License
Free to run, at any size, forever.
Deckgauge is source-available under the Functional Source License (FSL-1.1-Apache-2.0), SPDX id FSL-1.1-ALv2. Every release converts to the Apache License 2.0 two years after it ships: v2.0.0, published 11 September 2026, is Apache-2.0 from 11 September 2028. The one thing the licence withholds is the right to resell Deckgauge as a competing hosted service.
Everything except sell it back to other people.
- Run it in production, commercially, at any size. No developer cap, no seat count, no feature gate on metrics, no expiry, no licence key and nothing that phones home. A 400-engineer organization can run the free core and pay nothing, forever.
- Run it inside a company that competes with us. Internal use is a Permitted Purpose no matter what your company sells.
- Read it, change it, fork it, redistribute it. The licence travels with the copy and the copyright notices stay, which is the whole of the redistribution condition.
- Build a consulting practice on it. Professional services you provide to someone else running Deckgauge under this licence are explicitly permitted.
- Use it for teaching and research, non-commercially.
You may not offer Deckgauge to others as a competing service.
In the licence's words, a Competing Use is making the Software available to others in a commercial product or service that substitutes for it, substitutes for something else we offer using it, or offers the same or substantially similar functionality. In plain terms: do not resell it as a hosted product.
That is the entire restriction. It is not a seat limit, not a revenue threshold, not an evaluation period, and it does not reach your own internal use however large or however commercial.
The risk has a name, so the answer is specific.
Self-hosted delivery analytics is a field where a commercial vendor already operates the ingestion pipeline and the customer base — hosted Apache DevLake is a product someone sells today. Under a permissive licence, that vendor could take this product layer, put it in front of their pipeline, and outsell the people who wrote it. The FSL stops that one thing.
It stops nothing else, and it expires. The Apache-2.0 grant on each release is irrevocable and dated from the day that release ships, so the protection is two years of head start rather than a permanent claim.
Three real costs, stated rather than argued away.
- It is not an OSI-approved licence. Some enterprise open-source approval lists reject anything that is not, and that is a door this choice closes for as long as a given release is inside its two-year window.
- Linux distribution and package-manager inclusion is off the table, for the same reason.
- Some people will not use it on principle. That is a legitimate position and we are not going to argue with it — the code is readable, the conversion date is published, and anyone who would rather wait for 11 September 2028 is welcome to.
The ones that actually get asked.
Is Deckgauge open source?
It is source-available, not OSI open source. Deckgauge is published under the Functional Source License (FSL-1.1-Apache-2.0, SPDX id FSL-1.1-ALv2): you can read, run, modify, fork and redistribute it, and every release converts to the Apache License 2.0 two years after it ships. The one thing the licence withholds is the right to sell Deckgauge to other people as a competing hosted or packaged product.
Can I use Deckgauge commercially without paying?
Yes. Internal commercial use is a Permitted Purpose under the FSL at any company size, including a company that competes with Codpal Limited in its own market. There is no developer cap, no feature gate, no expiry and no licence key in the self-hosted core. You pay only if you want us to host it or you want a commercial licence with support attached.
What exactly may I not do?
Make Deckgauge available to others in a commercial product or service that substitutes for it or offers substantially the same functionality — reselling it as a hosted service, in other words. Everything else the licence enumerates as a Permitted Purpose: internal use, non-commercial education, non-commercial research, and professional services you provide to someone else running it under the same licence.
When does it become Apache-2.0?
Each release carries an irrevocable Apache-2.0 grant that takes effect on its second anniversary. v2.0.0 was published on 11 September 2026, so it is Apache-2.0 licensed from 11 September 2028. Later releases convert on their own dates; the grant is per release, and it cannot be withdrawn.
Why not Apache-2.0 today?
Because the risk is specific rather than hypothetical. A vendor that already operates a hosted analytics pipeline could take the product layer and sell it, and under a permissive licence there would be nothing to say about it. The FSL stops that one thing and nothing else, and it hands the code over unconditionally two years later.
Anything this page does not answer: [email protected]. The licence itself governs, and it is in the repository.