Summary
GoModel is released under the permissive MIT license. We want to keep it open and practical for developers, small teams, and independent projects. Two qualifications:- A small commercial distribution, GoModel Pro, is coming. It adds OIDC SSO and a couple of other extensions on top of the same open-source gateway; those extensions are licensed separately, not MIT.
- We may make the license of the gateway itself less permissive to protect the project from extraction by large cloud providers.
Full story
An AI gateway is infrastructure. It sits between every request your application makes and every model it talks to. That kind of component should be something you can read, audit, extend, and trust. This is why GoModel is open source today. That said, we want to be upfront about the rest of the picture.Protecting the project
There is a well-documented pattern where large cloud providers take open-source infrastructure, ship it as a managed service, and give nothing back. It has forced other projects to react:- MongoDB changed to the SSPL after AWS launched DocumentDB, a compatible managed service built on MongoDB’s work.
- Elastic moved to a dual license after AWS launched its own Elasticsearch service under the OpenSearch name.
- Redis switched to a source-available license citing similar concerns about cloud providers.
Sustainability
Building GoModel is how we make a living, and so far it has not paid for itself. That is why a commercial distribution — GoModel Pro, with OIDC SSO and a couple of other extensions — is on the way. The gateway is MIT-licensed and fully usable without a license; Pro targets companies that profit directly from the project, not individual developers or small teams building with it. If a planned Pro feature is one you need and paying for Pro is not an option for you, tell us — a cheaper personal-use license, or open-sourcing that feature, is negotiable. See the FAQ for the longer answer.Current license
You can always read the current license here.