Request: Consider relicensing ColorParsley under MIT (from AGPL‑3.0)

[YoussefTaghlabi]

First off, thank you for the excellent work on ColorParsley. It’s a compact, useful utility for color parsing and related string helpers, and it shows in how often it’s pulled into contrast and color tooling. I’d like to propose switching the project’s license from AGPL‑3.0 to a permissive license like MIT to maximize adoption and ease integration.

Please consider relicensing the library under the MIT license, or offering a dual‑licensing option (AGPL‑3.0 + MIT).

Why this helps

The AGPL‑3.0’s network-copyleft obligations can be challenging for teams integrating a small parsing library into hosted services or proprietary apps, even when contributions upstream are intended in good faith.

The MIT license is a widely used, permissive license in the JavaScript ecosystem and avoids copyleft obligations, making ColorParsley easier to adopt while still preserving attribution.

Possible approaches

• Full switch to MIT.
• Dual-license the repository (e.g., keep AGPL‑3.0 for those who prefer copyleft, and add MIT to enable broader adoption).
• Alternatively, publish a minimal “colorparsley-core” package under MIT that exposes the core parsing functionality, while keeping the current repo AGPL‑3.0.

If you’re open to this, I’m happy to help draft the PR (updating LICENSE.md and the package.json license field) and any README notes. Thanks again for considering, and for maintaining this project!

Best regards,

[heathermeeker]

I second the request. This is a very useful library, but most developers cannot comply with AGPL for a library. MIT would be a great choice and possibly increase adoption of the project.

[StephenHaney]

ColorParsley is often used as a dependency within other libraries, so it's an unexpected AGPL license when you use other libraries that claim to be MIT. (not ColorParsley's fault at all, just wanted to share what is happening)

[Myndex]

Hi @YoussefTaghlabi

I didn't realize it's use had extended such... one reason for the slightly more restrictive license is the work is developmental, and subject to changes, probably this year, such as to align it with related standards such as CSS.

Also, my Myndex Repos here represent the first time I've been actively developing in the open source community—coming from a world where NDAs are 127 pages long, it's taken a bit to grok the nuances herein.

That said, I could see making this change at the next iteration, and sorry for my delay in response, I've been swamped on a different project.