The Future of Jellyswitch

When we set out to create Jellyswitch, it was with the idea that amazing coworking spaces deserved amazing technology to help them provide the best possible experience for their members. 

Coworking is more than just a business model for commercial office space. It is a movement. It is about community. It is about collaboration. It is about showing the world that how and where we work can be part of living a better life. 

This year’s pandemic has challenged us all. For the coworking world, it has shuttered many of our physical spaces, some permanently. We have all been drastically affected, personally and professionally, as we have sheltered in place, homeschooled children, struggled with a health and mental health crisis, and watched as this storm continues to change what our day to day normal is. 

What it hasn’t shut down is our communities. Many coworking spaces have worked tirelessly to continue supporting their members virtually, true to the heart of the coworking movement.

Serving coworking spaces has changed. The financial hit due to physical space closures has hurt so many in this industry. And while the future of coworking as a result of a rapid shift to remote work looks bright, it will still take time for the shift to be fully realized in our physical spaces. 

To stay true to our why of helping coworking space operators provide the best possible experience for their members and communities in their physical spaces, we too are shifting. 

So here’s the big news…

Specifically, effective immediately, the entire Jellyswitch platform will be open sourced under the AGPLv3 license. You can find it here: https://github.com/jellyswitch/jellyswitch

What does this mean for our current customers?

Service will continue uninterrupted. We have a trusted hosting partner who will continue to operate their Jellyswitch mobile app and infrastructure. More information will be emailed directly to customers in the coming weeks.

What is this AGPLv3 license?

Its an open source license that allows for modification and commercial use, but that requires all modifications to also remain licensed under the same license. Read more about AGPLv3 here.

What does this mean for the coworking community?

It means that any space operator will have free access to Jellyswitch. It means that our community can help improve it, modify it, and use it for our spaces as we need it to best serve our members. It means that Jellyswitch can evolve with the industry, for the industry. It means it can get even more secure, even faster, and if you so desire, you can even modify it to your heart’s content. Releasing the Jellyswitch code under an open source license is a proven path to truly collaborative development and technological innovation. 

We are so thankful for the support and feedback that has gotten Jellyswitch to this point, and excited to see how it grows.

For the love of coworking, 

Dave Paola & Jamie Orr, Jellyswitch co-founders