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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

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

On 9/12/25 14:22, Daniel Reis wrote:

> Let's recognize that at Odoo, the EE is what funds the R&D put into 

> the CE.

> And even within the OCA, there is  A LOT of code there that is funded 

> by EE customers.

Question to all - I did not have the time, but did anyone already study 
Enric's statistics and manage to get some very rough estimate on which 
percentage of contributions come from "CE partners" and how many from 
"EE partners"? It's probably not possible to drill this down into 
perfect detail, but at the last OCA days I got a good idea by asking 
around which integrator has which kind of clients (Tecnative - all CE, 
Forgeflow - mixed, ACSONE - mostly EE, Camptocamp - mostly EE, ....)


> The dual-licensing idea also seems promising to me, so I would like to 

> hear more opinions about it, if this is something the community agrees 

> can be a good idea.

+1 to Sylvain and this idea.

What I see is that there seems to be a "Team fully AGPL to defend open 
source values" and a "Team pragmatically LGPL + CE + EE", and unless 
there is a third option, the two can't agree.

Last year I did a controversial talk on proprietary licensing in OCA, 
and in preparation for that I came across the Dual licensing idea.

IMO it could be a genius solution because if you dual-license modules 
between AGPL and some "other" proprietary license, what you get is:

- Anyone in the AGPL ecosystem can use the modules AGPL and be 
incentivised to AGPL-back any improvements, and not bother with licenses.

- Anyone that pays the "other" license, -can- safely use the modules 
inside of an EE instance with no limitations, or build proprietary 
products on top; is ALSO incentivised to contribute back to the base 
modules that the AGPL camp uses; *and* in contrast with the situation 
when the modules would have been LGPL, OCA actually sees revenue from 
people doing that, which could go into: OpenUpgrade, laywer costs, paid 
employees that do license-policing, new AGPL developments, 
contributors..... you name it. Done smartly, it could even accelerate 
development of an AGPL alternative to EE.

The talk stirred up a lot of fuss though because 1) some very staunchly 
open source contributors did not view the above as "free software" and 
threatened to leave the OCA if it came to that, and 2) the trouble is in 
the "you name it" part - who decides where the revenues go to?

After facing heat over the above I dropped the idea, because that's what 
it was, just an idea - but here we are - if the alternative is that the 
OCA would split in two, maybe creative solutions are worth another 
discussion.

-Tom
by Tom Blauwendraat - 02:55 - 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).


    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
    Tel +33 1 83 62 72 88 Email vincent.hatakeyama@orbeet.io
    Adresse 27, boulevard Saint-Martin
    75003 Paris         		Site web https://orbeet.io
    Image bannière
    by "Vincent Hatakeyama" <vincent.hatakeyama@orbeet.io> - 10:36 - 8 Sep 2025