ADR-012: Preserve MIT and separate hosted convenience from community trust

Status: MIT preservation adopted; future license undecided. Date: 2026-09-28. Scope: planned platform; implementation evidence required by roadmap gates.

Context

Upstream code and outside contributions have MIT provenance. Commercial aspirations do not authorize silent relicensing.

Decision

Keep existing license/notices; new MVP work stays MIT absent explicit future decision. Compare MIT/Apache client/AGPL backend with ownership/dependency review before any change. Name Postô provisional. Optional hosted services later; payment never changes trust.

Alternatives

Immediate relicensing/rebranding; paid contribution credibility; paywall current offline capabilities.

Consequences

No removal of rights from historical MIT versions. DCO recommended for new contributions; CLA only for demonstrated need. Trademark clearance and legal review precede public rebranding.

Validation and follow-up

Use the owning tasks in ROADMAP, specifications in docs index and decision log. Record tested policy/tool versions before marking a release gate complete.

2026-10-01 naming amendment: the maintainer selected abastevo and supplied the project logo. The earlier provisional naming decision is superseded by docs/brand/IDENTITY.md; software licensing and optional-hosted-service boundaries remain unchanged. README artwork still requires visual approval.