Ask HN: OK to fork an open source repo and make a product to sell(SaaS)

8 points by vbh21 3 years ago | 2 comments

I have had a few successful contributions to an Apache 2.0 licensed software package.

This package is developed as open source but offered as an enterprise SaaS offering.

Now, the founders, being of European origin - have different ideas on development/design. And I don’t like it. But I want to work on that product and release my own offering, after forking their codebase - which I have already done.

I know Apache 2.0 is a permissive license. I am wondering if I’ll get into legal trouble later when I float my own company. I will use some of their code although I’ll make major changes.

I want to play it safe and avoid legal battles over copyright.

DamonHD 3 years ago |

Apache 2 says that you can do what you like with the code providing attrbution etc is done correctly.

It's why I release most of my stuff under Apache 2: to give people freedom to use it how they want even if I may not approve.

Make sure that all the stuff you want to use is (a) actually Apache licensed and (b) actually theirs to license in the first place.

el_hacker 3 years ago |

https://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0