It seems like Lightbend have decided themselves to redefine what "Open Source" means for them, a slight warning sign of whats to come.
> Sadly, open source is prone to the infamous “Tragedy of the commons”, [...] This situation is not sustainable and one in which everyone eventually loses.
> So what does sustainable open source look like? I believe it’s where everyone—users and developers—contributes and are in it together, sharing accountability and ownership.
> This means that companies using the software for profit need to give something back, either code, documentation, community work, or money. In sustainable open source, participants feel the need and moral obligation to contribute.
They even go so far to say they believe BSL to be Open Source, which means they fundamentally misunderstand the idea behind Open Source:
> We believe the BSL 1.1 with our open source grants and Apache re-license is a form of productive and sustainable open source.
They also seem to not know of any big Apache projects that are sustainable, even though there are many examples out in the wild. Apparently none of those projects are sustainable, just because Lightbend didn't manage to actually get major contributors to their own project?
> Apache 2.0 is a very liberal license well suited for early, small open source projects establishing community.
> With Akka now considered critical infrastructure for many large organizations, the Apache 2.0 model becomes increasingly risky when a small company solely carries the maintenance effort.
Just because you didn't manage to build a company around a Open Source library/ecosystem, doesn't mean Open Source is not sustainable. It just means that your company is not sustainable. But I guess it's hard to blame yourself when you see others using your code without paying for it.