Hi Eliot, I can't speak for the Kafka PMC, but as a general rule, if the code is going to be contributed to the Kafka project itself, it must be Apache-licensed. What you can do, and what many organizations do is release code separately via a public Github account, which would allow you to choose whatever license you prefer (for example: https://github.com/linkedin/camus or any of the myriad clients https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/KAFKA/Clients)
However, I think that Apache/BSD/MIT are the safest licenses to use if you really want people to use your code. AGPL is a particular contentious one, especially if you want to use the code in a corporate setting, because it requires that you open-source any code changes you make, and I think it has some other fairly serious implications in terms of what must be open-sourced if you include the code in a larger project. That said, these are primarily my own opinions, and I am a) not a lawyer, and b) not an Apache committer. Thanks, Natty Jonathan "Natty" Natkins StreamSets | Customer Engagement Engineer mobile: 609.577.1600 | linkedin <http://www.linkedin.com/in/nattyice> On Wed, Jan 21, 2015 at 8:48 AM, Weitz, Eliot <eliot.we...@viasat.com> wrote: > Hello, > > I lead a group of developers at our company, ViaSat, who are building a > set of stream processing services on top of Kafka. We would very much like > to open source our work and become part of the Kafka “ecosystem” > contributing back to the community. > > Our company is fairly new to participating in open source projects and are > wondering about licensing. If we used something other than an Apache 2 > license (such as a copyleft license like AGPL), do you think it would it be > viewed negatively by your developers or others in the Kafka ecosystem and > become a barrier to contribute to our project? > > I’d appreciate any insights. > > Good work on Kafka! > > Regards, > > Eliot Weitz
