A new home and license (AGPL) for Synapse and friends
A new home and license (AGPL) for Synapse and friends
Element has chosen to pursue future development of Synapse, Dendrite and associated server-side projects under the terms of AGPLv3.
They've been calling for donations from companies using their project for a while now, and now it looks like they've had enough.
Element is running out of money. I think they would keep the old license if other commercial matrix-based projects would contribute developers or money.
I agree. They've publicly and conspicuously begged for donations for years now, and clearly not enough companies have answered the call. Without enough funding they are forcing companies to pay for their usage of the Matrix components by using AGPL and selling licensing exceptions. This is not a great scenario but it is probably the only way the project can survive at this point.
There is a lot of discussion on the controversial switch to CLA here, which most importantly includes several posts from Matthew (username Arathorn) where he justifies their decision. I believe the rationale and I don't think anyone wanted this to happen, but I'm also ready to cut ties with the project if they pull anything shady with their newfound power.