Proposal for License change for Bahmni - Requesting community inputs by Nov 15, 2025

Software Bahmni
1

TL;DR:

The Bahmni Coalition proposes changing the license for the Bahmni project from AGPL v3 to MPL v2 (with a healthcare disclaimer) or MIT, depending on the repository’s nature. This change aims to encourage more contributions, foster innovation, and align Bahmni’s licensing with OpenMRS, ultimately leading to wider adoption.

Link to detailed proposal document: Proposal: License Change for Bahmni

Please share your inputs on this proposal by responding to this talk thread until November 15, 2025. The decision will be finalized after community feedback by November 20, 2025.

SLIGHTLY LONGER VERSION

This is a proposal from the Bahmni Coalition to change the license for the Bahmni project from the current Affero General Public License version 3 (AGPL v3).

Link to detailed proposal document: Proposal: License Change for Bahmni

Background:

Bahmni was started as a project as part of Thoughtworks’ Social Impact Program. It was always open source, initially released under the Apache v2 open source license on GitHub. As Bahmni grew into a product and started gaining wider adoption, its license was changed to the AGPL V3 in 2015. The main reason behind the choice of license was to encourage collaboration within and promote contributions from a wider community, and to deter bad-faith actors and large commercial entities from using it without giving back.

In 2017, Bahmni’s IP was transferred from Thoughtworks to the OpenMRS Foundation (OpenMRS Inc.) as one of the steps to transition Bahmni to a wider open source community under the leadership of the newly formed Bahmni Coalition. Though the IP was transferred, Bahmni continued to be licensed under the AGPL V3 license. And it remains so to date. Details about Bahmni’s current licensing can be found in our license page and the associated FAQ.

There were several internal discussions within the Bahmni Coalition members starting in July 2023, triggered by requests for changing the license on specific Bahmni components to make it more broadly usable. While the topic of changing the license for the overall Bahmni product was discussed, no conclusion was reached.

The coalition members revived the discussion again in July 2024 (again triggered by an external request), with a view to make a decision on the topic. This proposal reflects the outcome of those discussions.

Moving forward with this proposal was delayed until now primarily because of lack of bandwidth to do a detailed analysis and the effort required to implement the change. We feel we are now ready to move forward with the change.

Key Reasons for the Change:

  • Limitations of AGPL v3: The AGPL v3 license, due to its copyleft nature, may have limited contribution from external organizations. Additionally, the coalition lacks resources to enforce any violations. So the license hasn’t really fulfilled it’s intended benefits.

  • Benefits of MPL v2/MIT:

    • Increased Contributions & Innovation: More permissive licenses like MPL v2 are expected to encourage wider contributions and make Bahmni more attractive for external organizations to build upon.

    • Harmonization with OpenMRS: MPL v2 aligns with the license used by OpenMRS, the platform Bahmni is built on, simplifying interoperability.

    • Wider Adoption: A more permissive license could lead to increased adoption of Bahmni.

Proposed Changes:

  • The license change will apply to core Bahmni components, modules, integrations, and customizations.

  • The choice between MPL v2 (with a healthcare disclaimer similar to OpenMRS) and MIT will depend on the nature of the repository. Core Bahmni repositories will move to MPL v2, while utilities and configuration-related components may adopt the MIT license.

Timelines:

The proposed timeline for community discussion and decision-making is:

  • October 17, 2025: Coalition feedback on the proposal and posting on Bahmni Talk for community review.

  • November 14, 2025: Community feedback window closes.

  • November 20, 2025: Final decision made and communicated by the Bahmni Coalition.

Please share your inputs by responding to this discussion thread.

Satish (on behalf of the Bahmni Coalition)

@angshuonline @mohant @gsluthra1 @rahu1ramesh @sthote @grace @krisr @kai @wanyee @dmukungi @erica @lskindagirls @kevin.desmidt @paul @burke

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Thanks for putting this forward, it’s clear there has been a lot of care and thought behind the work.

I’m fully supportive of these changes. They’re very much in line with the discussions the Bahmni Coalition has been having over the past year about openness and the long-term sustainability of Bahmni.

I’d love to hear others’ thoughts before we move ahead. Community input will help ensure these changes strengthen Bahmni and support its continued sustainability.

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Considering what i have seen in the community for all the past years, i see this as a step in the right direction. :+1:

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Strongly in favor — relicensing will grow the contributor and vendor ecosystem, reduce compliance overhead for implementors, and help Bahmni reach more hospitals faster.

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I also wholeheartedly support this decision. It is the step in the right direction to make Bahmni available under the opensource MPL v2 license, and harmonize it with OpenMRS license.

This will reduce confusion, enable broader adoption without hesitations, and help in broader impact with Bahmni & OpenMRS. Bahmni (and its community) is large and mature now to benefit from this decision.

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Fully agree. If I can go back in time and change it, will definitely do it.

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It makes things simpler for Bahmni to have similar licensing as Openmrs to promote collaboration across the Openmrs community.

Additionally, a lesser restrictive licensing may promote adoption.

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I dont know much about licenses , but i would say make BAHMNI something like WordPress.. let the base remain free , let developers , third party develop extension , add-ons , themes , Database (drugs/forms/district names/etc etc). Developers can monetize if they want , making this an effective system , easier to implement , this will open up loads of possibility..

Just imagine a system where third party developers can do something like

  1. Whatsapp implementation
  2. Social media integration
  3. Ambulance call system
  4. Various forms/database system like ANTE-NATAL checkup forms , etc
  5. Attendance
  6. Upto date Drug database with proper names , doses , etc
  7. Themes/UI Mods
  8. Dashboard for Hospital Owners / Doctors / Staffs to display individualized items for easy reference , lookups etc.

The potential is endless..

We already are running a system - " Odoo "

Wish this license change will pave way ?

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This indeed a good move to increase contributors and implementors of Bahmni. IPLit supports this decision.

This change will certainly reduce the complexity of licensing and it aligns with OpenMRS.

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I’m very much in support of this license change. The AGPL v3 has been a bit of a blocker towards to wider OpenMRS community adopting many of Bahmni’s innovations. Hopefully with the licensing better aligned, we’ll be better placed to work together.

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We hope these benefits you outline will be enabled with this license change. Bahmni has always remained free (FOSS) and will continue to remain so with this license change. What this move to MPL v2 / MIT will enable is hopefully encourage more developers and organizations to adopt Bahmni and adapt it to their needs. Offering these additional modules as paid / free add-ons for implementations will benefit the entire community.

1 Like