marcel Savegnago - 08:10 - 12 Sep 2025

Reference

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

Hi,

After years of only working on Odoo community, we are starting to have several enterprise clients.

The OCA website at https://odoo-community.org/resources/faq indicates:

Can I run OCA AGPL modules and closed source modules on the same instance?

Yes, as long as closed source modules do not depend on AGPL ones and respect the license of its dependencies defined in the “depends” key of its manifest file (and vice versa).

Odoo SA, indicated in 2015 https://www.odoo.com/fr_FR/blog/actualites-dodoo-5/adapting-our-open-source-license-245

Will we be able to use AGPL modules and paid ones?

Odoo projects will be able to use AGPL modules or paid modules under proprietary licenses, but it is not possible to combine both. Combining LGLPv3 modules and proprietary modules is fine however, so we encourage current owners licensing under AGPL to move to LGPLv3 too, in order to avoid complications for end users.

My CEO believes that this using both AGPL and proprietary modules, even if they do not have dependencies, is not allowed by the AGPL license.

I’ve searched a bit on the mailing list (that started in 2015) but I have not found no discussion on the subject.

On what basis does the OCA position comes from?

Regards,

--

Vincent Hatakeyama

Directeur du pôle développement " Orbeet

	+33 1 83 62 72 88		vincent.hatakeyama@orbeet.io
	27, boulevard Saint-Martin 75003 Paris		https://orbeet.io

by "Vincent Hatakeyama" <vincent.hatakeyama@orbeet.io> - 10:36 - 8 Sep 2025

52 replies 52 replies

Re: Licence question: using AGPL and Odoo proprietary modules on the same server
One last thing. IMO, throw away any ideas of dual licensing. That is the worst of all the discussion here. For 1 OCA, cannot do it imo, but for 2, Bradley Kuhn has spent the last 10 years chastising the relicense industry and how it is leading free software licensing to even more restrictive copyleft just to protect themselves from these unscrupulous actors hiding behind CLAs to defy authors wishes. And it is hard to disagree with him on this.

Le dim. 14 sept. 2025, 09:05, Graeme Gellatly <graeme@moahub.nz> a écrit :
Sorry on that point. Of course, whatever the original author decides. There is only 3 realistic choices anyway.

For me it is nearly always AGPL. I was not advocating OCA relicense to AGPL by any stretch, just encouraging its use and not to throw it away over some vendor FUD.

Le dim. 14 sept. 2025, 08:37, Joël Grand-Guillaume <notifications@odoo-community.org> a écrit :
Dear community,

I strongly agree with Maxine here. The OCA accept any OSI compliant licences and since the begining it has always left the choice to the contributors among available ones.

I invite you to read our FAQ under chapter licences & CLA: https://odoo-community.org/resources/faq

It explains what's needed. If you feel there is something not clear enough or missing, please write your proposal to: support AT odoo-community.org

Looking forward to meeting you in person at the OCA days, a good place to discuss it if you feel the need for it.

Best regards,

Joël

Le sam. 13 sept. 2025, 22:21, Maxime Chambreuil <notifications@odoo-community.org> a écrit :

Hello,

Since everybody is giving its opinion, here is mine.

I think the license the contributor decides to put in the modules he is contributing to the OCA is his choice and should not be judged. We are a community, not a team or company. We don't necessarily share the same objectives and we don't necessarily aim for the same impact or result when contributing.

The only thing the OCA should do on this topic is educate so contributors make the right choice reflecting their values in complete awareness of the pros and cons. A page or blog post on the oca website comparing the different licenses, with pros and cons, with correct/incorrect legal/illegal behavior.

My 2 cents on the license. More to come on the contributions in the other thread later.

Cheers

--
Maxime Chambreuil

Desde mi móvil

From: Raphaël Valyi <notifications@odoo-community.org>
Sent: Saturday, September 13, 2025 6:36:58 AM
To: Contributors <contributors@odoo-community.org>
Subject: Re: Licence question: using AGPL and Odoo proprietary modules on the same server

Eventually we could create a simple OCA tutorial that would give an example use case where a company needs customizations that depend both on OCA AGPL and LGPL modules and need to protect some IP. We could give a few guidelines how to split the codebase between AGPL and LGPL derivatives.

Obviously there would always be a grey area where people would carefully craft glue modules to action OCA AGPL code without explicitly depending on it.

But eventually we could still cover the most obvious cases. This could help to:

- limit the FUD about AGPL

- incentivate more actors to publish what should be published

Would it be risky for the OCA to publish such guidelines if a court finally interpret things differently? Should we officially cover the EE case as well?

Finally about AGPL enforcement in general: one thing is the AGPL be violated by some final users. Just like piracy in general, it's hard to avoid indeed.

But at least the AGPL should ideally protect us against massive violation by big SaaS players (because of the legal risks). Without such protection, a big actor (Odoo SA themselves?) would easily put all OCA modules authors out of business by creating superior private derivatives without any attribution, much like some open source editors complained GAFAM like companies created unfriendly forks of their products.

Notice however that if the OCA starts selling double license exceptions, we will not even be sure we could name and shame or even sue some company who is obviously extending an OCA module without publishing it back. So I think it would just incentivate piracy, not a net positive for me...

On Sat, Sep 13, 2025, 8:47 AM Frederik Kramer <notifications@odoo-community.org> wrote:

Hi Greame, there is amble debate on when an AGPL licenced software is actually made publicly available. To cases where it is pretty clear (to me and most people that i know do academic research on the matter): 1.) Your company is actually consisting of more then one legal entities collaborating on the same system (e.g. holding structure) 2.) If you use E-Commerce ar any means of direct user acces (like portal functions) 3.) If you let externals to your company access to the software (even with a VPN), e.g. freelancer use cases, suppliers, customers Furthermore as soon as you modify anything you implicitely agree to the license liabilities See https://www.reddit.com/r/opensource/comments/1hh25a0/agpl_for_software_hosted_internally/ for a little bit of debate on the matter Best Frederik Am 13.09.25 um 13:02 schrieb Graeme Gellatly: > > The simplest way is to just not accept the license and not propagate > the AGPL licensed work. As long as you are using it unmodified, there > is no requirement to accept. Clause 9 is quite clear. > Conveyance/propagation as a combined work is easily avoided. -- Dr.-Ing. Frederik Kramer Geschäftsführer initOS GmbH Innungsstraße 7 21244 Buchholz i.d.N. Tel: +49 (0) 4181 13503 12 Fax: +49 (0) 4181 13503 10 Mobil: +49 (0) 179 3901819 Email: frederik.kramer@initos.com Internet: www.initos.com Geschäftsführung: Dr.-Ing. Frederik Kramer & Dipl.-Ing. (FH) Torsten Francke Sitz der Gesellschaft: Buchholz i.d.N. Amtsgericht Tostedt, HRB 205226 USt-IdNr.: DE815580155 Steuer-Nr: 15/200/53247

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by Graeme Gellatly - 11:16 - 13 Sep 2025
Re: Licence question: using AGPL and Odoo proprietary modules on the same server
Sorry on that point. Of course, whatever the original author decides. There is only 3 realistic choices anyway.

For me it is nearly always AGPL. I was not advocating OCA relicense to AGPL by any stretch, just encouraging its use and not to throw it away over some vendor FUD.

Le dim. 14 sept. 2025, 08:37, Joël Grand-Guillaume <notifications@odoo-community.org> a écrit :
Dear community,

I strongly agree with Maxine here. The OCA accept any OSI compliant licences and since the begining it has always left the choice to the contributors among available ones.

I invite you to read our FAQ under chapter licences & CLA: https://odoo-community.org/resources/faq

It explains what's needed. If you feel there is something not clear enough or missing, please write your proposal to: support AT odoo-community.org

Looking forward to meeting you in person at the OCA days, a good place to discuss it if you feel the need for it.

Best regards,

Joël

Le sam. 13 sept. 2025, 22:21, Maxime Chambreuil <notifications@odoo-community.org> a écrit :

Hello,

Since everybody is giving its opinion, here is mine.

I think the license the contributor decides to put in the modules he is contributing to the OCA is his choice and should not be judged. We are a community, not a team or company. We don't necessarily share the same objectives and we don't necessarily aim for the same impact or result when contributing.

The only thing the OCA should do on this topic is educate so contributors make the right choice reflecting their values in complete awareness of the pros and cons. A page or blog post on the oca website comparing the different licenses, with pros and cons, with correct/incorrect legal/illegal behavior.

My 2 cents on the license. More to come on the contributions in the other thread later.

Cheers

--
Maxime Chambreuil

Desde mi móvil

From: Raphaël Valyi <notifications@odoo-community.org>
Sent: Saturday, September 13, 2025 6:36:58 AM
To: Contributors <contributors@odoo-community.org>
Subject: Re: Licence question: using AGPL and Odoo proprietary modules on the same server

Eventually we could create a simple OCA tutorial that would give an example use case where a company needs customizations that depend both on OCA AGPL and LGPL modules and need to protect some IP. We could give a few guidelines how to split the codebase between AGPL and LGPL derivatives.

Obviously there would always be a grey area where people would carefully craft glue modules to action OCA AGPL code without explicitly depending on it.

But eventually we could still cover the most obvious cases. This could help to:

- limit the FUD about AGPL

- incentivate more actors to publish what should be published

Would it be risky for the OCA to publish such guidelines if a court finally interpret things differently? Should we officially cover the EE case as well?

Finally about AGPL enforcement in general: one thing is the AGPL be violated by some final users. Just like piracy in general, it's hard to avoid indeed.

But at least the AGPL should ideally protect us against massive violation by big SaaS players (because of the legal risks). Without such protection, a big actor (Odoo SA themselves?) would easily put all OCA modules authors out of business by creating superior private derivatives without any attribution, much like some open source editors complained GAFAM like companies created unfriendly forks of their products.

Notice however that if the OCA starts selling double license exceptions, we will not even be sure we could name and shame or even sue some company who is obviously extending an OCA module without publishing it back. So I think it would just incentivate piracy, not a net positive for me...

On Sat, Sep 13, 2025, 8:47 AM Frederik Kramer <notifications@odoo-community.org> wrote:

Hi Greame, there is amble debate on when an AGPL licenced software is actually made publicly available. To cases where it is pretty clear (to me and most people that i know do academic research on the matter): 1.) Your company is actually consisting of more then one legal entities collaborating on the same system (e.g. holding structure) 2.) If you use E-Commerce ar any means of direct user acces (like portal functions) 3.) If you let externals to your company access to the software (even with a VPN), e.g. freelancer use cases, suppliers, customers Furthermore as soon as you modify anything you implicitely agree to the license liabilities See https://www.reddit.com/r/opensource/comments/1hh25a0/agpl_for_software_hosted_internally/ for a little bit of debate on the matter Best Frederik Am 13.09.25 um 13:02 schrieb Graeme Gellatly: > > The simplest way is to just not accept the license and not propagate > the AGPL licensed work. As long as you are using it unmodified, there > is no requirement to accept. Clause 9 is quite clear. > Conveyance/propagation as a combined work is easily avoided. -- Dr.-Ing. Frederik Kramer Geschäftsführer initOS GmbH Innungsstraße 7 21244 Buchholz i.d.N. Tel: +49 (0) 4181 13503 12 Fax: +49 (0) 4181 13503 10 Mobil: +49 (0) 179 3901819 Email: frederik.kramer@initos.com Internet: www.initos.com Geschäftsführung: Dr.-Ing. Frederik Kramer & Dipl.-Ing. (FH) Torsten Francke Sitz der Gesellschaft: Buchholz i.d.N. Amtsgericht Tostedt, HRB 205226 USt-IdNr.: DE815580155 Steuer-Nr: 15/200/53247

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by Graeme Gellatly - 11:06 - 13 Sep 2025

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

I have zero time for what academics think, honestly. As for reddit, omg. That whole thread was basically the 2009 Microsoft FUD parroted word for word with a bit of Oracle post Sun acquisition thrown in.

Court cases and precedent are what matter. Public is a fairly precise definition in law and the MS interpretation just defies belief.

I am 100% comfortable with where I sit, I know everybody disagrees with me here, and I am fine with it.

Le sam. 13 sept. 2025, 23:47, Frederik Kramer <notifications@odoo-community.org> a écrit :

Hi Greame,

there is amble debate on when an AGPL licenced software is actually made 
publicly available. To cases where it is pretty clear (to me and most 
people that i know do academic research on the matter):

1.) Your company is actually consisting of more then one legal entities 
collaborating on the same system (e.g. holding structure)

2.) If you use E-Commerce ar any means of direct user acces (like portal 
functions)

3.) If you let externals to your company access to the software (even 
with a VPN), e.g. freelancer use cases, suppliers, customers

Furthermore as soon as you modify anything you implicitely agree to the 
license liabilities

See 
https://www.reddit.com/r/opensource/comments/1hh25a0/agpl_for_software_hosted_internally/ 
for a little bit of debate on the matter

Best Frederik

Am 13.09.25 um 13:02 schrieb Graeme Gellatly:


>


> The simplest way is to just not accept the license and not propagate 


> the AGPL licensed work. As long as you are using it unmodified, there 


> is no requirement to accept. Clause 9 is quite clear. 


> Conveyance/propagation as a combined work is easily avoided.



-- 
Dr.-Ing. Frederik Kramer
Geschäftsführer

initOS GmbH
Innungsstraße 7
21244 Buchholz i.d.N.

Tel:   +49 (0) 4181 13503 12
Fax:   +49 (0) 4181 13503 10
Mobil: +49 (0) 179 3901819

Email: frederik.kramer@initos.com
Internet: www.initos.com

Geschäftsführung:
Dr.-Ing. Frederik Kramer & Dipl.-Ing. (FH) Torsten Francke

Sitz der Gesellschaft: Buchholz i.d.N.
Amtsgericht Tostedt, HRB 205226
USt-IdNr.: DE815580155
Steuer-Nr: 15/200/53247

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by Graeme Gellatly - 11:01 - 13 Sep 2025

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

I strongly agree with Maxine here. The OCA accept any OSI compliant licences and since the begining it has always left the choice to the contributors among available ones.

I invite you to read our FAQ under chapter licences & CLA: https://odoo-community.org/resources/faq

It explains what's needed. If you feel there is something not clear enough or missing, please write your proposal to: support AT odoo-community.org

Looking forward to meeting you in person at the OCA days, a good place to discuss it if you feel the need for it.

Best regards,

Joël

Le sam. 13 sept. 2025, 22:21, Maxime Chambreuil <notifications@odoo-community.org> a écrit :

Hello,

Since everybody is giving its opinion, here is mine.

I think the license the contributor decides to put in the modules he is contributing to the OCA is his choice and should not be judged. We are a community, not a team or company. We don't necessarily share the same objectives and we don't necessarily aim for the same impact or result when contributing.

The only thing the OCA should do on this topic is educate so contributors make the right choice reflecting their values in complete awareness of the pros and cons. A page or blog post on the oca website comparing the different licenses, with pros and cons, with correct/incorrect legal/illegal behavior.

My 2 cents on the license. More to come on the contributions in the other thread later.

Cheers

--
Maxime Chambreuil

Desde mi móvil

From: Raphaël Valyi <notifications@odoo-community.org>
Sent: Saturday, September 13, 2025 6:36:58 AM
To: Contributors <contributors@odoo-community.org>
Subject: Re: Licence question: using AGPL and Odoo proprietary modules on the same server

Eventually we could create a simple OCA tutorial that would give an example use case where a company needs customizations that depend both on OCA AGPL and LGPL modules and need to protect some IP. We could give a few guidelines how to split the codebase between AGPL and LGPL derivatives.

Obviously there would always be a grey area where people would carefully craft glue modules to action OCA AGPL code without explicitly depending on it.

But eventually we could still cover the most obvious cases. This could help to:

- limit the FUD about AGPL

- incentivate more actors to publish what should be published

Would it be risky for the OCA to publish such guidelines if a court finally interpret things differently? Should we officially cover the EE case as well?

Finally about AGPL enforcement in general: one thing is the AGPL be violated by some final users. Just like piracy in general, it's hard to avoid indeed.

But at least the AGPL should ideally protect us against massive violation by big SaaS players (because of the legal risks). Without such protection, a big actor (Odoo SA themselves?) would easily put all OCA modules authors out of business by creating superior private derivatives without any attribution, much like some open source editors complained GAFAM like companies created unfriendly forks of their products.

Notice however that if the OCA starts selling double license exceptions, we will not even be sure we could name and shame or even sue some company who is obviously extending an OCA module without publishing it back. So I think it would just incentivate piracy, not a net positive for me...

On Sat, Sep 13, 2025, 8:47 AM Frederik Kramer <notifications@odoo-community.org> wrote:

Hi Greame, there is amble debate on when an AGPL licenced software is actually made publicly available. To cases where it is pretty clear (to me and most people that i know do academic research on the matter): 1.) Your company is actually consisting of more then one legal entities collaborating on the same system (e.g. holding structure) 2.) If you use E-Commerce ar any means of direct user acces (like portal functions) 3.) If you let externals to your company access to the software (even with a VPN), e.g. freelancer use cases, suppliers, customers Furthermore as soon as you modify anything you implicitely agree to the license liabilities See https://www.reddit.com/r/opensource/comments/1hh25a0/agpl_for_software_hosted_internally/ for a little bit of debate on the matter Best Frederik Am 13.09.25 um 13:02 schrieb Graeme Gellatly: > > The simplest way is to just not accept the license and not propagate > the AGPL licensed work. As long as you are using it unmodified, there > is no requirement to accept. Clause 9 is quite clear. > Conveyance/propagation as a combined work is easily avoided. -- Dr.-Ing. Frederik Kramer Geschäftsführer initOS GmbH Innungsstraße 7 21244 Buchholz i.d.N. Tel: +49 (0) 4181 13503 12 Fax: +49 (0) 4181 13503 10 Mobil: +49 (0) 179 3901819 Email: frederik.kramer@initos.com Internet: www.initos.com Geschäftsführung: Dr.-Ing. Frederik Kramer & Dipl.-Ing. (FH) Torsten Francke Sitz der Gesellschaft: Buchholz i.d.N. Amtsgericht Tostedt, HRB 205226 USt-IdNr.: DE815580155 Steuer-Nr: 15/200/53247

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by Joël Grand Guillaume - 10:36 - 13 Sep 2025
Re: Licence question: using AGPL and Odoo proprietary modules on the same server
Hello,

Since everybody is giving its opinion, here is mine.

I think the license the contributor decides to put in the modules he is contributing to the OCA is his choice and should not be judged. We are a community, not a team or company. We don't necessarily share the same objectives and we don't necessarily aim for the same impact or result when contributing.

The only thing the OCA should do on this topic is educate so contributors make the right choice reflecting their values in complete awareness of the pros and cons. A page or blog post on the oca website comparing the different licenses, with pros and cons, with correct/incorrect legal/illegal behavior.

My 2 cents on the license. More to come on the contributions in the other thread later.

Cheers

--
Maxime Chambreuil

Desde mi móvil

From: Raphaël Valyi <notifications@odoo-community.org>
Sent: Saturday, September 13, 2025 6:36:58 AM
To: Contributors <contributors@odoo-community.org>
Subject: Re: Licence question: using AGPL and Odoo proprietary modules on the same server

Eventually we could create a simple OCA tutorial that would give an example use case where a company needs customizations that depend both on OCA AGPL and LGPL modules and need to protect some IP. We could give a few guidelines how to split the codebase between AGPL and LGPL derivatives.

Obviously there would always be a grey area where people would carefully craft glue modules to action OCA AGPL code without explicitly depending on it.

But eventually we could still cover the most obvious cases. This could help to:

- limit the FUD about AGPL

- incentivate more actors to publish what should be published

Would it be risky for the OCA to publish such guidelines if a court finally interpret things differently? Should we officially cover the EE case as well?

Finally about AGPL enforcement in general: one thing is the AGPL be violated by some final users. Just like piracy in general, it's hard to avoid indeed.

But at least the AGPL should ideally protect us against massive violation by big SaaS players (because of the legal risks). Without such protection, a big actor (Odoo SA themselves?) would easily put all OCA modules authors out of business by creating superior private derivatives without any attribution, much like some open source editors complained GAFAM like companies created unfriendly forks of their products.

Notice however that if the OCA starts selling double license exceptions, we will not even be sure we could name and shame or even sue some company who is obviously extending an OCA module without publishing it back. So I think it would just incentivate piracy, not a net positive for me...

On Sat, Sep 13, 2025, 8:47 AM Frederik Kramer <notifications@odoo-community.org> wrote:

Hi Greame, there is amble debate on when an AGPL licenced software is actually made publicly available. To cases where it is pretty clear (to me and most people that i know do academic research on the matter): 1.) Your company is actually consisting of more then one legal entities collaborating on the same system (e.g. holding structure) 2.) If you use E-Commerce ar any means of direct user acces (like portal functions) 3.) If you let externals to your company access to the software (even with a VPN), e.g. freelancer use cases, suppliers, customers Furthermore as soon as you modify anything you implicitely agree to the license liabilities See https://www.reddit.com/r/opensource/comments/1hh25a0/agpl_for_software_hosted_internally/ for a little bit of debate on the matter Best Frederik Am 13.09.25 um 13:02 schrieb Graeme Gellatly: > > The simplest way is to just not accept the license and not propagate > the AGPL licensed work. As long as you are using it unmodified, there > is no requirement to accept. Clause 9 is quite clear. > Conveyance/propagation as a combined work is easily avoided. -- Dr.-Ing. Frederik Kramer Geschäftsführer initOS GmbH Innungsstraße 7 21244 Buchholz i.d.N. Tel: +49 (0) 4181 13503 12 Fax: +49 (0) 4181 13503 10 Mobil: +49 (0) 179 3901819 Email: frederik.kramer@initos.com Internet: www.initos.com Geschäftsführung: Dr.-Ing. Frederik Kramer & Dipl.-Ing. (FH) Torsten Francke Sitz der Gesellschaft: Buchholz i.d.N. Amtsgericht Tostedt, HRB 205226 USt-IdNr.: DE815580155 Steuer-Nr: 15/200/53247

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by Maxime Chambreuil - 10:21 - 13 Sep 2025

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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

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

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