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Mattermost is no longer Open-Source
(github.com)
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this post was submitted on 12 Feb 2026
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The contention is that Mattermost say it's licensed under AGPL but then they add conditions which are incompatible with that license. So it seems they want to give appearance of AGPL but not give the actual rights that come with it. So therefore it's not AGPL.
I think the problem is that the license grant (that has been in place for a decade) is not that clear.
I read it as releasing the binaries under MIT and granting people an AGPL license for the (non-enterprise) code. Some read it as not granting you the full AGPL rights.
To me, the fact that they advertise Mattermost as "open-source" and the statement on the "reciprocal license" above indicates that Mattermost also reads this as an AGPL license grant. However, they don't seem to be interested in fully clarifying the license situation. But, I think they would have a very hard time to argue in court that this license doesn't allow AGPL forks. And I haven't seen any evidence of them acting against any of the existing forks.
AGPL is restrictive so actually having MIT is a backup option weakens the AGPL license. And in particular having the ability to ship closed source binaries if you wish to, under a commercial license, means AGPL means jack shit here to those who want everything to be copyleft
which conditions on top of AGPL are they adding?
My understanding was (perhaps wrong?) that the "Mattermost Team Edition" is offered under the AGPL, and then the "Enterprise" Editions (starting with the "Entry Edition") have additional restrictions (including the 10k message limit in the "Entry Edition" that everyone's been talking about). They do a good job of hiding the "Team Edition" (it's almost like the don't really want to have to offer an open-source editions... 🤔), but it is there if you can find it. https://docs.mattermost.com/product-overview/editions-and-offerings.html#mattermost-team-edition