One of my favorite parts of the early web was how easy it was to see how the front-end was built. Before View Source was ruined by minification, transpiling, and bundling, you really could just right-click on any web page and learn how it was all done. It was glorious.
\nBut even back then, this only ever applied to the front-end. At least with commercial applications, the back-end was always kept proprietary. So learning how to write great web applications still meant piecing together lessons from books, tutorials, and hello-world-style code examples, not from production-grade commercial software.
\nThe O'Saasy License seeks to remedy that. It's basically the do-whatever-you-want MIT license, but with the commercial rights to run the software as a service (SaaS) reserved for the copyright holder, thus encouraging more code to be open source while allowing the original creators to see a return on their investment.
\nWe need more production-grade code to teach juniors and LLMs alike. A view source that extends to the back-end along with the open source invitation to fix bugs, propose features, and run the system yourself for free (if your data requirements or interests maks that a sensible choice over SaaS).
\nThis is what we're doing with Fizzy, but now we've also given the O'Saasy License a home to call its own at osaasy.dev. The license is yours to download and apply to any project where it makes sense. I hope to read a lot more production-grade SaaS code as a result!
\n![\"osassy-license.png\"](\"https://world.hey.com/dhh/336c5c8f/blobs/eyJfcmFpbHMiOnsiZGF0YSI6MjM4MjYzMTM0NCwicHVyIjoiYmxvYl9pZCJ9fQ--ca8e8c2eaa291c28171287ab2f86d9dd48d1e098ce75cce24e3eef1507fccab7/osassy-license.png?disposition=attachment\")
About David Heinemeier Hansson
\n", "content_markdown": "[](https://world.hey.com/dhh)\n\nOne of my favorite parts of the early web was how easy it was to see how the front-end was built. Before View Source was ruined by minification, transpiling, and bundling, you really could just right-click on any web page and learn how it was all done. It was glorious.\n\nBut even back then, this only ever applied to the front-end. At least with commercial applications, the back-end was always kept proprietary. So learning how to write great web applications still meant piecing together lessons from books, tutorials, and hello-world-style code examples, not from production-grade commercial software.\n\nThe O'Saasy License seeks to remedy that. It's basically the do-whatever-you-want MIT license, but with the commercial rights to run the software as a service (SaaS) reserved for the copyright holder, thus encouraging more code to be open source while allowing the original creators to see a return on their investment.\n\nWe need more production-grade code to teach juniors and LLMs alike. A view source that extends to the back-end along with the open source invitation to fix bugs, propose features, and run the system yourself for free (if your data requirements or interests maks that a sensible choice over SaaS).\n\nThis is what we're doing with [Fizzy](https://fizzy.do/), but now we've also given the O'Saasy License a home to call its own at [osaasy.dev](http://osaasy.dev/). The license is yours to download and apply to any project where it makes sense. I hope to read a lot more production-grade SaaS code as a result!\n\n[](https://world.hey.com/dhh/336c5c8f/blobs/eyJfcmFpbHMiOnsiZGF0YSI6MjM4MjYzMTM0NCwicHVyIjoiYmxvYl9pZCJ9fQ--ca8e8c2eaa291c28171287ab2f86d9dd48d1e098ce75cce24e3eef1507fccab7/osassy-license.png?disposition=attachment \"Download osassy-license.png\")\n\nAbout David Heinemeier Hansson\n", "dateCreated": "2026-10-19T01:26:53.998049939+00:00", "date_created": "2025-12-16T19:59:04+00:00", "date_modified": "2025-12-16T19:59:04+00:00", "date_published": "2025-12-16T19:59:04+00:00", "description": "One of my favorite parts of the early web was how easy it was to see how the front-end was built. Before View Source was ruined by minification, transpiling, and bundling, you really could just right-click on any web page and learn how it…", "external_url": "https://world.hey.com/dhh/the-o-saasy-license-336c5c8f", "git": { "commit": "ebb0941c5c06a2ab2377342d607535262a3e969e", "path": "items/world-hey-com/2025/12/2025-12-16-the-o-saasy-license.md", "permalink": "https://github.com/aymericbeaumet/aggr-instance/blob/ebb0941c5c06a2ab2377342d607535262a3e969e/items/world-hey-com/2025/12/2025-12-16-the-o-saasy-license.md" }, "id": "urn:aggr:item:f7be85ffcddc1b7f2ea52867e9eadba1e07cefaa", "isBasedOn": { "@id": "https://world.hey.com/dhh/the-o-saasy-license-336c5c8f" }, "mainEntity": { "@id": "https://world.hey.com/dhh/the-o-saasy-license-336c5c8f", "@type": "CreativeWork", "archivedAt": { "@id": "https://aggr.aymericbeaumet.com/items/world-hey-com/2025-12-16-the-o-saasy-license/#webpage" }, "author": [ { "@type": "Person", "name": "David Heinemeier Hansson" } ], "dateModified": "2025-12-16T19:59:04+00:00", "datePublished": "2025-12-16T19:59:04+00:00", "headline": "The O'Saasy License", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "caption": null, "height": 90, "url": "https://world.hey.com/dhh/336c5c8f/representations/eyJfcmFpbHMiOnsiZGF0YSI6MjM4MjYzMTM0NCwicHVyIjoiYmxvYl9pZCJ9fQ--ca8e8c2eaa291c28171287ab2f86d9dd48d1e098ce75cce24e3eef1507fccab7/eyJfcmFpbHMiOnsiZGF0YSI6eyJyZXNpemVfdG9fZmlsbCI6WzEyMDAsNjMwXSwicXVhbGl0eSI6NDAsInN0cmlwIjp0cnVlfSwicHVyIjoidmFyaWF0aW9uIn19--850460abb6619f326eb585ef63fdb0b416ee8bffff0b16dfc60dcb6699d89ebd/osassy-license.png", "width": 160 }, "timeRequired": "PT2M", "url": "https://world.hey.com/dhh/the-o-saasy-license-336c5c8f", "wordCount": 266 }, "name": "Archived snapshot: The O'Saasy License", "preview": { "alt": null, "color": null, "height": 90, "placeholder": { "data_url": "data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAEAAAABCAQAAAC1HAwCAAAAC0lEQVR42mNk+A8AAQUBAScY42YAAAAASUVORK5CYII=", "hash": "" }, "url": "https://world.hey.com/dhh/336c5c8f/representations/eyJfcmFpbHMiOnsiZGF0YSI6MjM4MjYzMTM0NCwicHVyIjoiYmxvYl9pZCJ9fQ--ca8e8c2eaa291c28171287ab2f86d9dd48d1e098ce75cce24e3eef1507fccab7/eyJfcmFpbHMiOnsiZGF0YSI6eyJyZXNpemVfdG9fZmlsbCI6WzEyMDAsNjMwXSwicXVhbGl0eSI6NDAsInN0cmlwIjp0cnVlfSwicHVyIjoidmFyaWF0aW9uIn19--850460abb6619f326eb585ef63fdb0b416ee8bffff0b16dfc60dcb6699d89ebd/osassy-license.png", "width": 160 }, "reading_minutes": 2, "replicated_at": null, "source": "world-hey-com", "source_name": "David Heinemeier Hansson", "summary": null, "tags": [], "temporalCoverage": "2026-10-19T01:26:53.998049939+00:00", "title": "The O'Saasy License", "url": "https://aggr.aymericbeaumet.com/items/world-hey-com/2025-12-16-the-o-saasy-license/", "word_count": 266 }