Add GNU GPL v3 license

[sanjayprabhu]

Add GNU GPL v3 license to Snapchain.

[vercel]

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Project	Deployment	Preview	Comments	Updated (UTC)
snapchain-docs	Ready	Preview	Comment	Aug 26, 2025 4:37am

[danieljwonder]

IANAL but I've been working in a GPL context for years with WordPress and the biggest disagreements seem to stem from whether premium themes/plugins are truly independent software or part of the same platform as they can't function independently. It's important to make the distinction clear with things like mini-apps so people aren't scared of building non-defensible app IP on top of the protocol.

[shazow]

Mentioned in the Farcaster thread but for the sake of completeness, going to leave this here: https://shazow.net/posts/permissive-vs-copyleft/

[andrei0x309]

A permissive license might be better for greater involvement, especially that which is meant to produce commercial software.

A copyleft license is better for open-source consolidation if this project becomes very popular.

So this looks like a bet.

At this point, it depends on whether Farcaster plans a long-term investment in the project.

If the investment plan is longer than 4 years, I would pick a copyleft license.

[byte]

I've added my 2 cents - https://farcaster.xyz/bytebot/0x43001273

I do believe the GPLv2/v3 are ideal, eventhough the AGPL might fit better (but isn't my choice). Permissive licenses are great, but I do not think they will benefit the protocol overall if people fork and run with something new, anyway.

[shazow]

A copyleft license is better for open-source consolidation if this project becomes very popular.

There is mountains of evidence that the opposite is true in 2025. Copyleft licenses lead to fragmentation and a bunch of competing standards, and typically the permissive ones win. I share several examples in my post.

This is especially true with strong copyleft and statically linked languages like Rust.

[TimDaub]

Why is Snapchain without license?

[daferna]

I'll add that ATProto is currently dual licensed under MIT & Apache2, since Apache 2 apparently has some extra software patent protection vagaries that some care about.
I think Snapchain at the very least should match the licenses of it peer competitors, and as such I can't support copyleft licenses here.

[varunsrin]

Thanks appreciate the feedback here and on the community calls. We made the decision to go ahead with the proposal for GNU GPL v3.