Bitwarden isn't going proprietary after all. The company has changed its license terms once again – but this time, it has switched the license of its software development kit from its own homegrown one to version three of the GPL instead.

The move comes just weeks after we reported that it wasn't strictly FOSS any more. At the time, the company claimed that this was just a mistake in how it packaged up its software, saying on Twitter:

It seems like a packaging bug was misunderstood as something more, and the team plans to resolve it. Bitwarden remains committed to the open source licensing model in place for years, along with retaining a fully featured free version for individual users.

Now it's followed through on this. A GitHub commit entitled "Improve licensing language" changes the licensing on the company's SDK from its own license to the unmodified GPL3.

Previously, if you removed the internal SDK, it was no longer possible to build the publicly available source code without errors. Now the publicly available SDK is GPL3 and you can get and build the whole thing.

top 16 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] Treedrake@fedia.io 124 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Hopefully people can now stop jumping to conclusions and raging over nothing, but I doubt it.

[–] HessiaNerd@lemmy.world 30 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I was concerned. I have a family subscription coming due and no time to migrate. Really glad I don't have to.

[–] Serinus@lemmy.world 5 points 1 week ago (1 children)

There's always vaultwarden.

[–] krolden@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 week ago

But the client SDK was the issue no?

[–] Rogue@feddit.uk 21 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Lemmy is so insanely anti company. I agree with being pro open source but the hissy fit people threw when one repo changed one thing was insane.

[–] apt_install_coffee@lemmy.ml 20 points 1 week ago (1 children)

While I think the cynicism is well-earned, we should pay attention to when we're proven wrong and highlight when companies do something right. Bitwarden's fuck-up gave them an opportunity to signal that they're not intending to build a wall for their garden, and they took it.

[–] sik0fewl@lemmy.ca 6 points 1 week ago

Ya, maybe it's not what they intended, but we've see it happen enough where source is just closed. Good on them for rectifying it, either way.

[–] krolden@lemmy.ml 6 points 1 week ago

It wasn't just lemmy

[–] SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 47 points 1 week ago

[–] quaff@lemmy.ca 37 points 1 week ago

Way to buck the trend. If I wasn’t already on a solid FOSS password manager, I’d be switching to Bitwarden for this alone.

[–] warmaster@lemmy.world 27 points 1 week ago

Well, looks like I'm keeping my subscription.

[–] dessalines@lemmy.ml 27 points 1 week ago

Wise decision.

[–] PumpkinEscobar@lemmy.world 18 points 1 week ago

I've been tempted to ditch my current password manager and move to bitwarden. I think this is the final push I needed.

[–] lascapi@jlai.lu 13 points 1 week ago

That a good move!

[–] Marthirial@lemmy.world 10 points 1 week ago

Don't even use the $10 premium features but will keep paying for it. Even if that was twice, I will pay it.

[–] JustMarkov@lemmy.ml 6 points 1 week ago

Too bad I've switched to KeePassXC already.