The Kaltura Community Edition is the open source distribution of Kaltura’s video platform. The Kaltura installation-packages project describes its purpose as enabling standard binary packages and package managers to be used when deploying the Kaltura Video Platform Community Edition, and says it features official deployment packages to install the platform on a server or cluster using native operating system package managers.[1] The licence of that code is the GNU Affero General Public License version 3 (AGPLv3), and Kaltura’s hosted products, by contrast, are sold under its Customer Agreement. For a licence manager the two have nothing in common except the name: one is governed by a copyleft licence and the other by a commercial contract. Choosing between them changes what has to be tracked.
What Kaltura says about the licence
The project README states that all code in the project is released under the AGPLv3 licence unless a different licence for a particular library is specified in the applicable library path, and carries a copyright notice for Kaltura Inc.[1] The repository’s LICENSE file is the full text of the GNU Affero General Public License, version 3, dated 19 November 2007.[2] Two features of that statement matter. First, it names a default and an exception: code in a library path may carry its own licence, so the licence of each bundled library is read from its path and not assumed. Second, the statement describes the installation-packages project, so a separate inspection of the licence of the platform’s server source is needed if the organisation builds from it.
What the AGPL provides
The AGPL is a copyleft licence based on the GNU GPL with an additional condition for network use. The points below are from the licence text in the repository.[2]
- Running the program. The licence explicitly affirms unlimited permission to run the unmodified program (section 2).
- Private use. Covered works can be made, run and propagated without conditions as long as they are not conveyed (section 2). Conveying a covered work to others solely so they can make modifications exclusively for the licensee, or provide it with facilities for running the work, is allowed on stated conditions.
- Conveying modified source. A modified version may be conveyed in source form if it carries notices that it was modified, with a relevant date, and that it is released under the licence, and if the entire work is licensed as a whole under the licence to anyone who receives a copy (section 5).
- Network clause. If the licensee modifies the program, the modified version must prominently offer all users interacting with it remotely through a computer network, where the version supports such interaction, an opportunity to receive the Corresponding Source of the version from a network server at no charge, through a standard or customary means of copying software (section 13).
- Combination with GPL v3. Section 13 also permits combining an AGPL work with a work under GNU GPL version 3 into a single combined work, with the network requirement applying to the combination as such.
- Downstream rights. Each time a covered work is conveyed, the recipient automatically receives a licence from the original licensors, and the conveyor may not impose further restrictions, for example a licence fee or royalty for exercising the rights (section 10).
- Termination. An attempt to propagate or modify a covered work other than as the licence allows is void and terminates the licensee’s rights, which are reinstated if the violation ceases, provisionally at once and permanently under the conditions of section 8.
The difference from the ordinary GPL is the network clause. The licence states that mere interaction with a user through a computer network, with no transfer of a copy, is not conveying, and section 13 then applies “notwithstanding any other provision” to attach a source-offer duty to a modified version with which users interact remotely.[2] An organisation that modifies the Community Edition and runs it as a service for outside users, for example students or customers, should record the modification and the way in which it offers the source, as the licence requires.
Running the unmodified software is not subject to the source-offer condition, since section 13 applies if the licensee modifies the program.[2] Whether a particular customisation, such as a plug-in, theme or configuration change, is a modification of the program is a legal question that the licence does not answer in a way that can be summarised here.
What Community Edition does not include
The README does not describe the Community Edition as supported. It says that Kaltura Inc. also provides commercial solutions and services including pro-active platform monitoring, applications, an SLA, 24/7 support and professional services. For a commercially supported platform with integrations to commercial encoders, streaming servers, eCDN, DRM and more, it refers readers to a free trial of the Kaltura hosted platform and to Kaltura’s commercial OnPrem Edition. It adds that for existing RPM-based users Kaltura offers commercial upgrade options.[1] The catalog rows are Kaltura Community Edition and Kaltura OnPrem Edition.
The README includes a link to a 2015 survey and describes installation on distributions that were current then, so the page is not a statement of current support levels. The commercial terms of the OnPrem Edition are not published on any page reviewed for this article.
The hosted service by comparison
Kaltura’s hosted products are provided under the Kaltura Customer Agreement, which grants a limited, revocable, non-exclusive, non-sublicensable, non-transferrable licence for the Term, and prohibits modifying or creating derivative works of software included in the Service Offerings except where a separate licence expressly permits derivative works.[3] That second condition leaves room for an open source licence: software supplied under a separate licence, such as the AGPL, can allow derivative works while the hosted service does not. The same Agreement prohibits reverse engineering and resale or sublicensing of the Service Offerings.[3] Fees and minimum commitments apply to the hosted service, and the pricing page shows each solution as available by quote or plan.[3][4]
| Aspect | Community Edition | Hosted service |
|---|---|---|
| Licence | AGPLv3, unless a library path states another licence | Limited, revocable licence for the Term under the Customer Agreement |
| Fees | No licence fee stated by Kaltura | Fees per Order Form or posted fees; minimum commitments non-cancelable |
| Modification | Permitted subject to the AGPL, including its network clause | Derivative works of the service software prohibited unless a separate licence permits them |
| Support | Not provided by the README; commercial options listed | Support beyond the free support through premium packages |
| Hosting | The customer’s responsibility | Kaltura |
Open source components in Kaltura’s commercial products
Kaltura’s AI Addendum notes that its AI offering may include components from third-party providers carrying open source and other licences. Kaltura represents that using them will not require the licensee to license its own software or products under an open source or similar licence.[5] That statement is about the licensee’s own software in the context of the hosted AI offering and does not describe the licence of any Kaltura code.
Points to record
- Whether each Kaltura deployment is the Community Edition, the commercial OnPrem Edition or the hosted service, and the contract or licence for each.
- For Community Edition, the version, the licence of each bundled library path, and any local modification.
- For modified Community Edition run as a service for others, how the Corresponding Source is offered to remote users.
- The date on which an installation moved from Community Edition to a commercial edition, if it did, since the terms change.
- The party responsible for support and security patching.
Out of scope
This article does not cover the Kaltura server source repository, whose page could not be retrieved at the address tried when this article was written, so its licence is not stated here beyond the installation-packages project. It does not cover the commercial OnPrem Edition terms, which are not published in the sources reviewed, nor any court decision about the AGPL. For the general obligations of GPL, LGPL and AGPL licences see GNU GPL, LGPL and AGPL obligations.