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AW: 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

Honestly Tom, it was a hell of a fight 10 years ago and I don't feel like it again. I am quite alone but also certain in this. So this is just my opinion, nearly all here disagree.

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.

Now where the argument happens is that they say your extension is "based on" therefore it is modifying, but to my mind this is a gross misinterpretation. It "depends on" or "it consumes" is a better way of saying it. "Based on" means something quite different in a copyright context e.g. Based on a True Story. Essentially a fork.


On Sat, Sep 13, 2025 at 8:12 PM Tom Blauwendraat <notifications@odoo-community.org> wrote:
Nicely explained Graeme, makes it all the more clear.

One question though: how do you then see the case of a custom module having to depend on an Enterprise OPL module as well as an OCA AGPL module? What license would that module need to have, and is it legal? (Not talking about redistribution here, just building such a module and installing it on client's system)

13 sep. 2025 00:32:02 Graeme Gellatly <notifications@odoo-community.org>:

For me AGPL is the best license. IMHO it should be the license choice for everything including Odoo CE.

For clients it is the best (despite all the FUD in this email chain). The simple reason is clause 9, no requirement to accept as they are not propagating or modifying. This renders clause 13 moot which is what everyone gets their knickers in a twist about. Way back when in 2015 we talked to a lot of people including the author of AGPL, engaged specialist lawyers etc this was the basis that you see in our current policy. Furthermore, insofar as a partner/developer develops dependent modules, they are now bound to provide their client the source code, even though client is not required to accept licence, developer is. So client is even further protected and avoids lockin.

For (at least open source minded) partners/developers it is the best. You can develop extensions, do modifications and convey them to your client, along with source and yes it is licensed AGPL. But if someone extends your work and puts on App store you have some protections. It allows the software to grow and evolve and encourage contribution. Whats more is you can extend LGPL without fear the LGPL author will take your contributions. OpenOffice vs LibreOffice success is testament to that.

For Odoo it would be best. It would protect them from SaaS startups under clause 13. Now I hear you say, but enterprise is incompatible so it must be LGPL. This is simply not true, insofar you believe that Odoo correctly relicensed and owns copyrights to all the source. All they needed to do was dual license.

So why do we end up with emails like this, Odoo's decision etc. Because SaaS providers, and vendors like Microsoft have done such a good job of spreading FUD, a lot of which is repeated here that everyone is afraid of it, when it should be embraced. Literally the only people that should fear AGPL is unscrupulous SaaS providers and public for sale app developers. 

Insofar as clients need protections around "proprietary code" being given to other people, that is a contractual issue between them and their partner. But let's say your client has really bought the FUD, LGPL is still a bad choice because it forces client acceptance, GPL would be better which is basically the AGPL without network clause.

On Sat, Sep 13, 2025 at 9:22 AM Enric Tobella Alomar <notifications@odoo-community.org> wrote:
Sure,

If I remember properly, we have 3 repositories that are mainly LGPL: DMS, EDI-Framework and Queue Job

I will take EDI-Framework as a base as it has several modules in the repo. It has 17 modules in 18 and it as been in its repo for 5 versions for a total of 197 PRs. this makes an average of 39 PRs for each version. Also, it has 49 contributors

On the other hand I will use helpdesk as it has a similar number of modules in 18 (17) and it is completly AGPL. It has been there for 9 versions for a total of 686 PRs, that makes an average of 76 PRs for version with a total of 120 contributors

It is true that EDI-Framework has some special cases like the complexity of components and so on, but with similar sizes in number of modules we can see quite a difference in number of contributors and PRs done.

I know that correlation doesn’t imply causation (spurious relationships are one of the first fun lessons in statistics), but in my view, this makes it quite clear that licensing alone is not the decisive factor in how contributors engage with a project.

Kind regards

El vie, 12 sept 2025 a las 21:57, Frederik Kramer (<notifications@odoo-community.org>) escribió:

Hi Enric,

ok, i obviously didn't recall this fact. In order to make this comparison stable, we should find comparable siblings of those to by any stable internal complexity measure (maybe McCabe or Halstead is enough for now) and than compare the contributions (again by stable measures) over time

Best Frederik

Am 12.09.25 um 21:41 schrieb Enric Tobella Alomar:
Hi Frederik,

Thanks for laying out your thoughts so clearly.

I agree with the idea of experimenting before making real changes, but I think we need to be cautious with the assumption that moving from AGPL to LGPL automatically results in higher adoption and more contributions. We already have a couple of real-world “experiments” inside OCA itself:

- edi-framework
- queue_job

Both were licensed under LGPL rather than AGPL, and yet they did not attract significantly more contributors or maintainers compared to their AGPL counterparts. If anything, the contributor base has remained relatively small and fixed over the years. This suggests that the license alone is not the determining factor for contributions — other aspects like module complexity, required expertise, or the integrators’ business model also play a huge role.

So the licensing impact turns out to be limited (as our current examples suggest).

For me, it would be more relevant to study why communities like "Spanish Odoo Association" are able to attract so many supporters. They have a similar message, but they have a different strategy that allows to engage most of EE companies. Maybe these people are not making PRs, but at least they make a monetary effort that helps contributors.

Best regards,

El vie, 12 sept 2025 a las 21:22, Frederik Kramer (<notifications@odoo-community.org>) escribió:

Hi Raphael,

as always very detailed and very insightful thoughts. Honestly, i can't add much value here than just saying you are right with all you said in my opinion. The 20/80 relation for LGPL/AGPL sounds quite reasonable (even if Pareto edges almost always apply).

I'll take the fear / discomfort of Pedro (and Enric) very reasonable, so instead of doing to much to fast, I would suggest to start with a controlled experiment (that even Pedro and Enric would be willing to agree to). 

The experiment could look like as follows:

Take a small, but prominent baseline or infrastructure module that we know or assume many people use (even many in illegal ways (just like Tom pointed out) as of today) were a solid majority (of OCA members) and the whole responsible PSC believes would be better if it were licensed under LGPL (or at least has no objections). Lets the responsible owners induce the license change from AGPL to LGPL, advertise this change, make an effort to publish and post about the module, the change and its useful usage, encourage to actively contribute...

and than measure diversity, total amount, quality of contributions, speed of migrations etc. for that very module over a longer period of time (+/- 1 year) and compare it with the AGPL population of similarly reasonable baseline and infrastructure moduls licensed under AGPL. 

That way we can easily test hypothesis without taking much risk. If the most supported hypothesis (i.e. some few baseline / infra modules LGPL, 80% business logic modules AGPL -> induces more adoption / contribution) we should see first supporting data from that experiment.

Best Frederik

Am 12.09.25 um 17:23 schrieb Raphaël Valyi:
… 
-- 
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
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Steuer-Nr: 15/200/53247

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Enric Tobella Alomar
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-- 
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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--
Enric Tobella Alomar
CEO & Founder

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by Graeme Gellatly - 01:01 - 13 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

    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

      _______________________________________________
      Mailing-List: https://odoo-community.org/groups/contributors-15
      Post to: mailto:contributors@odoo-community.org
      Unsubscribe: https://odoo-community.org/groups?unsubscribe

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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

      _______________________________________________
      Mailing-List: https://odoo-community.org/groups/contributors-15
      Post to: mailto:contributors@odoo-community.org
      Unsubscribe: https://odoo-community.org/groups?unsubscribe

      _______________________________________________
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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

      _______________________________________________
      Mailing-List: https://odoo-community.org/groups/contributors-15
      Post to: mailto:contributors@odoo-community.org
      Unsubscribe: https://odoo-community.org/groups?unsubscribe

      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

      _______________________________________________
      Mailing-List: https://odoo-community.org/groups/contributors-15
      Post to: mailto:contributors@odoo-community.org
      Unsubscribe: https://odoo-community.org/groups?unsubscribe

      _______________________________________________
      Mailing-List: https://odoo-community.org/groups/contributors-15
      Post to: mailto:contributors@odoo-community.org
      Unsubscribe: https://odoo-community.org/groups?unsubscribe

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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

      _______________________________________________
      Mailing-List: https://odoo-community.org/groups/contributors-15
      Post to: mailto:contributors@odoo-community.org
      Unsubscribe: https://odoo-community.org/groups?unsubscribe

      _______________________________________________
      Mailing-List: https://odoo-community.org/groups/contributors-15
      Post to: mailto:contributors@odoo-community.org
      Unsubscribe: https://odoo-community.org/groups?unsubscribe

      by Maxime Chambreuil - 10:21 - 13 Sep 2025