Hello,
I’m considering using Rocket.Chat, but before I do, I would like to know: is the chat software fully free, including the JavaScript and all of its dependencies?
Thanks, : )
Andrew
Everything in GitHub - RocketChat/Rocket.Chat: The communications platform that puts data protection first. is 100% Open Source and MIT Licensed.
and all of its dependencies?
With the number of dependencies, it’s hard to say exactly. Whilst all the top level dependencies are, it’s simply too hard to tell, and I don’t want to say “yes” because it might be the case that a dependency of a dependency of a dependency might have a closed source component. But that’s doubtful.
Why do you ask? The Rocket.Chat project is MIT licensed so you may do with it what you wish.
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Thanks for the reply. 
The reason I ask is because my org and I don’t want to distribute or use non-free software.
Do you think that if any of your dependencies were discovered to be non-free that Rocket.Chat would try to correct that? My guess is that that would be pretty hard to do and would likely require coordination with maintainers of JavaScript packages at intermediate levels of the dependency tree so that you wouldn’t have to change your internal APIs. What are your thoughts about that potential issue?
I don’t want to distribute or use non-free software.
Well, Rocket.Chat is MIT licensed, so it’s 100% free. I wouldn’t be concerned about the dependencies.
I don’t think you can ever completely eliminate the possibility of having a closed source tool enter the application-chain. To get a real answer you’d need to coordinate with 1000’s of package maintainers and it would be almost impossible.
Do you think that if any of your dependencies were discovered to be non-free that Rocket.Would chat try to correct that?
I cant give you an answer officially, I’m just a community volunteer.
But I’m sure that if this was brought up, and there was a suitable open source replacement then anyone could submit a Pull Request to have the module in question changed/fixed/removed.
The MIT license is one of the most liberal OSS licenses there is, If you are unfamiliar with it you can have a look here - MIT License (Expat) Explained in Plain English - TLDRLegal
I’m 99.9% sure that there’s nothing distributed, even at a module level that would be considered ‘non free’ as the JS package ecosystem is essentially all open source any way.
What about this: https://github.com/RocketChat/Rocket.Chat/tree/develop/ee ?
It seems that not all of it is free, if I understand correctly.
Hi @sudoman . If you don’t use the RocketTeam push-gateway, everything is absolutely free.
But if you want to use their services… well, I can only advise you to read other branches of this forum.