KubeSphere is a well-known Kubernetes platform originating from China (created in QingCloud), boasting more than 12k GitHub stars. It also gave a start to a few CNCF projects, such as OpenFunction (currently in the Sandbox) and OpenELB (Archived).
Yesterday, a GitHub issue acknowledging this project is not Open Source was raised. Downloading the Open Source version of KubeSphere or even viewing its documentation became unavailable. It turned out that a commit changing the original project’s license (Apache 2) to the so-called “KubeSphere Open Source License” was made almost a year ago, in September 2024. This new license wasn’t Open Source since it enforced several limitations on the users, such as commercial use or offering SaaS.
Today, Ray Xiaosi ZHOU, the founding member of KubeSphere who just left QingCloud, stated:
This project carries countless late nights and relentless effort from our team. Seeing its reputation affected feels like a blow to everyone who once fought for its success. I understand the company’s reasoning. In recent years, repeated violations of the open-source license—by third parties repackaging and monetizing the project—have caused tangible impact on QingCloud’s interests. While the source code remains available under open-source norms, discontinuing the out-of-the-box distributions is, in my view, a challenging adjustment for today’s collaborative open-source ecosystem.
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