A New License to Future Proof the Commoditization of Data Integration

Ever since its inception, Airbyte has been committed to transparency regarding its monetization strategy and open-source license. The company's philosophy is that individual contributors or small teams should have access to free and open-source resources, while larger organizations can benefit from paid services. To ensure the commoditization of data integration, Airbyte offers pre-built connectors for a wide range of applications and provides a Connector Development Kit (CDK) for customizing connectors or creating new ones. Airbyte's participative model aims to maintain high-level SLAs across thousands of connectors by encouraging contributors to take responsibility for the maintenance, updates, and bug fixes of specific connectors. In return, these contributors will receive a revenue share when their connectors are used in the paid version of Airbyte Cloud. This approach aligns the contributor community with Airbyte's mission to commoditize data integration while providing new revenue streams for vendors, agencies, and developers involved in the project. To future-proof this participative model and prevent potential exploitation by large corporations, Airbyte is transitioning its Core platform license from MIT to Elastic License v2 (ELv2). This change will have no impact on users and allows Airbyte to maintain control over its vision while encouraging a strong community of contributors. In summary, Airbyte's commitment to transparency, open-source principles, and innovative business models is aimed at fostering a collaborative environment that benefits both the project and its contributors.