How We Keep the Dream Alive
When I open-sourced Cascadia in April, I wrote that there would be "no open-core gating, no premium tier that holds back critical functionality." I'm revising that promise today (cue Darth Vader noises), and I'll do it as publicly as possible now, mostly just so I can point back at it later when we're a much more established operation, and not feel like I was hiding anything.
What's changing
Cascadia is now an open-core, dual-licensed project.
The core PLM application and functionality stays AGPL-3.0, free, with unlimited users, forever. That means parts, documents, requirements, multi-level BOMs, the full ECO-as-Branch change management workflow, the workflow engine, the flexible file vault, RBAC, enterprise search, various import/export options, the REST and SysML v2 APIs, the 3D viewer, jobs workers, CAD conversion, and the AI chat assistant (BYO API Key). You can (and I hope you do) self-host all of it in production without ever talking to us. That's not a trial or a teaser — it's a complete, viable PLM suite.
Enterprise capabilities move to a commercial license. Native CAD connectors (Solid Edge, SolidWorks, available now, on request), enterprise connectors (ERP, CRM, MES), SSO/Active Directory, the AI Design Engine, and support SLAs. These are the things enterprise-level companies don't know how to not buy, and they're what fund everything above.
Dual licensing. The same code is available under either the AGPL or a commercial license. If your legal team can't approve the AGPL — common in defense and other regulated industries — the commercial license removes copyleft obligations entirely.
A CLA for contributors. External contributions now require a lightweight contributor license agreement (signed with a single PR comment) so the dual-license model stays legally sound.
What this means for our philosophy, going forward
I can't promise to hold to a firm line in every single edge case, but this is my intent:
If you are technically capable, and your engineers or technicians need it to do their jobs, it's open. If it's enterprise or external integration, something I have to pay or maintain a 3rd party license for on my end in order for you to use it, or our team dedicates time to direct support for you the customer specifically, it's commercial.
Specifically, I'll never take the tack of gating BOMs behind a higher tier (looking at you, Bild), or change management the same way (yeah, I'm pointing fingers, OpenBOM).
Why
The honest version: "everything free forever" is a promise that unfunded projects make and abandoned projects keep. The graveyard of open source PLM is full of both. Cascadia's mission, real PLM for and accessible by the HMLV/ETO manufacturers the incumbents ignore, only matters if the project is still here in ten years, funded by the enterprises that get the most value from it, not subsidized indefinitely by my evenings.
Nothing about the mission changes. A five-person (or fifty-person, or 200-person) machine shop can self-host a complete, modern PLM for free — that was the point in April and it's the point now. What changes is that a defense contractor with an SSO requirement and a compliance audit now pays for exactly the things only a defense contractor needs — and that revenue is what keeps the free tier genuinely good instead of strategically crippled.
The AGPL versions already published remain AGPL — that license is irrevocable for what's shipped. Everything in the core list above stays AGPL going forward, and I've written that down in the repo (LICENSING.md) where it's harder to walk back than a blog post.
Questions, objections, edge cases — open an issue or email me: kai@cascadiaplm.com.