The O'Saasy License

· ai · Source ↗

TLDR

  • DHH introduces the O’Saasy License: MIT-style open source with SaaS commercial rights reserved for the copyright holder.

Key Takeaways

  • The license lets anyone read, fork, self-host, and contribute to code freely, but only the original author can run it as a paid SaaS.
  • DHH frames this as a “View Source for the back-end” – production-grade commercial code made readable without surrendering the business model.
  • The license is hosted at osaasy.dev and is free to download and apply to any project.
  • Fizzy (a DHH/37signals product) is the first public application of the O’Saasy License in practice.
  • The stated goal is producing more production-grade open code to train both junior developers and LLMs on real-world SaaS patterns.

Why It Matters

  • Most open-source licenses force a binary choice between fully open (including commercial use) and proprietary; O’Saasy carves a third path.
  • Founders running SaaS businesses can open their codebases for community contributions and learning without giving away the revenue model.
  • A growing library of O’Saasy-licensed production code would give developers and AI training pipelines access to real-world back-end architecture, not toy examples.

David Heinemeier Hansson · 2025-12-16 · Read the original

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