There are two “ee” directories in the repo that are under a separate license. This practice follows the “open core” approach which is very sensible.
However, recent developments are adding more and more references from the open source part of activepieces to the ee directories, to the point that the open source part is no longer usable or buildable by itself, making the ee directories essentially mandatory. To keep AP open source, I believe that the project must be functional without the ee directories.
What are your thoughts on this? Can I contribute code that helps mitigate this problem?
If the ee directories will be loaded as “plugins”, then the open source part of the repository will remain “pure”, without direct references to the ee directories. We can also add a simple check that prevents new references to the ee directories.
There’s also the problem of entities - like project and platform - they’re enterprise features but they exist everywhere. It will make more sense to move these entities to the open source shared package, even if the actual features are still implemented in the ee directories.
Activepieces is still open core, it means that we run the repo under a mixed license between MIT and the Enterprise License. We generally DON’T take anything from MIT to Enterprise, can you give examples of things that moved that way?
Can you also explain what you exactly mean by this:
There’s also the problem of entities - like project and platform - they’re enterprise features but they exist everywhere. It will make more sense to move these entities to the open source shared package, even if the actual features are still implemented in the ee directories.
I don’t believe that anything from the MIT moved to Enterprise. However the MIT part is useless (impossible to compile/build/use) without the enterprise components. Without a clear separation it’s difficult to consider AP an open source project.
Sorry @Maor I think I misread your original post. I re-read it and I get your point now. I’ll let @abuaboud and his team answer your concerns or show you best practices related to building the project as open source.
We haven’t had a chance to elevate the priority of this issue as our entire team is currently overoccupied. Additionally, the majority of the audience wants to use it for various reasons but rarely engages in editing. If you are willing to contribute, you have my 100% support to do so and contribute it back to the main repository.
Please contact me over Discord, and I am happy to guide you on how this can be done.
This situation is really frustrating. Essentially the activepieces license is completely useless, it can’t be defined as “MIT” as long as there’s such a strong reliance on proprietary code.
Forking the activepieces is currently impossible without legal implications, or a huge effort to separate the enterprise code and the open source code.
Can you please suggest a viable solution?
I understand the reasoning behind rejecting my PR, but the current state is extremely problematic.
I do understand your initial frustration and we talked about it already but I don’t understand why you are writing here when the PR is still open and the discussion is still ongoing. It’s clearly not rejected.
I explicitly asked for some time to look into that (which was less than 24 hours ago) and already replied today.
Just to be clear with expectation I will need time to review PRs as we are currently a small team and the complete removal of ee reference do need time. I do have other responsibilities.