Which mode — and what the MIT license is for
Which mode should you run? One question decides it: do your learners need the library to remember them?
| Static mode | Database mode | |
|---|---|---|
| Content lives in | A public git repository | SQLite + admin panel |
| Publishing | git push | Visual editor |
| Accounts | None exist | Pseudonymous TOTP identities |
| Progress | Visitor's own browser | Across devices, server-side |
| Exams | Graded in the browser | Graded and recorded server-side |
| Certificates | — | Yes, with PDF and verification URL |
| Server state | None — disposable instance | /data volume — one instance |
| Hosting | Anywhere, serverless included | A machine with a disk (VPS) |
| Maintenance | None | Backups and upgrades (both easy) |
Three sketches, to make it concrete:
- A teacher publishing a course for anyone who finds it — static. No accounts to manage, no server to maintain, content versioned in git, hosting effectively free.
- A community school that wants learners to keep progress across devices and earn certificates — database mode on a small VPS. A few euros a month, one backup habit.
- Not sure yet — start static. It is the five-minute path, and a static library can migrate later by recreating its content through a database instance's admin panel. Many libraries never need accounts at all; you will know you need them when learners start asking to be remembered.
The license, and what it is for
Open Knowledge is released under the MIT license, one of the most permissive in existence. In plain terms it says: use this, copy it, modify it, redistribute it, even sell things built on it — just keep the copyright notice, and accept that it comes with no warranty. That permissiveness is deliberate. It is how open tools spread, and it guarantees something this course has cared about from the first lesson: your library depends on nobody's permission — not a vendor's, not a platform's, not even this project's.
But the project asks you to understand the difference between what the license allows and what the project is for. A license is law; a project also has a tradition. Open Knowledge was not built to power paywalled course platforms, knowledge-as-product businesses, or libraries that treat learners as customers to convert. It was built so that knowledge someone cared enough to curate could be given away well — in the tradition of the public library, of free software, of Wikipedia: the tradition its companion course traces across twenty-seven centuries. The license is a floor. The tradition is the compass.
If you have knowledge worth sharing, you now know everything needed to share it. Scaffold a repository, push it, deploy — and leave the door open behind you.