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Apparently

MarketingDragon

We don't really do marketing. Apparently this is the marketing page, so here is the honest explanation of what we do instead.

Saphira MarketingDragon waving a megaphone among marketing targets and charts

MIT means MIT

When Saphira software is released under the MIT licence, that is what it means. People may use it, study it, modify it, build with it, fork it and run it themselves. They do not need to telephone a salesperson to ask permission. Previously released MIT versions remain MIT.

New code AKADATA writes specifically for Saphira now uses the Business Source License 1.1 instead, and the Saphira recipe tree carries the matching LICENSE file per package. BUSL-1.1 is source-available rather than an OSI-approved open-source licence during the BUSL period; when the Change Date arrives, that version becomes GPL-2.0-or-later. The distinction is simple: using Saphira commercially, hosting customers on it, running paid workloads on it, costs nothing; lifting our code out, rebadging it and turning it into somebody else's commercial product without talking to us first is what the new licence stops. Upstream software keeps its upstream licence: if it is our code it carries our licence, if it is not our code it carries its own.

The licence text grants an Additional Use Grant on top of BSL 1.1: production and commercial use of the licensed work without charge when it is used as part of Saphira Linux. That covers internal business use, hosting, managed infrastructure, commercial workloads, and commercial or hosted services running on Saphira Linux. What it does not grant is production or commercial use of the work extracted from Saphira Linux, or incorporated, repackaged, relicensed, rebadged or distributed as part of another commercial software product, distribution, appliance, platform or service. That needs a separate commercial licence from AKADATA.

On its Change Date — no later than four years after that version is first publicly released under BUSL-1.1 — it transitions automatically to GPL-2.0-or-later. Each version carries its own Change Date in its LICENSE file. This does not contradict the promise that free means free: running Saphira, including running a business on it, stays free. What is not granted is commercial production use of Saphira-owned code outside Saphira — including extracting, rebadging or incorporating it into another commercial product, distribution, appliance, platform or service. That distinction is deliberate.

The distribution also contains third-party packages under their own licences, so this is not a claim that every byte in the repository is MIT. Read the licence attached to the software you are using; do not treat this page as legal advice.