Skip to main content

Yew Search License FAQ

This document explains the Yew Search Fair-Code License in simple terms. It is meant to make our intentions clear to everyday users and companies.

Is Yew Search open source?​

No. Yew Search is not open source under the OSI definition.

It is Fair-Code: the source is public, you can use it, modify it, and run it yourself, but companies cannot take the project and resell it as their own service.

Why Fair-Code instead of open source?​

Because we want to avoid the common situation where a large company—especially a cloud provider—takes an open-source project, rebrands it, sells it, and keeps all the revenue without contributing anything back.

We want to protect the community’s work from being turned into someone else’s business.

Fair-Code keeps the project sustainable without limiting what individual users can do.

Everything.

If you’re a person running Yew Search for yourself, your family, your homelab, or just experimenting:

  • You can run it anywhere
  • You can modify the code
  • You can fork it
  • You can share it for free
  • You can do anything you would normally do with open source

Individuals lose no freedom compared to traditional open-source software.

What can companies do?​

Companies can:

  • Self-host Yew Search internally
  • Use it for their own operations
  • Modify it to suit their needs

This is free. Internal use is unrestricted.

Companies cannot:

  • Offer Yew Search as a hosted service
  • Resell it
  • White-label or rebrand it
  • Bundle it into a paid product
  • Build a competing search or LLM service on top of it

In simple terms: You can’t take Yew Search, put it in the cloud, and sell it.

Why restrict hosting and resale?​

Because hosting and resale are the primary ways large companies profit from open source without giving anything back.

Fair-Code prevents the situation where:

  • Someone takes the project
  • Launches a hosted SaaS version
  • Competes directly with the original creators
  • Pays nothing
  • Gives nothing back

This has happened repeatedly to other search, database, and developer tools projects. Fair-Code avoids that outcome.

Only if they want to use it in a customer-facing or commercial way, such as:

  • Running a hosted platform for customers
  • Selling Yew Search as part of a product
  • Offering it as SaaS
  • Providing it as a service or integration to clients
  • Running a multi-tenant or public deployment

Internal use—inside your own business—is always free.

Will Yew Search ever become open source?​

Yew Search will never be open source under an OSI-approved license.

We believe in open access to source code, but not in licensing terms that allow large companies to resell community work without contributing back.

Fair-Code is the long-term licensing model for Yew Search.

What does this mean for me?​

If you are an individual user, hobbyist, homelab enthusiast, or developer:

Yew Search behaves just like open source for you.

You can:

  • Run it freely
  • Modify it
  • Fork it
  • Self-host it
  • Share it non-commercially

Nothing changes about how you use or interact with the software.

If you are a company:

  • Internal use is free
  • Commercial resale or hosting requires a paid license

The only restrictions exist to prevent unfair commercial exploitation and to ensure the project remains healthy and sustainable.