Docassemble is licensed under the MIT License. This means that a fork of the project could be distributed as non-free software.
Note that docassemble has a number of dependencies, which have various licenses of their own.
Some of these dependencies are Python packages that are installed automatically when the docassemble packages are installed using pip. Licenses used by Python libraries include the BSD License, Apache License, MIT License, Standard PIL License, Python Software Foundation License, ISC License, the LGPL, and the Zope Public License, among others, including variations on these standard licenses. To the best of the developer’s knowledge, none of the libraries on which docassemble depends is licensed under the GPL or any other license that would impair the licensing of docassemble under the MIT License.
Other dependencies are requirements that are expected to be available on the system. These dependencies include C libraries that are needed by some Python packages on which docassemble relies. To the best of the developer’s knowledge, none of these libraries is licensed under the GPL or any other license that would impair the licensing of docassemble under the MIT License.
In addition to depending on libraries, docassemble depends on certain applications that it calls using subprocess calls, including Pandoc, LaTeX, PDFtk, and ImageMagick. Some of these dependencies are licensed under the GNU Public License. The use of GPL-licensed software by docassemble using subprocess calls does not impair the licensing of docassemble under the MIT License. The Free Software Foundation explains that mere aggregation of GPL software with other software does not mean that the non-GPL software is covered by the GPL.
While the code of docassemble itself is licensed under the MIT License, note that this does not mean that a Docker image containing docassemble, its dependencies, and Linux support files, is a product wholly licensed under the MIT License. Each component of the image has its own license. The building of a Docker image is mere aggregation, so that the bundling of non-GPL software in a Docker image along with GPL software will not bring the non-GPL software under the GPL.
The docassemble interviews that you develop are “code” that you
can license as you wish. Docassemble interprets that code as
data. The code blocks in your docassemble interviews are
evaluated using Python’s eval() and exec() statements. These
code blocks, and any Python modules that you create and bundle
with your interviews, could potentially link to GPL-licensed Python
modules if you import them. These modules would load into the
WSGI process and become dynamically linked with your code.
Therefore, your importation of GPL-licensed software into your
docassemble interviews may bring your interview source code under
the GPL, which may not be what you want. As explained above,
docassemble does not depend on any GPL-licensed Python modules,
so this danger will only arise if you install additional modules.