Snowplow is an event collection pipeline founded in 2012 by Yali Sasson and Alexander Dean and licensed under Apache 2.0 until 2023 and 2024.
Over the last ten years, Snowplow built a world-class event collection pipeline, adopted and recognized by engineering and data leaders as one of the best, if not the best, event pipeline. Among its users are world-recognized brands like CNN, Capital One, MassMutual, and numerous other industries ranging from tech to media.
Our concern is that the SLULA license is a poison pill for Snowplow.
On January 8th, thousands of Snowplow open-source users, ranging from startups to Fortune 500, woke up to a new reality where the underpinnings of their infrastructure suddenly became a potential legal risk.
The Snowplow Limited Use License Agreement (SLULA) prevents anyone from running Snowplow in production in a highly available manner without purchasing a license from Snowplow Ltd, and also from using Snowplow to create product(s) that are competitive with Snowplow Ltd.
No open-source event platforms come close to the scale and business continuity provided by a Snowplow data pipeline.
Snowplow is adopted to serve in-house event needs, and many startups use Snowplow to productize analysis (content consumption, marketing attribution, and CDPs).
Furthermore, when choosing an event collection platform, having the possibility of running it in-house is extremely valuable; it signals there is virtually no lock-in. This is especially important for companies that process a large number of events.
Without open source, Snowplow loses a competitive advantage. It could relinquish Snowplow to an enterprise niche data collection platform instead of further democratizing it.
We aim to sustain a Snowplow-compatible analytics platform for the many businesses dependent on the rights granted by the original Apache License 2.0.
We want you to know that OpenSnowcat will always be open source, so you don't have to worry about sudden license changes that could put everything at risk. This means you can trust that OpenSnowcat will remain accessible and free for anyone to use.
At Snowcat Cloud, we, like many other businesses, use Snowplow Open Source in production. New and existing Snowplow users should continue to be able to run an up-to-date behavioral event data collection platform with a low operational cost.
Furthermore, the world needs a reliable, secure event pipeline that can scale cost-effectively and is easy to maintain.
In the last few years, Snowplow has focused more on locking in users than setting them free (which is understandable). Still, we believe there's a better way: Integrate with existing, cheaper, and ever-evolving cloud services.