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Fjarr

ADR 0011: AGPL open core

  • Status: accepted
  • Date: 2026-09-15
  • Supersedes: the early-planning “proprietary internal” assumption

Context

Section titled “Context”

Fjarr aims to be an open-source framework with a revenue-bearing cloud/product around it (docs/03), built largely by one founder who needs the work to remain defensible.

Options considered

Section titled “Options considered”
  • AGPL-3.0 core + commercial license (RustDesk/Grafana-style): free self-hosting; embedding into proprietary offerings or SaaS-ing the code requires opening changes or buying a license. Requires a CLA to keep dual- licensing rights.
  • Apache-2.0/MIT core: maximum adoption; nothing prevents a larger player from hosting it against us.
  • Source-available (BSL etc.): weaker community trust, license-lawyer friction with target customers.

Decision

Section titled “Decision”

AGPL-3.0 for the open core (all three libraries, sidecar, demos, docs); commercial license available; CLA required for external contributions (tooling before the first outside PR — open question #13). Fjarr Cloud and flagship fleet features are closed (docs/03 split).

Consequences

Section titled “Consequences”
  • Shipped artifacts must stay GPL-dependency-free anyway: commercial (exception-licensed) builds cannot link GPL code — so x264enc stays banned (doctor-enforced) and VA-API remains the product encode path.
  • Per-file headers + license files land with the first public push (M0.5).
  • Some embedded-legal friction is expected; the commercial path is the answer, priced in docs/03.