Bear Blog, a minimalist blogging platform focused on privacy and speed, has shifted from an MIT open source license to a source-available model in September 2025[1]. According to creator Herman Martinus, the change restricts commercial exploitation while maintaining code accessibility for non-commercial use and security audits.
The new license prohibits for-profit hosting of Bear Blog or derivative services, while preserving the platform’s commitment to “no-nonsense, super fast blogging” with no tracking or ads[1:1]. This move mirrors similar licensing changes by companies like Elastic, which adopted a source-available model to protect against commercial exploitation while keeping code visible[2].
“The original MIT license was selected without deep forethought, primarily to make the code easily auditable,” explained Martinus on his blog[1:2]. The shift aims to ensure Bear Blog’s sustainability through its hosted version’s modest subscriptions while preventing “open-source rug pulls” by larger corporations.
Okay, but the GNU Affero General Public License specifically addresses the commercial exploitation of software services. By now there must also be non-copyleft licenses that also address this, if that’s their issue with Affero.
But GNU Affero GPL allews commercial exploitation but forces the exploiter to publish the source of any changes - or am I mistaken?
You may be right. I’m certainly no expert and haven’t worked with the Affero-flavored licenses myself.
https://web.archive.org/web/20250902021603/https://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.html
It requires the operator of a network server to provide the source code of the modified version running there to the users of that server. Therefore, public use of a modified version, on a publicly accessible server, gives the public access to the source code of the modified version.
has shifted from an MIT open source license
This is what happens when you contribute to MIT-licenced projects. They steal your work out from under you.
People are always angry and confused when i call MIT a grifter license
Ooh, I’ll steal that!
The original MIT license was selected without deep forethought, primarily to make the code easily auditable
What? Wouldn’t ANY open source license make it easily auditable?
I mean yes, but it’s right there: “without deep forethought”. I prefer copyleft but MIT is a popular default choice
the only licence with rights is the acab licence
deleted by creator
