2 wk. ago • 91%

draw.io no longer open source since August 27, 2024

github.com License Change from standard Apache 2.0 license · jgraph drawio · Discussion #4623

From today the license applied to the project will be the Apache 2.0 license with an extra line forbidding usage of the codebase as an integration or app to Atlassian's Confluence or Jira products....

46 comments

TL;DR: Competitors in integrating with Atlassian are not allowed to incorporate code after the change because they used it in free add-ons, which caused the official integration (a paid add-on that is the sole source of funding) to be labeled a scam by a review in late August.

Plus, the thing was never really open source anyway:

draw.io is also closed to contributions, as it's not open source. We follow a development process compliant with our SOC 2 Type II process. We do not have a mechanism where we can accept contributions from non-staff members.

38
- Open source means that the source code is...open, that everyone can view and use it, it doesn't mean that everyone can contribute to it. Or am I wrong?
  
  16
  
  People usually use the open source definition from the Open Source Initiative. That definition does have extra requirements:
  
  https://opensource.org/osd
  
  23
  
  What you a referring to is often called "source available"
  
  7
  
  Then nvidia produced Open Source code then I guess?
  
  (There were Repos, but everything was Copyrighted. Noone was technically allowed to use it afaik, but it was still there about some AI stuff back then)
  
  1
  
  @peregus yes, wrong. Being "open" doesn't mean just "readable". Imagine an open bird cage, not just an open book. It needs to be open to fly free.
  
  1
Just wondering, if a project switch to close source from open source, all the donation to the stage when it’s open source will be sent back to the donor or counted as shares?

23
- They count as...gone! Gone to develop what's been open source until it becomes closed source. As I think it should be, because what you helped to develop with your donation is still there.
  
  28
I don't see a CLA so this is somewhat surprising that all ~30 contributors would be okay moving away from open source.

Unless this was a unilateral decision

5
- Apache is a permissive license, plus:
  
  draw.io is also closed to contributions, as it's not open source. We follow a development process compliant with our SOC 2 Type II process. We do not have a mechanism where we can accept contributions from non-staff members.
  
  This was added wayyyy before. OP is making this much more of a deal than it actually is.
  
  22
  
  @Aatube I don't see how OP is making it a big deal. That post is merely stating facts, as confirmed by the company representative in the GitHub discussion. Yes, the project was never "open-source-like governed", but it was technically open-source software. With the additional restriction in the license it's not anymore. All pretty theorical, but nevertheless true.
  
  4
  
  Appreciate it, i wasn't familiar with the project and didn't see that!
  
  2
Whatever, I’m using it regardless of what shitty commercial alternatives tried to be shoved down my throat. If Draw.io goes shit I’ll just switch to ditaa

3
- Thanks for the note on Ditaa. I didn't know it existed but I love the idea of rendering bitmaps from ASCII, especially on the web. It's like Mermaid but the original syntax is a diagram in and of itself!
  
  Like the author writes:
  
  There is a number of formats that are text-based (html, docbook, LaTeX, programming language comments), but when rendered by other software (browsers, interpreters, the javadoc tool etc), they can contain images as part of their content. If ditaa was intergrated with those tools (and I'm planning to do the javadoc bit myself soon), then you would have readable/editable diagrams within the text format itself, something that would make things much easier. ditaa syntax can currently be embedded to HTML.
  
  2
It's still open source. It's just that development has ceased.

3
Is there an actual open source alternative to visio?

2
- https://github.com/excalidraw/excalidraw ?
  
  3
- When excalidraw was mentioned in another comment I think it would also be worth to mention tldraw even though I don't kniw whether it can be counted as an replacement since I never used draw.io.
  
  https://github.com/tldraw/tldraw
  
  1
https://alternativeto.net/software/diagramly/

2
Damn it... I literally just found draw.io like 2 weeks ago.

1
From today the license applied to the project will be the Apache 2.0 license with an extra line forbidding usage of the codebase as an integration or app to Atlassian's Confluence or Jira products.

1
It's still open source

0
- Not really - it can't be used with Atlassian's products, violating point 6 of the OSI definition - No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor.
  
  24
  
  I really don't understand the difference between free software and open source at tis point. It would make sense to me if this would make it nonfree, but I don't understand why is it not open source anymore. Isn't the open source definition a broader one than that of free software?
  
  3
- And despite that, if was still newsworthy enough to be posted like 6 times in total 😅
  
  3
  
  I posted it to 8 communities because there are 8 communities I am aware of where this on-topic. Some people might be subscribed to only a subset of them. This is the natural consequence of the fediverse enabling us to have more than one community for discussing the same topic.
  
  21
  
  Oh. Firdt time that I see it
  
  2

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