Why open-source
Open-source is part of the architecture.
AGPL-3.0 is not a philosophical stance. It is a structural decision that shapes how the platform is built, how it can be extended, and what happens to it over time. On this page: what it means at the architecture level.
If you want the longer story — why I chose AGPL specifically, what I thought about and decided against — that is on the open-source page. This page is the technical argument.
01 · Auditable end-to-end
Every layer is readable code.
The platform is on your boat, reading your instruments and running your apps. You should be able to read every line of it.
I have spent the last decade in software security. One thing that experience teaches is that trust in a platform should not rest on assertions. "We take security seriously" is not a security posture. Reading the code is.
With 32°N, every layer is readable: the NMEA-2000 parser, the event bus, the platform services, the app sandbox, the sync engine, the AI gateway. Not as a documentation exercise — as actual source code in the public repo that you can clone, audit, run, and modify.
Security boundaries are code. The capability model that governs what an extension can access — that is code, and it is in the same repo. If there is a gap in the sandbox enforcement, it is visible and can be found. Closed-source sandboxes are security by assertion. Open-source sandboxes can be verified.
This matters more on a boat than it does on most platforms. Your boat is in remote places. It has navigation systems and safety equipment. You should be able to verify what is running on it.
02 · Fork-able from any release
You are never locked to my decisions.
If you disagree with a direction I take, you can fork. Not a thought experiment — a practical option, from any release, with no fee, no permission, no negotiation.
What forking actually means here.
A fork of 32°N gets the full platform: the hub OS, the bus schema, the platform services, all the first-party apps, the migration tooling, the cloud services. AGPL-3.0 means your fork stays open-source too — you cannot take the code, change it, and ship it as a closed product.
Container images are published for every release. The migration files go with the code. Your data is portable out — there is no "premium export" that requires my hosted instance. Your fork works on the same data model.
The escape hatch changes the dynamics.
Knowing that a fork is a real option changes how I have to build the platform. I cannot ship a convenient but vendor-locked architecture and justify it by saying "the open-source version will always be there." The open-source version is the version. There is only one codebase.
It also changes the community relationship. If I make a decision the community disagrees with strongly enough, the community has a real recourse. That is accountability, not just a licence term.
03 · Structural permanence
Can't be acquired and shut down.
AGPL-3.0 makes the platform permanent.
This comes up more than I expected. Sailors who have seen beloved products disappear — closed-down, acquired and discontinued, sunset with a 30-day notice — ask me directly: what happens to 32°N if you get acquired? What if you stop? What if the business fails?
The answer is: the code stays. AGPL-3.0 means every distributed version of 32°N remains under AGPL-3.0. An acquirer cannot take the existing codebase and re-release it as a proprietary product. The licence is irrevocable. The history is public. Anyone who had the code has the code.
If I disappear tomorrow, the platform survives. The community can fork from the last release, keep the bus schema alive, maintain the apps, run their own registry. The AGPL-3.0 licence is the continuity guarantee that no business terms can replicate.
I am not building 32°N as an exit strategy. But I am building it so that the outcome is good even if things go wrong.
04 · What this means for you
What you can verify, always.
This is not abstract. Here are the concrete things that being open-source means for you as a boat owner running 32°N.
- You can read what runs on your boat. Every service, every app, every security boundary is in the public repo. You do not have to take my word for what the hub is doing. You can read it.
- You can run a specific version forever. If I release a version you trust and then make changes you don't like, you can stay on that version. Nothing requires you to take an update. The container images are versioned and you can pin to any of them.
- You can move your data out without my help. The data model is documented and open. You can export your logbook, your routes, your vessel history, your electrical configuration at any time. No "data portability request" that takes 30 days. Your data, your format, your control.
- You can verify extensions before installing them. Every AGPL extension in the registry has a source hash published alongside the binary. You can audit an extension's source and verify it matches what the hub installed.
- You keep all of this if the project stops. AGPL-3.0 does not expire. The licence does not require my continued involvement. The last public version of 32°N is always something the community can run, fork, and build on.
Read the full open-source story, or explore the platform.
The open-source page covers the longer argument: why AGPL specifically, what I considered and ruled out, and what the licence means in practice for contributors. The platform overview puts this in context of the full stack.