Repository navigation
Relicensing to a stricter license like AGPLv3? #1
Description
I think it isnt news that some companies are stealing work from this project in their censorship software, which is one of the reasons why this project was taken down before. Such companies can simply claim that they used source code files from this project as is, include a copy of MPL-2.0 license and a link to this project and get away with it even if any of them have business in western countries and get confronted about it, which isnt quite ideal to say the least.
And that's why I think maybe opengfw should switch to AGPLv3, since AGPLv3 will require them to disclose their source code in pretty much most scenerios where they used any code piece from this project.
This can be done in two ways:
a) Take advantage of the secondary license bridge for AGPLv3 in MPL-2.0, makw all new changes introduced in new files licensed in AGPLv3, and thus making the whole project combined licensed in AGPLv3. This is the easiest way to approach this but doesnt prevent censorship companies using MPL-2.0 licensed code
b) Do a relicense of opengfw into AGPLv3, this would require every contributor of this project to relicense their work in AGPLv3, code from those doesnt accept will have to be rewritten. This will make sure no such companies can use any code from newer versions
Neither of this would change the license of old versions and it's just something that happened. At least u can prevent it from becoming worse.
I know that current maintainers seem arent planned to do any updates to opengfw, but if the code is simply as is stored here then from time to time it'll lost it's value as a target dummy for software bypassing censorship barrier, and there are forks of opengfw stored in github before this reupload, so i guess u guys still would want to improve opengfw in the future.
Maybe this problem should be figured out asap before any real progress is made.
Again I'm not a lawyer so all above isnt legal advices, switch to AGPLv3 isnt necessarily the only move possible, but I think it at least sort of addressed the biggest concern here: Will the contribution to opengfw find it's way directly into censorship barriers.
Ik in the AI age such companies can probably feed the code into an llm and tell it to rewrite and use the results instead and it's not like anyone can do anything with it, but i still think there's difference between that and the contributions directly being imported into these censorship software.
Activity
RememberOurPromise commentedon Sep 20, 2026
没有关系，因为方滨兴的开源行为，作为OpenGFW的下游，Geedge的天狗安全网关TSG已经进入公有领域，人人有墙建，处处有墙翻的时代到了～yukiinagato commentedon Sep 20, 2026
Changing the license seems unnecessary. The entities abusing this code for censorship software are highly unlikely to respect any open-source license in the first place. A stricter license would just add friction for genuine developers while failing to stop bad actors who already ignore the rules anyway.
fish4terrisa-MSDSM commentedon Sep 21, 2026
well i didnt expect them to follow either, it's more focused on lawsuit against their oversea business. This wont prevent those smaller ones from stealing but bigger companies which sells firewall and other products to their customers, if they happened to have business in countries that has stricter copyright practice it can be the foundation of potential oversea lawsuits against them. It's not like such lawsuits would be very likely to happen, but these bigger companies would have to decide whether it's worth it to steal the code and take the risk, and honestly way better than the current situation they can simply do whatever they want and easily get away with it.
Also while it's probably not gonna happen in the near future, one day when freedom is back to those countries who previously practiced censorship at least AGPLv3 will allow the developers to sue them for violation of license(and it may be the only punishment these companies will face, since there's very unlikely to be a law that specificly target companies who helped pushing censorship)
fish4terrisa-MSDSM commentedon Sep 21, 2026
The problem is otherwise the reason why previously this repo was taken down wouldnt be addressed at all, like nothing has changed except maybe it's gone for like some months(forks still exist) and it's back so the companies can continue stealing without any concern.
At least this is something that will have some effect, wont be anywhere near much but it's better than just ignoring the elephant in the room
fish4terrisa-MSDSM commentedon Sep 21, 2026
Tbh MPL-2.0 is a weird choice as the license for a censorship firwewall test dummy, like the censorship firewall companies can even legally use the code from this project, they just need to disclose the files borrowed from this project and if they do little to no modification(treating it like a blackbox) then they can be fully compliant and it'll bring no benefit to the development to software for bypassing censorship barrier. At least with AGPLv3 there's a small chance of getting something from it, with a weak license like MPL-2.0 it's like basically feeding the development of censorship firewall.
Who? I'm not really aware of any noteworthy projects that's depending on opengfw being licensed in MPL-2.0.