Licensing
WeaveForge (WeaveForge) is licensed under AGPL-3.0-only. The entire repository. No exceptions.
See LICENSE for the full text and NOTICE for attribution requirements.
Scope
| Path | Licence |
|---|---|
apps/web/ — web application |
AGPL-3.0-only |
packages/core/ — domain layer |
AGPL-3.0-only |
python/ — weaveforge SDK |
AGPL-3.0-only |
plugins/weaveforge-research/ — Codex MCP plugin |
AGPL-3.0-only |
| everything else | AGPL-3.0-only |
There are no permissive carve-outs and no dual licensing.
Why AGPL
WeaveForge is open source for the researchers who use it. AGPL-3.0 is what keeps it that way.
Under a permissive licence (Apache-2.0, MIT), anyone may take this work, improve it privately, host it as a paid service, and never contribute anything back or credit the original. That is the outcome this licence exists to prevent.
Under AGPL-3.0 section 13, an operator who modifies WeaveForge and makes it available to users over a network must offer those users the corresponding source of their modified version. Improvements flow back. Attribution survives. Nobody takes this private.
The 3D printing slicer ecosystem is the worked example: PrusaSlicer is AGPL-3.0, so when a far larger hardware company built a commercial product on it, that product had to be published as AGPL too — and a community fork grew from it. Had PrusaSlicer been permissive, the derivative could have shipped closed and the original author would have received nothing back.
What this means for you
Using WeaveForge — no obligations. Run it, self-host it, use it for your thesis. The licence asks nothing of users.
Self-hosting unmodified — no obligations beyond keeping the licence and notices intact.
Self-hosting a modified version, accessible over a network — you must offer your users the corresponding source of your version. Publishing your fork satisfies this.
Building a derivative product — it must also be AGPL-3.0, with source available to its network users, and attribution preserved.
Contributing — your contribution is licensed AGPL-3.0-only. See CONTRIBUTING.md.
Hosted WeaveForge
The hosted service runs this same source. We publish everything, so section 13 is satisfied by default. Hosting is sold on operator cost — capacity, sync frequency, relay hours, backups, support — never on withheld features. See pricing-strategy.md.
Self-hosting has no subscription fee and never will.
Incoming third-party code
AGPL-3.0 can absorb permissively licensed components. Apache-2.0, MIT, and BSD dependencies are fine, and vendored ones must be recorded in NOTICE with their upstream project and licence.
Components under licences incompatible with AGPL-3.0 may not be included. When in doubt, do not vendor it.
History
The project was licensed Apache-2.0 from its first commit (2026-06-24) until 2026-07-25, during which time the repository was private and was never distributed to anyone. It was relicensed to AGPL-3.0-only before going public, by the sole copyright holder. No third-party contributions required relicensing consent — the one commit carrying another git identity (c8781a4) was the maintainer's own work committed on borrowed hardware, as recorded in CONTRIBUTORS.md.
The name
Decision (2026-07-25): keep WeaveForge. This is a personal open-source project, not a company, so it lives at github.com/Satwik-Miyyapuram/weaveforge rather than under an organisation. That is the normal shape for a project like this.
Name availability, checked 2026-07-25:
| Where | Status |
|---|---|
npm weaveforge |
free |
PyPI weaveforge |
free |
GitHub org weaveforge |
taken — unrelated dev team, dormant, 0 public repos. Not needed |
weaveforge.com |
parked, listed for sale |
| Software trademark | none found |
No trademark is being registered. For a non-commercial passion project the cost and the ongoing obligation to defend a mark are not justified. Authorship is carried by NOTICE and CONTRIBUTORS.md, which AGPL-3.0 requires derivatives to preserve — that is the protection that actually matters here.
Known unrelated uses of the name: WEAVEFORGE LIMITED, a UK property and investment company (register number 04598210); WeaveFox, an unrelated platform; glyphweaveforge, an unrelated Rust crate. None operate in research software, so confusion risk is low.
Correction: an earlier draft recorded a tabletop RPG using the WeaveForge name. That came from an unreliable secondary source and does not hold up — direct searching finds only a game called Weave. Disregard it.
The licence protects the code; it does not protect the name. A derivative must publish its source and preserve attribution, but nothing stops it choosing its own name — which is the expected and acceptable outcome for a fork.