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rossy | 9 months ago
> All you need to do is omit the Enterprise feature flag during compilation, and what you get is a 100% AGPL-3.0 build.
Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but my interpretation of this issue[1] is that Stalwart contains AGPLv3 licensed functions that call into the SEL licensed `has_tenant_access` function, among others, and that the affected functions are not conditionally compiled out of the AGPLv3 binaries. @afontenot says on that issue that they don't believe it's "possible to use Stalwart under the AGPL at present." Are they wrong and can that issue be closed?
I am also concerned about the webadmin. A free software program that downloads proprietary code on first start isn't free software in practice, and since there aren't two separate SEL and AGPLv3 licensed builds of the webadmin on GitHub, that must be the case.
> So while the optics of this situation may look rough from the outside, I promise it’s not some “open source in name only” kind of thing. It’s just one of those painful balance acts between building features, maintaining packages, and paying the bills.
I get it, but it's disappointing that AGPLv3 compliance is so low in the list of priorities that this licensing issue has been known about but not solved in 8 months, all while receiving grants intended for free software projects. That balancing act must have included the consideration that the free software community is regularly burnt by rug-pulls (Redis) and trust isn't easily won back once its lost.
> And hey, if you're heading back to Maddy, no hard feelings. But the door’s always open if you want to give Stalwart another shot down the road.
I might. Sorry if I've been harsh, but it's only because Stalwart is a very cool project. A FOSS all-in-one mail server written in a safe language is exactly what email needs, and since learning about it, I've been worried that it's too good to be true. Please don't let it be. I don't think it will gain the momentum to replace Postfix if it can't be packaged in Linux distros due to licensing issues.
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