OpenVPN

Details

Multiple products are distributed under the “OpenVPN” branding, both free and proprietary:

• The main products advertized on the website, which are the server component (either self-hosted or on the cloud) and the Windows client for OpenVPN v3, are all proprietary.
• The Linux client for OpenVPN v3 is provided under an AGPLv3 license, which was changed from GPLv3 in 2017. According to its documentation, it is primarily intended to be used with OpenVPN’s commercial products, but can also connect to one’s own server or to a third-party VPN provider.
• The core C++ library used by all OpenVPN v3 clients is provided under AGPLv3 and Mozilla Public License 2.0. It was initially provided under an AGPLv3 license, which was changed to GPLv3 in March 2017, back to AGPLv3 in December 2017, and then again to AGPLv3 or MPLv2 in 2024.
• The legacy OpenVPN v2, which as of reviewing is still maintained in parallel with OpenVPN v3, is provided under a GPLv2 license.

Both the Linux client and the core library require contributors to sign a CLA, which seems to contradict itself as it says “I understand that OpenVPN Inc. may relicense this project, this contribution, and any modification to it under any license” but also “My grant is made on the condition that OpenVPN Inc. will make any modification to this contribution available to the OpenVPN project under the open source license indicated in the file”.

The OpenVPN website has a page titled “Welcome to OpenVPN Open Source”, where only OpenVPN v2 and the open-source repositories used in OpenVPN v3 products are advertized. Overall, only OpenVPN v2 appears to be advertized as open source.

It can be confusing to users what offerings are actually overall provided as open source, since the brand has “Open” in its name, and will often advertise their core FOSS offering generally as “open source” (for example, on their v2 GitHub repo), while at the same time they use the same branding for their non-FOSS offerings, and primary download links on their website lead to non-FOSS offerings.

The project is managed by OpenVPN Inc. and appears to be funded by selling its commercial products.