Open source
Licence
HeyNaija’s code is free software under the GNU Affero General Public License, version 3 or later (AGPL-3.0-or-later). This page explains what that means, and what it does not cover.
Last updated 3 November 2026
Draft. Published for the invite-only pilot so you can see how HeyNaija works. It has not been reviewed by a lawyer yet and may change; changes will be announced on the governance page. Text in [brackets] is still to be filled in.
The code
Under the AGPL, anyone may use, study, change and share HeyNaija’s code. In return:
- Anyone who shares it, changed or not, must share it under the same licence.
- Anyone who runs a changed version as a service for others must offer those users the source code of their version. This is what keeps a closed copy of HeyNaija from being run without giving its changes back.
The full licence text is in the LICENSE file with the code, and at gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.html.
Where the source is
The source code is public at github.com/HeyNaija/heynaija. HeyNaija runs the code on its main branch, and changes are proposed there as pull requests.
Code by others
HeyNaija is built with free software written by others. Two parts it includes carry licences of their own:
- chessground, the chess board on game pages, and chessops, which works out legal moves. Both are by the Lichess developers and licensed under the GNU General Public License, version 3 or later (GPL-3.0-or-later), which can be combined with the AGPL. Their source is at github.com/lichess-org/chessground and github.com/niklasf/chessops.
What the licence does not cover
- What members post. Your posts and images are yours, not covered by the code licence. Posts are public; see the privacy policy.
- The HeyNaija name and wordmark. A copy of the code is welcome, but it should not be presented as HeyNaija.