Skip to main content
Add as a preferred source on Google


edX Revisits Completely Open Source License

After famously releasing its source code under a broad open source license, MIT and Harvard’s edX MOOC platform is backtracking a bit—reclassifying part of its code to a less restrictive license that will let programmers use some edX code with closed source platforms and tools.

Previously, Open edX’s source code had been designated under an Affero GPL license, which stated that developers were free to remix the code—frequently used to create MOOC platforms and individual features—so long as their finished products were open as well.

However, in a blog post Ned Batchelder, edX Software Architect, wrote that the single license didn’t “fit all purposes.” Given that a key objective of edX is to establish itself as a sort of industry standard platform, it is relicensing XBlock (an API used to create interactive components in MOOC courses that functions as sort of the underlying architecture of the platform) under an Apache 2.0 license, which allows users to choose whether to share their creations or keep them private.

The switch, Batchelder said, was necessary because some platforms that wished to use XBlock code, or otherwise connect with XBlock components, had licenses that were incompatible with AGPL. Basically, those platforms were less open with their source code.

“Of course the ideal is that all XBlocks will be open source,” wrote Batchelder, while acknowledging that not every component that interacts with XBlock would share the same dedication to openness.

The issue was raised outright in one recent example at the Universitat Politècnica de València in Spain. There, programmers built an XBlock to view files from the math and engineering program Mathematica right in Open edX courses. But Mathematica software is not open source. The new Apache license allowed them to mix components without stepping on any toes.

“We believe that this mixed licensing strategy is the best way to achieve all of our goals: create an ecosystem of shared work and open systems, and also get the broadest possible adoption of our APIs and tools,” Batchelder wrote.

About the Author

Stephen Noonoo is an education technology journalist based in Los Angeles. He is on Twitter @stephenoonoo.

Featured

  • digital brain with network connections

    Microsoft Moving to Internally Developed AI Models in Office Apps

    Microsoft is reportedly using its own in-house artificial intelligence models to handle some workloads in Excel and Outlook, offering new evidence that the company is moving its AI strategy beyond model development and into large-scale cost reduction.

  • circuit patterns

    Anthropic Launches Lower-Cost Claude Sonnet 5

    Anthropic has released Claude Sonnet 5, positioning the model as its most autonomous mid-tier offering to date and a lower-cost alternative to its flagship Opus 4.8 system. The company said the model can plan multi-step tasks, operate tools such as browsers and terminals, and complete agentic work at a level that previously required larger and more expensive models.

  • Human Hand Assembling Digital Data Blocks

    Report: AI Impact Starts with Strong Data Foundation

    High-impact AI implementations are more likely to treat data architecture, governance, and operationalization as strategic requirements, according to TDWI's 2026 Blueprint report.

  • Abstract background with digital shield made of data particles glowing blue blocking against cyber attacks

    Report: AI Attacks Push Organizations Toward Autonomous Cybersecurity Defense

    Artificial intelligence is raising the stakes of cyber conflict as attackers use the technology to accelerate reconnaissance, uncover vulnerabilities, and launch attacks faster than many security teams can respond.