Bear Blog, a minimalist blogging platform focused on privacy and speed, has shifted from an MIT open source license to a source-available model in September 2025[1]. According to creator Herman Martinus, the change restricts commercial exploitation while maintaining code accessibility for non-commercial use and security audits.
The new license prohibits for-profit hosting of Bear Blog or derivative services, while preserving the platform’s commitment to “no-nonsense, super fast blogging” with no tracking or ads[1:1]. This move mirrors similar licensing changes by companies like Elastic, which adopted a source-available model to protect against commercial exploitation while keeping code visible[2].
“The original MIT license was selected without deep forethought, primarily to make the code easily auditable,” explained Martinus on his blog[1:2]. The shift aims to ensure Bear Blog’s sustainability through its hosted version’s modest subscriptions while preventing “open-source rug pulls” by larger corporations.
Okay, but the GNU Affero General Public License specifically addresses the commercial exploitation of software services. By now there must also be non-copyleft licenses that also address this, if that’s their issue with Affero.
But GNU Affero GPL allews commercial exploitation but forces the exploiter to publish the source of any changes - or am I mistaken?
You may be right. I’m certainly no expert and haven’t worked with the Affero-flavored licenses myself.
https://web.archive.org/web/20250902021603/https://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.html