Open Source at Turbot
Open Source and Trademarks
Turbot HQ, Inc (Turbot) manages hundreds of open source repositories, each licensed under Apache 2.0, AGPL 3.0 or similar licenses. You can find the software on GitHub.
Turbot Guardrails, Turbot Pipes, Steampipe, Powerpipe, and Flowpipe are products produced from the open source software, exclusively by Turbot. They are distributed under our commercial terms.
Others are allowed to make their own distribution of the open-source software, but they cannot use any of the Turbot trademarks, cloud services, etc.
If you are familiar with how Red Hat or The System Initiative work, Turbot is very similar. If you'd like to understand this in more detail, we recommend reading the System Initiative FAQ.
I just want to use your open source products, can I do that?
Of course! Steampipe, Powerpipe, and Flowpipe are free to download and use like any other open-source tool.
How can I contribute to Turbot's open source projects?
Please get involved! We love open-source collaboration and have merged hundreds of contributions (large and small) across our projects. We check GitHub for issues and PRs and hang out in the #contributors channel on Slack.
For contributions to our AGPL 3.0 and CC BY-NC-ND licensed repositories we ask that you sign our Contributor License Agreement (CLA). The CLA simply states your contributions are given under the Apache 2.0 license. The majority of our open source repositories are Apache 2.0, so do not require a CLA. To understand more about the “license in” vs the “license out” for a project watch this great video from Heather Meeker.
To sign the CLA, submit a pull request on any applicable Turbot project. You'll receive a link via a comment for a one-time signing process.
Can I distribute or embed Turbot software in my own product or tool?
You are not allowed to distribute software that includes any of the Turbot trademarks (logo, name, wordmarks, etc.). A distribution of the software means a package or service that can be consumed directly. For example, creating binary downloads, docker containers, running a software as a service, etc., are all “distributions” of the software. For more details of what you are and are not allowed to do with our marks, see our trademark policy.
When you create a distribution, you must remove all our visible trademarks from the product. For example, anywhere in the user interface that our logo appears, it must be removed or replaced with a different logo. Any written reference to our trademarks that are visible to an end user must be removed. You do not need to alter every place a trademark may appear in the source code - only places where an end user will see it. For example, the steampipe command line tool must be renamed (it is customer facing), while a function in the source code with `steampipe` in its name does not (it is not customer facing).
You may not imply in any way that Turbot has any relationship with your distribution, other than that your distribution contains some Turbot source code. The build systems, quality control, telemetry, services, APIs and community infrastructure we have created are exclusively owned by Turbot, and operated for the exclusive use of our customers. So you may not state, suggest or imply that your distribution is the same as ours, equivalent to ours, or performs the same functions in the same way as ours.
This framework provides a level playing field for everyone. For Turbot to be as successful as possible, the community around the software must be as open as possible. The software is equally available to everyone to use, modify and distribute.
Can I use or embed a Turbot AGPL licensed tool in my own product?
Yes - subject to the terms of the AGPL, our trademark policy, and Turbot’s terms of use.
Per Turbot's trademark policy and terms of use you must modify the program to remove all references to our trademarks and use of services we provide to customers (e.g. registry, documentation, etc).
Under the AGPL, if you are distributing the modified program to others - either as downloadable software or remotely through a computer network - then the entire corresponding source of the modified program must also be licensed under the AGPL.
Our interpretation of "remote network interaction" includes, but is not limited to:
- Access to APIs & Protocols (e.g. HTTP, Database, etc)
- Browsing or interacting with web components
- Execution of CLI commands or viewing CLI output
- Execution of user-defined code (e.g. SQL queries, HCL mods, etc)
The modified program and corresponding source does not mean only your specific changes to Turbot software. Unless you are using it as a “general-purpose tool” and “not part of the work” for your modified program then your entire modified program would now be subject to the AGPL.
If you have questions, we recommend that you talk to your own attorney for legal advice. Please contact sales if you’d like to discuss a commercial arrangement with Turbot to remove these restrictions.
Can I make developer builds of Turbot software?
We explicitly grant permission for you to make a build that includes our trademarks while developing Turbot software itself. You may not publish or share the build, and you may not use that build to run Turbot software for any other purpose.
What services must I stop using if I make my own distribution?
You can use any services we provide to enable community collaboration: GitHub, Slack, etc.
You may not use services provided by Turbot as part of the product, such as authentication, documentation, package sharing, telemetry, build systems, automated testing, etc.
We often open-source the software we use to run these services for the benefit of our customers — but you will have to run them yourself. Or you can consider becoming a partner, and support us in providing those services for the community.
What if I have additional questions not answered here?
Reach out in the #contributors channel on Slack, or contact sales directly.