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AyeWatch detects meaningful changes across billions of web sources and only alerts you when it matters.
In August 2023, HashiCorp switched Terraform and Vault from MPL 2.0 to the Business Source License (BSL) — effectively ending the open-source status of the most widely deployed infrastructure tools in the industry. In 2024, Redis switched from BSD to dual SSPLv1/RSALv2. Each time, the community learned about the change after it happened — from a blog post or a GitHub issue. Nobody had monitoring set up to catch the licence file change in advance.
The consequences ranged from forking crises (OpenTofu emerged from the Terraform situation) to supply chain disruptions for companies whose product terms prohibited SSPL code. A license change can create legal exposure, break your open-source compliance posture, or invalidate your cloud provider support contracts overnight. This is monitorable.
What to Monitor
LICENSE file changes: Every open-source repository has a LICENSE file. A page-change alert on the raw LICENSE file URL on GitHub (e.g., https://raw.githubusercontent.com/hashicorp/terraform/main/LICENSE) catches the exact moment the license changes. This is the most precise signal — it fires on the actual change, not on coverage of the change.
News and community coverage: A topic monitor for "[project name] license change, terms of service update, or open source policy" catches the announcement coverage and community discussion around any licensing event. This provides context that the raw file change doesn't.
Broader OSS policy monitoring: "Open source license changes and BSL, SSPL, or AGPL adoption by commercial software companies" catches the category-wide signal — useful for teams that need to audit their entire dependency graph rather than just specific projects.
Monitor your dependencies' licenses — free
Set up license file monitors on your critical dependencies and get alerted before the news cycle, not after.
Create a license monitor →