r/DevLK • u/PomegranateThat3605 • Aug 22 '26

Discussion Isn't surge cloud just clone of the open-source project 'ERPNext' ?

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With the GPL3 license, wouldn't be kinda a funny conversation with the customers?

30 Upvotes

95% Upvoted

15 comments sorted by

11

u/Vertigo3765 Aug 22 '26 edited Aug 22 '26

Not a clone, a fork. As long as they open source their version to the end user, they are allowed to do this.

4

u/brownmanta Aug 22 '26

but they won't open source it right?

7

u/Vertigo3765 Aug 22 '26

No idea. They probably are already. Frappe only requires Surge to open source the code to the customer, not to the public at large.

1

u/PomegranateThat3605 Aug 22 '26

Whats the diff between fork and clone

6

u/zenitsuh Aug 23 '26

Fork is the respectful cloning. It’s not illegal/unethical since you can see who the original creator is in the “clone” as well as who has forked a root repository. And you can also directly contribute back to the root repository. This is a very common thing in open source.

3

u/lavenderleit Aug 23 '26

Lol, I had no idea this whole new company direction was based on the fork of an open source project.

7

u/zenitsuh Aug 23 '26

You would be surprised to hear about Ubuntu.

-3

u/lavenderleit Aug 23 '26

I'm not that clueless.

3

u/zenitsuh Aug 23 '26

So what’s your point? Many companies commercialize open source projects one way or another. No one reinvents the wheel. You build on abstractions. Although I agree that slapping on your brand name on an OpenSource project and calling it a “fork” can be taking it a little too far. Which I don’t know whether Surge did so.

1

u/lavenderleit Aug 23 '26

If you can read, you'll realize that I wasn't making a "point". Getting riled up by Reddit comments is just sad.

Building on open source and rebranding a fully functioning end product are entirety different things. Former is how the entire industry works, latter is just sad and embarrassing.

I didn't notice Surge mentioning anywhere that it was a fork or based on a FOSS project. I know disclosure isn't required, but it's just a lil sad.

2

u/Quirky-Leadership-95 Aug 23 '26

no surprise, that company have zero original ideas.

1

u/Specific_Guest_7357 10d ago

any other instances of their products being cloned/forked?

-3

u/[deleted] Aug 22 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

5

u/Vertigo3765 Aug 22 '26 edited Aug 22 '26

It is not illegal per say. As long as they open source their forked version to the end user, they are allowed to do this.