Open Source Licensing Explained for DevOps: MIT vs Apache vs GPL

Disclaimer: I am an engineer, not a lawyer. This is for educational purposes.

You found a cool monitoring tool on GitHub. Can you deploy it at your bank? Can you modify it? It depends on the LICENSE file.

1. The Permissive Licenses (Do Anything)

MIT / BSD / Apache 2.0 These are the “Business Friendly” licenses.

• You Can: Use it, sell it, modify it, close-source your modifications.
• Condition: You must keep the original copyright notice.
• Examples: React (MIT), Kubernetes (Apache 2.0), Cluster Uptime (Apache 2.0).
• Verdict: Safe for almost any company.

2. The Copyleft Licenses (Share Alike)

GPL v2 / GPL v3 These are the “Community First” licenses.

• You Can: Use it.
• Condition: If you modify the code and distribute it (give the binary to someone), you MUST open source your modifications under the same license.
• The Loophole: If you run it internally on a server (SaaS) but don’t give the binary to customers, you technically haven’t distributed it (under GPL v2).

3. The Strong Copyleft (The SaaS Killer)

AGPL (Affero GPL) This closes the SaaS loophole.

• Condition: If you modify the code and let users interact with it over a network, you MUST open source your modifications.
• Risk: Many large corporations (Google, Amazon) ban AGPL software internally because they are terrified of accidentally infecting their proprietary codebases.
• Examples: Grafana (formerly), MinIO, MongoDB (SSPL is similar).

Why Cluster Uptime Chose Apache 2.0

We want Cluster Uptime to be ubiquitous. We want you to build plugins, modify the UI, and run it inside your massive corporation without legal needing to sign off. Permissive licensing accelerates adoption. We believe in competing on value, not on legal lock-in.