[RESOLVED] Minor AGPL compliance issues #809

New Issue

MrUnknownDE · 2026-04-05T17:47:48+02:00

MrUnknownDE commented

2026-04-05 17:47:48 +02:00

Originally created by @SigmaSquadron on 10/6/2025

Describe the Bug

Hi team,

Now that you have received your VC funding (congratulations on becoming a successful startup!), it appears that all further development of Pangolin will include mixed AGPL/proprietary software indicated by the comment below:
c2c907852d/server/auth/sessions/privateRemoteExitNode.ts (L1-L12)

While it is great that Pangolin SaaS is receiving a lot of development, this spells concerning news for the "100% open-source" self-hosted solution. As it stands, Linux distributions like NixOS cannot redistribute Pangolin without marking it as unfree, and more strict distributions like Fedora cannot distribute it at all, since removing the proprietary files would both break Pangolin's build process, and would be illegal, given that deleting files is still an unauthorized modification.

We, (myself and @jackrosenberg) the Nixpkgs maintenance team for Pangolin, urge you to reverse course when it comes to mixing AGPL and proprietary software on the same repo. We would highly recommend doing one of the following:

Turn the proprietary files back into AGPL files, as was done once already with the license.ts and other files after community backlash. You've gained a lot of goodwill in the open source community thus far, and abandoning that would be senseless.
Move all proprietary systems into a separate, private copy of Pangolin and backport the AGPL software to the open core. This will still allow you to grow a profitable, private SaaS solution while still allowing you to say Pangolin is "100% open source". It does likely mean that the OSS core will never see features like Redis caching and branding controls, which is unfortunate, but it's a small price to pay to have Pangolin be open source at all.

Environment

OS Type & Version: Any FOSS Linux.
Pangolin Version: 1.11+
Gerbil Version: N/A
Traefik Version: N/A
Newt Version: N/A
Olm Version: N/A

To Reproduce

Clone https://github.com/fosrl/pangolin. There are proprietary files that prevent redistribution of the software as a whole.

Expected Behavior

No proprietary software found in the public, open-source version of Pangolin.

*Originally created by @SigmaSquadron on 10/6/2025* ### Describe the Bug Hi team, Now that you have received your VC funding (congratulations on becoming a successful startup!), it appears that [all further development of Pangolin](https://github.com/fosrl/pangolin/commit/c2c907852d49c1089449d46e09a9e8aa033e1a5a) will include mixed AGPL/proprietary software indicated by the comment below: https://github.com/fosrl/pangolin/blob/c2c907852d49c1089449d46e09a9e8aa033e1a5a/server/auth/sessions/privateRemoteExitNode.ts#L1-L12 While it is great that Pangolin SaaS is receiving a lot of development, this spells concerning news for the "100% open-source" self-hosted solution. As it stands, Linux distributions like NixOS **cannot redistribute Pangolin without marking it as `unfree`**, and more strict distributions like Fedora cannot distribute it at all, since removing the proprietary files would both break Pangolin's build process, and would be illegal, given that deleting files is still an unauthorized modification. We, (myself and @jackrosenberg) the Nixpkgs maintenance team for Pangolin, urge you to reverse course when it comes to mixing AGPL and proprietary software on the same repo. We would highly recommend doing one of the following: 1. Turn the proprietary files back into AGPL files, as was done once already with the `license.ts` and other files [after community backlash](https://reddit.com/r/selfhosted/comments/1kmjqqm/pangolin_open_source_thank_you_for_course/). You've gained a lot of goodwill in the open source community thus far, and abandoning that would be senseless. 2. Move all proprietary systems into a separate, private copy of Pangolin and backport the AGPL software to the open core. This will still allow you to grow a profitable, private SaaS solution while still allowing you to say Pangolin is "100% open source". It does likely mean that the OSS core will never see features like Redis caching and branding controls, which is unfortunate, but it's a small price to pay to have Pangolin be open source at all. ### Environment - OS Type & Version: Any FOSS Linux. - Pangolin Version: 1.11+ - Gerbil Version: N/A - Traefik Version: N/A - Newt Version: N/A - Olm Version: N/A ### To Reproduce Clone `https://github.com/fosrl/pangolin`. There are proprietary files that prevent redistribution of the software as a whole. ### Expected Behavior No proprietary software found in the public, open-source version of Pangolin.

MrUnknownDE closed this issue

2026-04-05 17:47:49 +02:00

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Reference: github/pangolin#809