Go Fork Yourself

Oct 3, 2024

TLDR; At Documenso, we see OSS as co-owned by all. Forking—collaborative or not—is part of the open-source spirit.

Freedom vs. Ownership

Recently, there has been a lot of debate on the subject of forks and the usage of OSS IP (Open Source Software Intellectual Property). While I mostly aim to stay out of these controversies (as there is no “winning”), I wanted to take this opportunity to share my views on IP and forking culture here at Documenso. I don’t presume this is the ideal path, but for me, it’s the only path that makes sense.

What these issues show foremost, in my opinion, is that the concept of Open Source is still evolving. I have heard many say, “Open Source is clearly defined” and that there is no ambiguity anymore. That may be true on the legal side, but there are vast differences in how these rules are interpreted and lived out. Here are a few questions to illustrate the point:

Is it okay to use an open-source project without ever giving back?
Is it okay to fork (some might say copy) an OSS product and build something on top of it?
Are we morally obliged to fight those who provide different answers to these questions than we do?

Embracing Forks and Collaboration

Since starting Documenso, I’ve thought a lot about what it actually means to be Open Source for us. So far, it has been about openness in working with everyone, from contributors to customers and sharing our work transparently. For this, we have been richly rewarded with attention and reach. This collaborative give-and-take is what people commonly associate with being Open Source, and it seems ideal.

Yet, there are the questions mentioned above. And while these may be contentious, my take is straightforward:

Yes.
Yes.
No.

I say this because, to me, the principles of Open Source are rooted in freedom and collaboration. That means allowing others to use, improve, or even compete with what you’ve built without feeling possessive over the code. The beauty of Open Source lies in its openness—its ability to be forked, reused, and adapted by anyone.

You may answer these questions differently for your own reasons. One thing I’ve found lacking in the discourse is the fact that Open Source is still being treated as socially proprietary. If it’s under an open-source license, you can fork it and try to improve upon the original, and there’s nothing wrong with that. The same is true for closed-source startups. Yet in Open Source, there’s a notion that it’s somehow “dirty,” even though the license explicitly allows it.

Forking in Action: Real-World Examples

When the team behind Node.js disagreed with its governance and pace of development, they forked the project to create io.js. This wasn’t seen as dirty but as a necessary push for change. In fact, the fork resulted in positive changes—better community governance and faster development—which eventually led to the merge of the two projects under the Node.js Foundation. It shows that forking can be a catalyst for improvement, not just competition.

The Misconception of “Exploitative” Usage

However, sometimes forks don’t merge back but still bring positive change. A good example is Jenkins, which was forked from Hudson over disagreements in governance after Oracle acquired Sun Microsystems. Jenkins quickly overtook Hudson in terms of community support, development, and innovation. Rather than being seen as a hostile move, the fork enabled Jenkins to become a thriving project, better aligned with the open-source ethos of collaboration and transparency. It emphasizes that forking isn’t inherently exploitative; it can simply be a way to realize a project’s full potential.

And then there’s MariaDB, a fork of MySQL. After Oracle acquired MySQL, many in the community feared the project’s open-source nature could be compromised. The fork preserved its spirit, and MariaDB has since grown to become a popular and thriving database. It’s a reminder that sometimes, forking is not just acceptable—it’s necessary to uphold the values and freedoms of open-source software.

My view is that the code is not “your” code, just as Documenso’s code is not “our” code. It’s been co-owned by the world ever since we published the repo under AGPL V3. That is the whole point. It’s finally not owned by anyone (cue the “everyone/no one” meme). Open Source is for everyone, even competitors. Yet, we are still treating the licenses as extensions of the old, proprietary world and defending perceived injustices based on that model.

Side Note: Full compliance with all license and other legal rules is a given here.

Documenso’s Approach: Co-Ownership and Community

So, if you want to fork Documenso and build a business on it, you can. Whether that’s a cool thing to do is another matter. Whether you do a better job than us is also another matter (you won’t). But if you do, I’ll be the first to join. But why not join us from the start since you already have the upside? We exist because we believe this to be the best way forward—not because we force it.

The Bigger Picture: Open-Source as Progress

I’ve also thought a lot about question #3. I understand the impulse to fight anyone who doesn’t appreciate this collaborative approach, but there is no part of this model that backs that up. You are free to “exploit” as long as it’s in a way that adds value. The fallacy is in considering someone else using the OSS part for their business as treason, which it’s not. It’s the whole point.

While some might say this is theoretical and that reality is different, this is the version of Open Source on which we are building Documenso. The point here is that OSS companies must be resilient to handle forking and competition; without this resilience, an open source driven economy can’t thrive. The focus on freedom and collaboration means being prepared for forks and challenges as part of the growth, not as threats.

Of course, all of this applies to Documenso, the OSS project, not Documenso Inc., the company, which is very much a privately owned, for-profit entity. However, since the goal is to scale Documenso to the entire world, there is plenty of room to see everyone as co-owners of the Open Source project rather than as competitors. In the end, Open Source is about progress through freedom. If you don’t like how we run things, go fork yourself and hold us accountable. We don’t own this; we just happened to start it.