Love your content, but your take on the licenses is factually incorrect. Partly because Jan misrepresents their license, I believe. First, please don't refer to fair-code licenses as open source. Jan doesn't even do this (any more) and strictly refers to it as source-available. A key feature of open source is the ability to use the software for any purpose and the ability to fork the software and take it in your own direction. Fair-code does not allow you to do this. Fair-code is functionally identical to freeware, but with the ability to view the code. Second, you refer to the old license as "Apache 2.0 GPL". This is incorrect. The old license was Apache 2.0 with Commons Clause. GPL is a completely different set of licenses made by the Free Software Foundation and are not related at all. Third, Jan understates how restrictive the Sustainable Use License (SUL) is, compared to the Commons Clause. The SUL prohibits ALL commercial external use and requires a particular license for embedding it in other solutions (n8n.embed). The Commons Clause allows for this, as long as the value of the product is not derived "entirely or substantially, from the functionality of the [fair-code] Software" E.g. if Home Assistant wanted to use n8n for automations, nobody would be allowed to sell HA products without paying for n8n.embed licenses. With Apache 2.0 with Commons Clause, they would. This may sound like a minor issue, but HA is made up of hundreds of moving parts. What would the open source world look like, if every component had their own license fees attached? Fourth, As Chandan Puri mentioned, the software is owned entirely by the company n8n and if they go bust, change direction, sell the project or simply change to a closed source model, you're completely locked out, just like you would be with normal proprietary software. I am not against fair-code software at all, but it's important to recognize that for all practical intents and purposes, this is closer to freeware, than to open source.
This is an amazingly detailed post on the license, so thank you for this. I want to be clear, that what I state in my video is my take on what I read on their website. I don't want to put words in the mouths of anyone from n8n. They were super up front about the license not being Open Source by the Open Source Initiative standards. I'm pinning your comment so everyone who checks the comments will see it.
I am VERY happy about ALL of this Video 1. the video about that awesome tool i use for over a year because good alternatives are all proprietary 2. that Jakob pointed this out because i was also very cautious when i saw the fair code licence as myself a year ago. 3. How you both reacted to this - thats what a open culture of failure is about! Fair and respectful sharing of knowledge.
Thanks a lot for clarifying this. I want to however correct at least a few things: Not being allowed to fork: It is allowed to fork n8n and take it in a different direction. But also there the rules of the license still apply like with any license. Meaning you can for example fork n8n and optimize for chatbot creation. You and everybody else would be allowed to use it totally for free, but neither you nor anybody else would be allowed to sell it. No commercial usage allowed: You can use n8n commercially, and it is even encouraged. Most of our users are actually doing that. The difference is between using n8n commercially and commercializing n8n. This means, you can automate your business processes, you can build the backend of your startup with n8n workflows instead of programming, and so on. What you can however not do, is to for example white-label n8n and then charge for it. People are locked out if n8n goes out of business: Actually, nothing would change at all. Just because a company closes down, does the code not disappear. It will then still be allowed to be used exactly the same. So people can still run it, fork it, modify it, extend it, ... but they can also then still not sell it. The only thing that changes if the company behind n8n is gone is that we will not develop the code anymore. You or anybody else could however still run it and work on your own fork. So really very different to proprietary closed source software. I hope that makes some things clear.
Great video! I do though, as an Open Source Maintainer myself, want to echo the comments from others about N8N not being Open Source, since it's still described as such in the video title. Using the term for projects that aren't aligned with the core free spirit of Open Source dilutes the term and reputation built up by those that are, or have previously been, taking the risk in sharing their projects under a license that meets the common definition. Open Source prioritizes the freedom of the code and its consumers first whereas licenses such as used by N8N prioritizes the author. Not that I think that's bad in itself, but there's a common problem of projects/companies riding on the reputation of Open Source while actually acting as examples of its erosion.
If that is what you are looking for you should really look at node-red instead. Way more powerful than this software, and real open-source. NiFi is a different beast though.
@@atom6_ Yeah i agree. And I looked at node-red a few years ago when working on Home Assistant. It's powerful. But at the time it was probably version 1.x or maybe even 0.x lol. I preferred to just continue with yaml for my use, but i'm sure it has some great functionality these days.
Interesting piece of software that had me intrigued enough to check out a lot of the features. It is clearly a bit more involved with web based tasks than what I really want it to do, meaning I will have to do a lot of scripting still. I basically needed it do some permission check and fire off a command to fix them, but it does seem like that may be a bit harder to set up.
I haven't used node red for data transofrm like I did this, but really for doing Home Assistant stuff, and arduino stuff for some little robots and things. I would say they are extremely similar in how you use them, but for me I use them for different purposes.
It has a restriction on selling the software as a service. So if the current maintainers go under there wouldn't be much financial incentive for anyone else to continue development. That isn't open source, its code available and free for internal use.
I think it's definitely not super beginner friendly, but some of the concepts are fairly straight forward and repeatable once you learn how they work. Take it a small bit at a time.
But anyway, even if you have programming skills you need time to write the code, write some reusable logic (like notifications, connectors to different databases), you need time to wrap in into docker container, deploy, etc. And you still doesn't have the UI. So I mean it's not enough to write some script in 5 min. In this case n8n is very helpful even you are professional in programming
I agree with Jakob.. n8n is a great product, but has a very deceptive licensing. It shows their insecurity, uncertaintity and lack of faith and confidence in their product and the community. Lot of their licensing terms defies the spirit of OSS. IMHO it should not be considered "Open Source" but "Wannabe Open Source But Not There Yet", ''Open Source (?) With Caveats" or simply as Jakob said "Freeware". We seriously considered n8n as our core automation engine both for internal and external applications. However, after going through their licensing, we decided to go for other options e.g. Node-Red as alternative. The building blocks on which n8n is built must have lots of other OSS components, so inveting your own license is an insult to the contributors. Unless n8n revisits their licensing to Apache, GPL or MIT etc. better stay away from it to avoid legal conflicts.
Hi, I always looking forward to your videos about self hosted open source. Do you know anything about some self hosted app to manage and or monitor health of family members?
Im trying to get latest video from youtube channel and feed it into my discord server, but no idea where to start, I know there are intergrations for both lol
I haven't tried to use ERPNext with n8n. I'm not sure how you're trying to connect them, but if it's through a webhook, there can be all kinds of little quirks that you may need to adjust for.
@@AwesomeOpenSource Thanks for the reply! My goal was to connect ERPNext to FarmOS via n8n. When a Purchase Receipt/Invoice gets created, a new Log for an Activity gets created in FarmOS.
Just found collaboration tool for business / tastks/ document share /chat / media share platform using n8n - Twake. Could be interesting see install and setup of this tool with great Ux and admin design.
hello I had some ideas regarding the automation of SEO and also the emission of images, but I do not know if these ideas are feasible, could you give me your opinion, is it Could I send you an email?
Love your content, but your take on the licenses is factually incorrect. Partly because Jan misrepresents their license, I believe.
First, please don't refer to fair-code licenses as open source. Jan doesn't even do this (any more) and strictly refers to it as source-available.
A key feature of open source is the ability to use the software for any purpose and the ability to fork the software and take it in your own direction.
Fair-code does not allow you to do this.
Fair-code is functionally identical to freeware, but with the ability to view the code.
Second, you refer to the old license as "Apache 2.0 GPL". This is incorrect. The old license was Apache 2.0 with Commons Clause.
GPL is a completely different set of licenses made by the Free Software Foundation and are not related at all.
Third, Jan understates how restrictive the Sustainable Use License (SUL) is, compared to the Commons Clause.
The SUL prohibits ALL commercial external use and requires a particular license for embedding it in other solutions (n8n.embed). The Commons Clause allows for this, as long as the value of the product is not derived "entirely or substantially, from the functionality of the [fair-code] Software"
E.g. if Home Assistant wanted to use n8n for automations, nobody would be allowed to sell HA products without paying for n8n.embed licenses.
With Apache 2.0 with Commons Clause, they would.
This may sound like a minor issue, but HA is made up of hundreds of moving parts. What would the open source world look like, if every component had their own license fees attached?
Fourth, As Chandan Puri mentioned, the software is owned entirely by the company n8n and if they go bust, change direction, sell the project or simply change to a closed source model, you're completely locked out, just like you would be with normal proprietary software.
I am not against fair-code software at all, but it's important to recognize that for all practical intents and purposes, this is closer to freeware, than to open source.
This is an amazingly detailed post on the license, so thank you for this. I want to be clear, that what I state in my video is my take on what I read on their website. I don't want to put words in the mouths of anyone from n8n. They were super up front about the license not being Open Source by the Open Source Initiative standards. I'm pinning your comment so everyone who checks the comments will see it.
I am VERY happy about ALL of this Video 1. the video about that awesome tool i use for over a year because good alternatives are all proprietary
2. that Jakob pointed this out because i was also very cautious when i saw the fair code licence as myself a year ago.
3. How you both reacted to this - thats what a open culture of failure is about! Fair and respectful sharing of knowledge.
@@AwesomeOpenSource if you know it's not open source, why not fix the title?
Title fixed.
Thanks a lot for clarifying this. I want to however correct at least a few things:
Not being allowed to fork:
It is allowed to fork n8n and take it in a different direction. But also there the rules of the license still apply like with any license. Meaning you can for example fork n8n and optimize for chatbot creation. You and everybody else would be allowed to use it totally for free, but neither you nor anybody else would be allowed to sell it.
No commercial usage allowed:
You can use n8n commercially, and it is even encouraged. Most of our users are actually doing that. The difference is between using n8n commercially and commercializing n8n. This means, you can automate your business processes, you can build the backend of your startup with n8n workflows instead of programming, and so on. What you can however not do, is to for example white-label n8n and then charge for it.
People are locked out if n8n goes out of business:
Actually, nothing would change at all. Just because a company closes down, does the code not disappear. It will then still be allowed to be used exactly the same. So people can still run it, fork it, modify it, extend it, ... but they can also then still not sell it. The only thing that changes if the company behind n8n is gone is that we will not develop the code anymore. You or anybody else could however still run it and work on your own fork. So really very different to proprietary closed source software.
I hope that makes some things clear.
Great video! I do though, as an Open Source Maintainer myself, want to echo the comments from others about N8N not being Open Source, since it's still described as such in the video title.
Using the term for projects that aren't aligned with the core free spirit of Open Source dilutes the term and reputation built up by those that are, or have previously been, taking the risk in sharing their projects under a license that meets the common definition. Open Source prioritizes the freedom of the code and its consumers first whereas licenses such as used by N8N prioritizes the author. Not that I think that's bad in itself, but there's a common problem of projects/companies riding on the reputation of Open Source while actually acting as examples of its erosion.
Good point. Adjusting the title.
I appreciate you and your work. Thank you!
You are so welcome
Kinda like a self-hosted Zapier solution... very neat
It is indeed, and I'll be doing Huginn in the future as well.
Like a super lightweight Apache NiFi with wizards for home use. nice!
If that is what you are looking for you should really look at node-red instead. Way more powerful than this software, and real open-source. NiFi is a different beast though.
@@atom6_ Yeah i agree. And I looked at node-red a few years ago when working on Home Assistant. It's powerful. But at the time it was probably version 1.x or maybe even 0.x lol. I preferred to just continue with yaml for my use, but i'm sure it has some great functionality these days.
I'm definitely about to look at Node-red. I'm excited to see what I can do with it.
Interesting piece of software that had me intrigued enough to check out a lot of the features.
It is clearly a bit more involved with web based tasks than what I really want it to do, meaning I will have to do a lot of scripting still.
I basically needed it do some permission check and fire off a command to fix them, but it does seem like that may be a bit harder to set up.
Might be, but if you can automate something you do manually all the time, it could be worth the effort.
This tool is really awesome.
I think so too.
Sticking with Node-RED
I'm looking forward to digging into Node Red soon. On my list of todo's for sure.
@@AwesomeOpenSource Awesome! Hope to see it, no hate on your videos though
Very informative. As Always. Thank You
My pleasure!
This software is similar to Node-Red !! 😊 nice video! Thank you
Indeed it is.
Wow.. Nice find on the dbeaver MySQL mgt tool. Looks very similar to Microsoft's.
Indeed, I love dBeaver. It's Open Source a swell. I have a video on it too.
Amazing piece of software
It is some great stuff indeed.
Hi, here another interesting topic for a new video: paperless-ngx
I'll check it out!
How would you rate this compared to node-red
I haven't used node red for data transofrm like I did this, but really for doing Home Assistant stuff, and arduino stuff for some little robots and things. I would say they are extremely similar in how you use them, but for me I use them for different purposes.
Yeah I thought the same thing, looked similar to node red
Thanks for video. Very useful.
My pleasure.
oh no, you do the same silly thing as me with docker volume mounts in one directory in home xD "for backup purposes"
Indeed I do.
It has a restriction on selling the software as a service. So if the current maintainers go under there wouldn't be much financial incentive for anyone else to continue development. That isn't open source, its code available and free for internal use.
That is correct, and why I tried to make the distinction early on in the video. This is not considered Open Source by the OSI.
And that also doesn’t make it “more freedom” Apache is almost as “free” as it gets with maybe MIT and BSD above it.
It's really either open source or it's not.. n8n is like "Trust me bro" open source...
Totally understand. I definitely wanted to be clear with their license.
Would you say that this is similar to IBM's Node Red? Node Red uses the Apache License 2.0! Thank you for the video...I'm going to check this out.
Similar in UI and concept indeed.
could you record a video teaching how to import and export flow and credentials no n8n?
Let me see. It's been a while, but I think an update is due.
@@AwesomeOpenSource ok
It still requires extensive programming knowledge to pull data from any site.
I think it's definitely not super beginner friendly, but some of the concepts are fairly straight forward and repeatable once you learn how they work. Take it a small bit at a time.
But anyway, even if you have programming skills you need time to write the code, write some reusable logic (like notifications, connectors to different databases), you need time to wrap in into docker container, deploy, etc. And you still doesn't have the UI. So I mean it's not enough to write some script in 5 min. In this case n8n is very helpful even you are professional in programming
I agree with Jakob.. n8n is a great product, but has a very deceptive licensing. It shows their insecurity, uncertaintity and lack of faith and confidence in their product and the community. Lot of their licensing terms defies the spirit of OSS.
IMHO it should not be considered "Open Source" but "Wannabe Open Source But Not There Yet", ''Open Source (?) With Caveats" or simply as Jakob said "Freeware".
We seriously considered n8n as our core automation engine both for internal and external applications. However, after going through their licensing, we decided to go for other options e.g. Node-Red as alternative.
The building blocks on which n8n is built must have lots of other OSS components, so inveting your own license is an insult to the contributors.
Unless n8n revisits their licensing to Apache, GPL or MIT etc. better stay away from it to avoid legal conflicts.
I appreciate you guys sharing with us all. I think it's important to be transparent about the thoughts we have around licensing. Thank you for this.
Hi, I always looking forward to your videos about self hosted open source. Do you know anything about some self hosted app to manage and or monitor health of family members?
Nothing in particular, but let me see what I can find.
I don't know anything about it but look into OpenHealth by Ganapati Bhat
Im trying to get latest video from youtube channel and feed it into my discord server, but no idea where to start, I know there are intergrations for both lol
Yeah, it's not always easy, but I have seen some templates that someone was doing things with RUclips videos to post to multiple Social Media sites.
NOOOO T_T
Why wouldn't you enable HTTP/2 support?!
NOOOOOOOOOO T_T
😭😭😭😭😭😭
I don't know. You can if you want to. I'm just doing the basics.
Try node-RED instead, real open-source and thousands of plugins available, being used by many people for automation of anything.
It is on my list for sure.
Similar to Node-RED... or NiFi.
Indeed. I want to tackle NodeRed next.
Do you get issues connecting when using the credentials of a self hosted ERPNext?
I haven't tried to use ERPNext with n8n. I'm not sure how you're trying to connect them, but if it's through a webhook, there can be all kinds of little quirks that you may need to adjust for.
@@AwesomeOpenSource Thanks for the reply! My goal was to connect ERPNext to FarmOS via n8n. When a Purchase Receipt/Invoice gets created, a new Log for an Activity gets created in FarmOS.
Is there any tool like open source object storage same like Amazon S3 bucket
Take a look at minio, which is S3 compatible
LocalStack could be an option. The open source version offer a few more services. It is used as a mock service though.
As already stated, Minio, and LocalStack are both options.
Maybe this app is meant to be called n8n == Nathan 😃
The answer is on their GitHub page.
Short answer: It means "nodemation" and it is pronounced as n-eight-n.
Great guess, but as stated below, it's for node-mation.
Just found collaboration tool for business / tastks/ document share /chat / media share platform using n8n - Twake. Could be interesting see install and setup of this tool with great Ux and admin design.
How do you rate n8n compared to Shuffle?
Haven't tried shuffle yet, so can't compare.
First
Nice
this just looks like a shitty front end for node-red.
Node Red is a separate project, and definitely one I'll be looking into, but I found the front end of n9n to be very usable.
hello I had some ideas regarding the automation of SEO and also the emission of images, but I do not know if these ideas are feasible, could you give me your opinion, is it Could I send you an email?
I think you'd be better off to ask on the n8n forums, as they could help you with your ideas much more than I could.
@@AwesomeOpenSource Yes I asked them and I also wanted to ask your opinion since you seem to have mastered this app
So what you did? Nothing?
I don't guess I understand the question.