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HashiCorp adopts Business Source License

hashicorp.com

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Re: HashiCorp adopts Business Source License

#531

Post by davidgerard »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #59
version_five wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ideology is great until people need to eat. That’s what revenue is for That sounds like what the GP comment is saying. If someone said "turns out open source doesn't work for our business model" it's hard to argue with. If instead they talk about "evolving open source models" and whatnot, it feels like they want the best of both worlds. It's been happening a lot recently that companies pretend they are "open sourci…

I argue the window is moving as to what “open source” means out of survival. Source available is the new open source, and what young technologists will grow up grinding on. You’ll have folks complain about it during the transition (as happens with any Overton window sort of event), but they’ll move on eventually and a new crop of tech industry will grow up with this as the new normal. Change is inevitable, broadly sp…

> I argue the window is moving as to what “open source” means

This has been the case since the 2000s, as companies want the branding without the openness. This is extremely well worn by now.

I argue that companies who want it both ways are continuing to throw up chaff. But we know this chaff extremely well.

None of this discussion is new. "open core" has always been a euphemism for "proprietary."

Re: HashiCorp adopts Business Source License

#532

Post by sebastianz »

pcthrowaway wrote: post #489
sebastianz wrote: post #470

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think "open core", which most of those are, is somehow better than BSL? > pretty much every crypto company in the blockchain/web3 space The entire "space" has yet to prove to be sustainable. Most of these are hype-driven borderline scams, I would not list them in a _sustainable open source business_ context :)

> Why do you think "open core", which most of those are, is somehow better than BSL? Firstly, I don't have a problem with BSL. I do think in general it's a bit of a slap in the face to build a business on the backs of volunteer contributors, and then close-source all your codebases which are comprised of their work. Sure, when people contributed, they signed a CLA which gives Hashicorp the right to relicense the work…

> I'd give Uniswap pretty good odds of outliving the majority of YC startups.

The majority of YC startups are definitely not sustainable.

Probably even most of the successful ones are not sustainable, they make empty sustainability promises hoping to get bought by and end up on "our amazing journey" lists.

Re: HashiCorp adopts Business Source License

#533

Post by davidgerard »

hkt wrote: post #516
dragonwriter wrote: post #504

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The OSI Open Source Definition and the FSF Free Software Definition are for most practical purposes identical (and most licenses meet both or neither); historically, the Open Source and Free Software communities have somewhat different reasons for preferring the same thing, but the things are the same.

Not so: open source licenses tend not to have any clauses requiring reciprocation, free software licenses do. Think MIT or BSD vs GPL.

I urge you to look up the open source definition at OSI. It doesn't say that at all.

Re: HashiCorp adopts Business Source License

#534

Post by davidgerard »

sanderjd wrote: post #448
pessimizer wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I argue the window is moving as to what “open source” means out of survival. I don't think this is happening at all. Open source means the same thing it's always meant. Some people are just retreating from open source. Which is fine, they should be writing Free Software anyway if they want the world to have it, or use proprietary licenses if they don't. Otherwise very wealthy people will live on your back.

My perspective is more like the parent's. As someone who has grown up along with open source, I've found it surprising recently how up in arms people are about how critical the ability for anyone to commercialize a project is for the definition of open source. To me, I care a lot about whether I can see how software is implemented, and modify it for my own use, but it has never really occurred to me that I need to ha…

> why bother with this fight?

Because companies keep bringing this fight.

Re: HashiCorp adopts Business Source License

#536

Post by bootsmann »

andrewstuart2 wrote: post #228
randmeerkat wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's pretty disappointing. From the article: “End users can continue to copy, modify, and redistribute the code for all non-commercial and commercial use, except where providing a competitive offering to HashiCorp.” Literally nothing has changed, this isn’t disappointing, it’s smart, they’re protecting themselves against cloud providers that have repeatedly abused the goodwill of the open source community.

Maybe you missed my last sentence. I've been hacking on and off for a couple years on a side project I'd like to monetize, to capture some of my value add, while also giving back. (It's sorta "if you build it they will come" at this point tbh so I don't necessarily expect it to work). My project is sort of "OSS platform as a service" only I just deploy it for you and teach you to run it yourself, while jumping on a c…

You can ask them to license vault to you under different terms, they go quite in-depth about this in their FAQ.

Don't know how much will come of it, but it is worth a shot.

Re: HashiCorp adopts Business Source License

#537

Post by CrimsonRain »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #320
davorak wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is purely a way for HashiCorp to ensure they are the only ones who can commercialize these formerly open source projects. Which is fine. But just go closed source, then, and own that, instead of trying to have it both ways. Pragmatically I would rather bsl than closed source and I am more likely to use a product that is bsl, with reasonable transfer time and license, than a 100% closed source product.

I'd rather have proprietary than "almost open source". Both aren't useful, but only one attempts to damage the common understanding of what "Open Source" means.

You do realize that it is people like you who are turning FOSS in to OSS, then claiming BSL (and non-OSI Stuff) are not OSS and blaming others for damaging understanding?

Re: HashiCorp adopts Business Source License

#538

Post by davidgerard »

pydry wrote: post #183
Macha wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're free to decide open source isn't working for you. (Well, assuming you're not using any open source software that has decided on viral licenses because that's the payment _they_ expect) You're not free to decide your source available model is open source and reap the marketing benefits of open source without the costs.

I think these projects should just dual license as AGPL and BPL/EPL. That way all the "it's not really technically open source" complainers couldn't day that its not technically open source. It wouldnt substantively change anything of course, but that's somewhat the point. BPL/EPL/SSPL was always fully within the spirit of open source, it just pissed off the same large corporations who also can't stand the AGPL.

> BPL/EPL/SSPL was always fully within the spirit of open source

It literally is not, and they only exist in order to not be.

Re: HashiCorp adopts Business Source License

#539

Post by INTPenis »

wlonkly wrote: post #243
INTPenis wrote: post #170

License ethics discussion aside, this is going to cause mayhem! :D I know of at least one massive global company using vault in production, for free as a backend to their own password manager frontend. My own $dayjob was just going to set it up actually, I guess we'll have to re-evaluate that now. I can't even imagine how many companies use vault in production.

But the license prohibits competitive use, not commercial use, right? So using Vault in production is no problem if you're using it as part of the infrastructure of a company that isn't competing with Hashicorp. Using it as a backend for a password manager... more of a grey area, but Hashicorp doesn't offer a password manager.

The very first lines of the license text say that you're permitted to use the software for "non-production use".

Re: HashiCorp adopts Business Source License

#540

Post by j1elo »

dragonwriter wrote: post #520
j1elo wrote: post #515

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The rule is simple: If you want to relicense a project, then you need approval from all the individual copyright holders. It does not matter if you are relicensing between permissive OSS licenses such as, for example, from Apache 2.0 to MIT. They are different licenses, so you need permission for the change. That's why OSS is commonly called a " Community ". The software's copyright belongs to the hands of all the co…

> What a CLA usually does is grant perpetual permission to do anything with the code, including to relicense without asking. Practically speaking, CLAs grant full ownership to a single hand. No, they don’t. CLAs don’t transfer ownership.

What CLAs do, is explained in the first half of the sentence. What it means in practice (in the context of talking about relicensing) is hence what "practically speaking" means.

Anyway I've edited it to avoid using the word "ownership", which might confuse the intended meaning.

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