Origin, provenance, and the FOSS-only fork¶
This page is the long-form companion to NOTICE. If anything
here conflicts with NOTICE, the NOTICE file is authoritative.
The lineage¶
| Year | Project | Maintainer | Licence | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | rport | CloudRadar GmbH | MIT | original release |
| 2022 | rport | RealVNC Limited (acquired) | MIT | continued FOSS development |
| Sep 2023 | rport | RealVNC Limited | proprietary | source closed; subsequent versions are not FOSS |
| 2024 | openrport | openrport authors | MIT | community fork of the last MIT rport tree |
| Jun 2025 | openrport | (effectively unmaintained) | MIT | last commit early-mid 2025; single-author |
| 2026 | ProxiPort | Proximile LLC | AGPL-3.0-or-later | this project |
ProxiPort imports the openrport Go server and agent tree at the MIT-licensed state of the fork. We are continuing the FOSS lineage.
What we forked¶
Specifically taken from openrport, under its MIT licence, and now part of the ProxiPort tree under AGPL-3.0-or-later (as the combined work):
- the Go server (
server/) - the Go agent (
client/upstream, renamed to the ProxiPort agent packaging) - the shared libraries (
share/) - the build scripts, BDD harness, and API documentation skeleton
- the chisel-derived tunnel transport, by way of the upstream fork
The inherited MIT copyright notice for that imported code is preserved
verbatim in LICENSE-MIT.
What we did not fork¶
The plus/ plugin scaffolding¶
openrport's source tree contained a directory called plus/. Its sole
function was to load a separately-distributed proprietary plugin binary
(the "Plus" plugin) that gated several enterprise features (OAuth/OIDC,
RBAC, alerting, etc.). The Plus binary itself was never in any public
source repository — it was distributed by the previous upstream
maintainer under a proprietary licence, behind a paywall.
We deleted the plus/ scaffolding from ProxiPort along with every
IsPlusEnabled capability gate. We do not ship the proprietary binary,
we do not load it, and we do not reimplement Plus features as a
license-gated commercial add-on. Features that previously lived behind
the gate (OAuth/OIDC, RBAC, alerting, …) will be reimplemented in the
open under AGPL.
The proprietary Vue/Nuxt frontend¶
The upstream rport / openrport projects shipped a web frontend, but only as a prebuilt JavaScript bundle. The source for that frontend was never released as FOSS. We could not have forked it even if we wanted to, because the source was not available.
The frontend in ProxiPort's frontend/ is original work: a SvelteKit
SPA written from scratch by Proximile LLC, in TypeScript, against the
existing REST API. It is AGPL-licensed along with the rest of the tree.
Names and attribution¶
"RPort" and "openrport" are names used by the upstream projects. ProxiPort is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by RealVNC Limited, CloudRadar GmbH, or the openrport authors. "ProxiPort" is the project name used by Proximile LLC.
Why AGPL?¶
The upstream rport / openrport tree is MIT-licensed and remains so as
imported — the inherited MIT notice in LICENSE-MIT is
the authoritative attribution for that code. The MIT licence permits
relicensing of the combined work as long as the original notice is
preserved, which it is.
We chose AGPL-3.0-or-later for the combined work for two reasons:
- Network-use protection. ProxiPort is a server. AGPL is the licence specifically designed to ensure that users interacting with a modified server over the network get the right to its source. Permissive licences (MIT, Apache) do not give that guarantee, and the one thing we are not interested in repeating is the cycle of FOSS server projects being closed-sourced once they reach a useful state.
- No closed forks of ProxiPort itself. If someone wants to build commercial features on top of ProxiPort, they may, but the AGPL ensures their modifications to ProxiPort itself flow back. The inherited MIT code is unaffected — anyone who wants the permissively-licensed upstream remains free to take it directly from openrport.
If you find a problem¶
If you find a file in this tree that is not FOSS, is missing attribution, or you believe is licensed incorrectly, please open an issue. Attribution bugs are bugs and we will fix them.