Anonymous Usage Data Collection: Ensuring Axon Framework's Sustainable Future

Fifteen years ago, when I started my weekend experiment, I couldn't imagine that it would become the backbone for the large-scale enterprise systems it powers today.

But it also made me wonder: what's the right balance between our responsibility to support these critical systems and the community's role in sustaining the project that makes them possible?

Finding that balance isn't straightforward. Through conversations with other project maintainers and open source company founders, I've learned we're all wrestling with the same fundamental question: how do we keep development sustainable while also keeping it generally available to the community? We're determined to chart a course that honors what developers love about open source while ensuring Axon can thrive for another fifteen years.

The Reality We're Facing

Axon Framework has grown to power mission-critical systems across industries worldwide, from innovative startups to Fortune 500 enterprises. Organizations rely on Axon to handle their most essential business processes—processing financial transactions, managing supply chains, orchestrating healthcare systems, and capturing valuable business data that drives decision-making worth millions of dollars.

It started as a small research project about 15 years ago.  I never imagined it would become the foundation for surgical tool tracking systems, financial trading platforms, or national assessment systems. Yet here we are, and while we're incredibly proud of this adoption, it's created an unexpected challenge.

Many large enterprises derive substantial business value from Axon Framework without contributing back to the project,  whether through code contributions, well-researched issue reports, or financial support. These organizations often depend on Axon for systems that are central to their operations and competitive advantage, yet the framework's development remains largely unfunded by its enterprise users.

We know this isn't unique to us. Open source software isn't free—maybe the enterprise didn't pay for it, but someone certainly did. In our case, that's been our team sacrificing evenings and weekends, and AxonIQ investing significant resources to keep the project moving forward. The question we're grappling with is: how do we continue this for another 15 years?

Our Approach: Transparency First

Rather than making drastic license changes like many other open source companies have done, we're taking a measured approach that starts with understanding our community better. We believe in being completely upfront about what we're doing and why.

We're implementing anonymous usage data collection across Axon Framework installations. This isn't just about gathering statistics—it's about making informed decisions that benefit everyone in our ecosystem.

What We Collect and Why

The system automatically sends anonymized information about your Axon Framework usage to AxonIQ servers, including:

• Geographic information: General location data to understand global adoption patterns
• Corporate domains: To identify enterprise usage (anonymized)
• Environment details: Operating system and Java version information
• Module usage: Which Axon modules and versions are being used in your applications

We want to be clear about what we don't collect:

• No personal information
• No application-specific data
• No business logic
• No domain-specific details from your applications 

We only gather technical information about the Axon Framework modules themselves.

This data helps us understand how Axon Framework is being used in the real world, allowing us to make informed decisions about future development priorities, resource allocation, and the sustainability measures we need to implement. Additionally, this information will help us ensure compliance with licensing terms for our future commercial modules.

What You Get in Return

As a team responsible for the foundation of thousands of enterprise Axon Framework installations worldwide, we've thought long and hard about how to ensure the framework remains secure and that community members receive critical updates about security vulnerabilities. A few years ago, the Java community was shocked by the Log4J vulnerability (CVE-2021-44228) that resulted in security breaches across countless organizations—from financial institutions to government agencies.

As an immediate benefit for participating in this data collection, you'll receive:

• Critical security alerts: Immediate notifications about vulnerabilities that require urgent attention
• Important updates: Information about patches and fixes for your specific Axon modules
• Compatibility guidance: Version compatibility information to prevent integration issues

Given the mission-critical nature of systems powered by Axon Framework, we consider rapid security communication essential. In an era where supply chain vulnerabilities can have devastating impacts, staying informed isn't just convenient—it's a business necessity.

Opting Out

We respect your choice to participate or not. If you prefer to disable anonymous usage data collection, you can do so using any of these methods:

• JVM system property: -Daxoniq.update-check.disabled=true
• Environment variable: AXONIQ_UPDATE_CHECKER_DISABLED=true
• Configuration file: Create $HOME/.axoniq/update-checker.properties with content disabled=true

Note that opting out means you won't receive update notifications or security alerts.

Why This Matters for Axon's Future

This anonymous usage data collection is essential for our upcoming transition to a hybrid model where we'll offer both open source and commercial components:

• Core Axon Framework: Remains fully open source under our current permissive license

• Enterprise modules: New modules under a more restrictive Source-Available License for advanced enterprise features

This approach allows us to continue serving the entire community while creating sustainable revenue streams from organizations that derive significant business value from Axon Framework.

Our Commitment

We remain deeply committed to the open source principles that have guided Axon Framework for the past 15 years. The core framework that developers rely on will continue to be freely available and open source.

This is honestly a difficult balance to strike. We want to avoid going fully commercial like some other open source projects have done, but we also need to ensure Axon's future. We believe transparency and community involvement in these decisions is the best way forward. By being upfront about our data collection and business model evolution, we're building a sustainable future that allows us to accelerate development, improve documentation, provide better support, and introduce innovative features that benefit everyone in the Axon community.

Anonymous usage data collection represents our commitment to making informed, data-driven decisions about Axon Framework's future while maintaining the transparency and openness that our community values. We're not asking for blind trust—we're showing you exactly what we're doing and why.

For more information about our anonymous usage data collection, privacy practices, or licensing approach, visit our documentation or reach out to our team.