No open-core asterisks
The complete free build (record, transcribe, label speakers, take notes, summarise, chat) is published under AGPL-3.0. There is no community edition that withholds core features, and no code that ships in the binary but not in the repo.
What AGPL-3.0 means in practice
AGPL-3.0 requires that anyone who distributes a modified version, or runs a modified version as a network service, publish their changes under the same terms. For a desktop app with no server component, the practical effect is simple: you can read the code, build it yourself, and fork it. Any fork that ships to others must publish its source.
The moat here is not hidden code. It is the hosted sync service, the trademark, and the rate at which the product moves.
Contributing
Every commit must carry a Signed-off-by line
(git commit -s). The sign-off is your declaration under
the Developer Certificate of Origin
that you have the right to submit the work under the project licence.
Submitting a pull request comes with an inbound licence grant: it is what lets the same code carry both the open licence and the licence used in the hosted connected tier, without a separate CLA step. The exact terms are the authoritative ones in CONTRIBUTING.md. Read those before contributing.
Bug reports and fixes, documentation, ASR/diarisation accuracy
improvements, and build-system work are all useful. Feature additions
that change the data model or the MCP tool surface benefit from a
discussion issue first; the architecture constraints are strict (see architecture/ in the repo).
Trademark
"Minutist" and the nib-mark logo are the project's marks. The AGPL-3.0 licence gives you the right to use, modify, and distribute the software; it does not give you the right to use the name or logo on a fork.
If you fork Minutist and distribute it, whether commercially or not, you must rename the product and remove the logo. This is not unusual: the same rule applies to Firefox, VLC, and most other open-source projects with recognised marks.
Building on Minutist's code for internal use, research, or a clearly attributed study does not require renaming. The full permitted-use list is in TRADEMARKS.md.