CodeCrafters is now fair source

Today, we're announcing that CodeCrafters is going Fair Source.

We’re joining Sentry, Codecov and others, in choosing a license that preserves the spirit of OSS while permitting a defensible business model.

Many top developer companies are Fair Source

The challenge with Open Source

Often, maintainers of commercial software projects want to share their project's source code in the spirit of transparency, to build trust, and also to encourage collaboration. This should be encouraged.

But using a non-compete on an Open Source project is frowned upon. Not using one doesn’t align commercial interests.

Open Source & Business Interests: Missing Overlap

Often, OSS and Business interests are at odds with each another

What is a maintainer to do?

Enter Fair Source

Fair Source is software that:

is publicly available to read;
allows use, modification, and redistribution with minimal restrictions to protect the producer’s business model; and
undergoes delayed Open Source publication (DOSP).

Fair Source brings together the desirable parts of Business and Open Source

Fair Source makes it possible for maintainers to share source code in a manner that is sustainable in terms of long term business interests.

Conclusion

CodeCrafters is now Fair Source.

We've benefited from studying a variety of software projects — and we'd love to also let you study and use ours. Check out our GitHub org.

To learn more about Fair Source, check out fair.io.