Your repository is public. Anyone can read the paid modules, fork them, and build them. So what actually separates the Community edition from the paid one?

In open core and Fair Source projects the answer is not code secrecy. It is the license key : a signed entitlement that tells one self-hosted installation which paid features it is allowed to use. This post walks through how to design that boundary so it stays fair to operators and practical for you.

Open core vs Fair Source in one paragraph

Classic open core keeps the core under an open source license and puts commercial modules in a separate directory (often ee/ ) with their own terms. Fair Source goes a step further: the commercial code is readable, but the license limits certain uses of current versions and converts to a permissive license later.…