this post was submitted on 25 Oct 2024
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Uhh what does this mean for us dummies? For reference I run a self hosted vaultwarden server and connect to it with Bitwarden clients.
With 2024.10, Bitwarden could no longer be built without their proprietary SDK.
That was deemed a bug and now the SDK is also licensed under the GPL.
To clarify, the desktop BitWarden client, only.
And this was corrected.
I think right now it doesn't mean anything :/. It's more a 'wait&see' situation... However as many many other stories in the past, this doesn't sound good and bitwarden is slowly and carefully following the 'enshitification' path !
Keep an eye open and get ready to switch to another password manager (maybe a fork?).
Yeah I'll willing to give them the benefit of the doubt on this one. Could very easily believe that a dev added the reference without realising the implications and they fixed it very quickly. Will be watching for any future attempts though.
If this was the case, the phrashing around the issue would've likely been different. Yet bitwarden remained very vague, and even locked github comments on the issue.
Especially considering that a move like this alienates their core target demographic (people who use FOSS), they would've been much more open and much quicker if it wasn't intentional.
I will personally be switching, likely to KeePassXC.
They highlighted it was a bug and said it would be fixed very soon after it was flagged. It was addressed in a matter of days. You can build the server with the
/p:DefineConstants=“OSS”flag still and you can build the clients with thebitwarden_licensefolder deleted again (now they’ve fixed it).I don’t understand why you’re throwing FUD about this. Building without the Bitwarden Licensed code has been possible for years and those components under that license have been enterprise focused (such as SSO). The client is still GPL and the server is still AGPL.
This has been the way for years.
It means all the code you run is open source.
Only the Bitwarden back-end uses proprietary code, which you aren't using when you're self-hosting vaultwarden.
So this was what it changed then?
I also self-host Vaultwarden because it is stupidly simple...
No, this comment was wrong. Most of the back end is not closed source. One piece of code for secrets management is closed source, that is not used in clients and was accidentally (allegedly) added to the clients, which they removed.
Vaultwarden is open source.
Personally I think people are overreacting. If BitWarden were to do something dumb like shift away from GPL, there would very quickly be a fork.