It is with great sadness we announce that our OpenAthena for Android and OpenAthena iOS software will no longer be available as fully-free and open source software. They will remain available as a free application download from the Apple App Store and Google Play store however for the foreseeable future however. Our trusted government, military, and commercial end uses can still request source code access by emailing support@theta.limited
The ecosystem of drone and remote sensing software has changed significantly since we started the OpenAthena project as open source software over 5 years ago in 2020. What started as a mere theory on the disruptive effect of small UAS and real-time geospatial intelligence has now become widely-accepted conventional wisdom evidenced through the war in Ukraine. The remote sensing capability gap for civilian and commercial users has also narrowed significantly in this time as well. Many new companies have entered the space with high quality solutions. Competition in this sector has never been as healthy as it is today.
With great consternation, we came to the conclusion that maintaining any version of the OpenAthena project as fully open source is not a sustainable business practice in this industry. Already we’ve observed multiple firms re-using portions of the source code in their own proprietary closed-source products, completely out of compliance with its AGPLv3.0 software license and our intent for software integrity and user freedom. Most of our research and development in the past year which has enhanced the accuracy, effectiveness, and interoperability of the OpenAthena software has already been limited to our closed source (but open interface and architecture) OpenAthena Core product for this reason.
This policy change will enable us to bring some of our significant new features and enhancements to our free consumer software products without jeopardizing our bottom line for our B2B products. We are still strongly committed to the OpenAthena software being something that can be inspected, audited, modified, and re-distributed by trusted users according to open source principles. We will be examining new software licenses and distribution models which allow our most trusted users to remain able to do so.
The policy change also enables us to develop significant new features for the defense market, which we have previously avoided due to ITAR law restrictions and concerns of use by foreign threat actors. In the coming months we will be making available for purchase a new premium version of OpenAthena for Android with significant enhancements solely for the U.S. domestic defense sector.
For more information, please email us at support@theta.limited