Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't see how CockroachDB ends up in your list of DBs that lead to vendor lock-in or being unable to run a cluster locally, because it's open source and you can run your own cluster. Is there something about it I haven't spotted that puts it in that list?
CockroachDB is licensed under BSL, so it is not really open source rather a source open or source available project. I checked their LICENSE file [0] and it mentions bunch of other open source licenses with BSL. I randomly checked a code file [1] and it seems the code is licensed under BSL. [0] - https://github.com/cockroachdb/cockroach/blob/2c4e2c6/LICENS... [1] - https://github.com/cockroachdb/cockroach/blob/2c4e2c…
TL;DR is the source is available but you can't use it in production without paying a fee. However versions older than 4 years become truly open source, so you can use old versions for free.
Interesting compromise. Might be better than "open core".