Avandar Is Now Open Source

Avandar is now open source and available on GitHub. Actually, it's been publicly open source since June 2025 but we needed a few months to make sure we had the right processes in place before publicly announcing it. So this is it. This is the announcement.

The Avandar codebase is now open source under the Common Public Attribution License, Version 1.0. This license is a Digital Public Goods-approved license that requires visible attribution to the original developer (Avandar Labs), as well as requiring that any modifications be documented and released under this same license.

Let's also take this moment to make one thing clear: being an open source product does not make it inherently ethical. It is all too easy to openwash a product to make something look far more ethical and transparent than it actually is. Really, all it takes is the click of a button on GitHub to switch a repository from "Private" to "Public" to falsely claim a technology is "open" when it is far from it. And, on the flip side, it should not be a requirement for any social sector technology to be open source just to be considered "good." This dogmatic belief can harm nonprofits and the social sector more than it can help. What is far more important is adopting a practice of openness and transparency. An open source codebase is merely one of many considerations of ethical software development.

So, let's talk about the ethical practice of software development. I am 100% committed to making sure Avandar follows the Principles for Digital Development to ensure we work with global communities in a people-first way. As a sidenote, this is also a significant reason you often see first-person pronouns in our blog posts, using "I" rather than "we." Even though Avandar is no longer a one-person company as it was in June 2025 (we have now tripled in size to a powerhouse 3-person team), it's important to me that anyone reading this understands that the company is composed of individuals, all of us with our own values and decisions. To build Avandar as a people-first company, I want to make sure that it is always individuals building for other individuals, and not an abstract concept of a company trying to help an abstract concept of a community. In addition, I've found that using "we" excessively when discussing business decisions can become an easy way to avoid accountability. When a decision is communicated as a collective and an abstract "we," it becomes difficult to hold anyone accountable.

So, having said all of that, I recognize that publishing Avandar as an open source product is simply the first step. In order to truly create open and transparent practices, I am committing to building Avandar in the open.

Building in the open

Building in the open means that we are adopting a transparent and open approach to the process of software development that encourages public participation, rather than simply seeing "open" as a descriptor you can attach to a completed product. This means that it is not just our codebase that will be open, but also our decisions, processes, methodologies, and thinking. Here's a list of everything we will be transparent about:

• We will publish regular updates in this blog with our product updates.
• We will send out newsletters with updates whenever we release a new version.
• We will regularly request feedback and offer direct channels to communicate with us (such as Discord and GitHub Discussions).
• We will publish decisions on product and company direction, including our product roadmap.
• We will explain why we made those decisions.
• We will publish explanations on our architecture and innovative methodologies.
• We will explain our thinking processes and how we came up with them rather than just the end result.

"That's a lot you're giving away!" some might say. True, but we aren't trying to "check a box" here just to say we're transparent. I actively hope that our transparency can be of more service to the sector than just our software. I don't believe that software alone can change things. If our processes, methodologies, challenges, and how we overcame them, can help other mission-driven organizations make better decisions, then I believe we've succeeded as a company.

However, the concerns over giving too much away is still a fair one, because we can't help anyone if we stop existing as a business. So, in upcoming articles I will answer some of the most common questions we've already received. Some of these questions include:

• Why are you open sourcing Avandar?
• How will you build a sustainable business?
• How can I help?

We hope you learn something from our updates and we hope you even find things you disagree with so you can talk to us and we can build something even better for the social sector. Above all, we hope you join us for this ride.