Harness releases open version of continuous delivery product with access to source code

Harness, a startup from AppDynamics founder Jyoti Bansal, has been building a platform of developer tools over the last five years. In 2020, the company made its first foray into open source when it bought continuous integration tool Drone. Today, they embraced openness further with the release of a free and open version of the company’s continuous delivery product.

Bansal is reluctant to use the term “open source” because it carries some big connotations with it and he doesn’t want to misrepresent what the company is doing. But starting today, he is making the source code for the community edition of the continuous delivery tool available for any developer to use under the “source-accessible PolyForm Shield license.”

“We are doing everything [in the same way] as what the power of open source would be, but we are using the source available licensing strategy, where we are putting 100% of our source in open repos…Everything is similar to a fully open source project except that our competitors are not allowed to monetize it,” Bansal explained.

Over the last several years, companies like Elastic and MongoDB saw some cloud providers like Amazon taking advantage of the open source license to create their own versions of the same product. They took exception and created a slightly more restrictive license to prevent wholesale poaching by competitors.

Stefano Maffulli, executive director at the Open Source Initiative (OSI), says Harness is being careful and respectful when it comes to how they frame this product. “Harness is doing the right thing by making clear where they are using an OSI-approved license and where they are not. Doing so respects the community and builds trust,” Maffulli said.