> The benefit of switching to AGPLv3 is that it obliges downstream developers to contribute back to the core project - either by releasing their modifications as open source for the benefit of the whole Matrix ecosystem, or by contacting Element for an alternative license. Future code contributors to Synapse will need to sign a contributor license agreement (CLA)
This makes it clear that they intent to ship under some alternative license, for a fee. They’re making others sign an agreement to ensure that they have privilege to ship the project (or forks of it) under a proprietary license.
I wouldn’t consider any of this open source any more. These are step that a organisation takes when they want to move to an open core model and screw over the community. What they are doing is a required step to pull the same stunt as terraform.
It’s technically still open source today, but this consolidates them into a position to change this at will. Don’t be fooled by the tricky wording that makes this sound like a good thing. These folks are very unambiguously screwing over the community and making it sound otherwise.
As usual, remember to never sign a CLA.