Darklang Goes Open Source

Summary

As part of shutting down Dark Inc. and forming Darklang Inc., we've finally open-sourced all of our repositories. Our source code is now under the Apache License 2.0.For years, we wrestled with questions of sustainability and how to build something that truly empowers developers. We've long believed in open source philosophically, but felt that Darklang's unique architecture and business model required a different approach.Why We Initially Chose Source-AvailableWe originally designed Darklang as a hosted-only platform where you'd code at darklang.com and programs would instantly be live in production. We believed this centralized approach was necessary for features like safe code migration and unified deployment, and that offering self-hosting would undermine our sustainability model.The core challenge was building something valuable while ensuring we could continue working on it long-term. Traditional open source funding models all had limitations, so Darklang was designed as "a language with a business model" - users with serious workloads would fund ecosystem development through our hosting platform.What Changed Our ThinkingThree key shifts changed our perspective:Product maturity and user feedback: The real barrier to Darklang's adoption was never licensing - it was product maturity. As we've gotten closer to building something people love, staying source-available started feeling like an unnecessary risk. We consistently heard that people wanted us to be more open.Building for local-first development: Our technical direction evolved significantly. We're now building Darklang to run locally as a CLI, with the ability to deploy to our cloud or elsewhere. Nobody wants to run a proprietary language binary on their own machine.New business opportunities: The developer tools market has matured since 2017. We now see successful companies charging for team collaboration features and AI-powered tools while keeping the core platform accessible. These create value that te...