Aiven statement on license changes for the Confluent Platform

On December 14th, 2018, Confluent announced a change in the license of some components of the Confluent Platform from Apache License version 2.0 to a proprietary license called Confluent Community License. This change does not affect Apache Kafka itself, which remains under Apache License version 2.0. Aiven utilizes some of the affected components in its services but assures users that there is no impact on their services or Aiven's ability to offer Aiven for Apache Kafka and related additional services as they have been available before. The new Confluent Community License specifically excludes "making available any software-as-a-service, platform-as-a-service, infrastructure-as-a-service or other similar online service that competes with Confluent products or services that provide the Software." Aiven is committed to providing a data platform based on open source software and will communicate its longer term plan in January.