Double-check if licensing under the Expat ("MIT") license is okay

[bzg]

Docs is currently released under the Expat ("MIT") license. But Docs relies on Minio, which is released under the AGPL-3.0 (see https://min.io/compliance).

IANAL but my interpretation would be that Docs can be considered a "combined work" on top of Minio, which would mean Docs would have to be released under AGPL-3.0 too. Quoting https://min.io/compliance:

If modules are designed to run linked together in a shared address space, that almost surely means combining them into one program.

Note the careful "surely"! I suggest double-checking this with legal folks at DINUM and Zendis.

[rvveber]

I want to note, that as far as i understand, Docs technically only relies on an S3-compatible Object-Storage Backend, not MinIO per se.

[bzg]

If the legal issue I raise is relevant (which remains to be confirmed) and if the team wants to release Docs under a permissive license, it's still possible to do so:

• Replace Minio by S3 storage from the sentence "Docs is built on top of ..."
• Mention in the "Run it locally" section that these instructions are meant for testing purpose only
• Mention (in the same section?) that providing Docs as a service by building it on top of Minio requires accepting the terms of Minio's AGPL-3.0 license.

The last point applies to DINUM as well: if docs.numerique.gouv.fr uses minio for S3 storage, my understanding is that DINUM's product should comply with AGPL.

[virgile-dev]

@bzg sounds good. Can you open a PR or should I do it ?

[bzg]

I updated the README.md again in #621.

But the main issue remains: does DINUM use Minio for docs.numerique.gouv.fr? If so, does DINUM need to comply with Minio's license? I suggest to ask our legal department for double-checking this.