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HashiCorp adopts Business Source License

hashicorp.com

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Re: HashiCorp adopts Business Source License

#231

Post by whimsicalism »

Terretta wrote: post #179
paxys wrote: post #171

At this point if you are actively spending time and effort contributing to any open source project while not being affiliated with (and getting paid by) the company that manages it, know that you are being taken for a ride. Your contributions are eventually going to be moved under a non-open license so the company in question can secure their revenue stream and you can do nothing about it.

Or, unlike closed products, you're getting to bet on a product that can be made to the way you need it to, as literally as possible. Think how difficult it is to get most companies to listen to your needs, much less ship what you need, versus being able to contribute your own pull request and have it merged. Why should this mean the source owner deserves any less of a product revenue than the company that won't let y…

Sure but then just go with the BSL from the start. Relicensing where you know ahead of time you are going to is icky

Re: HashiCorp adopts Business Source License

#232

Post by Galanwe »

CrLf wrote: post #229

Over the years, I think most people came to understand "open source" as something closer to "free software". However, that's clearly not the case for projects controlled by a single entity that require copyright assignments from contributors. Copyright assignments are put in place for exactly this (allowing a single entity to relicense the whole codebase unilaterally based on their own interests), and we should maybe…

Why?

"Open source" has a clear meaning: the source code is open.

It does not imply that the source is free to see, free to modify or free to fork.

I'm pro open source, but I also have no problem that said source is not copyable, redistributable, etc.

To me open source is about _knowledge_ of how something is done. Period.

Re: HashiCorp adopts Business Source License

#233

Post by cstejerean »

Arnavion wrote: post #189
paxys wrote: post #171

At this point if you are actively spending time and effort contributing to any open source project while not being affiliated with (and getting paid by) the company that manages it, know that you are being taken for a ride. Your contributions are eventually going to be moved under a non-open license so the company in question can secure their revenue stream and you can do nothing about it.

No, it's not as bad as that. You retain copyright over your changes and have the say in whether they can be relicensed or not, unless you signed your copyright away via a CLA or similar. So you just have to not sign CLAs and not contribute to codebases that require CLAs.

I don't think that's true for anything with a permissive license, only contributions to copyleft licenses. If I contribute code to something under the GPL then my contribution can only ever be distributed under something that is compatible with the terms of the GPL, the company cannot restrict those rights further in a new license without my consent to relicense.

If I contribute to something with a permissive license then it doesn't prevent the company from releasing new versions of the project under the BSL. The only restrictions on the permissive license is the copyright notices have to be included.

Re: HashiCorp adopts Business Source License

#234

Post by reilly3000 »

swyx wrote: post #162
reilly3000 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Upbound’s Crossplane is the best positioned here. It’s an easy migration path and far more sane way to manage state.

could you say more about what hashicorp products Crossplane compares to/or doesnt?

Sure, Crossplane leverages the K8s control plane for managing desired state for systems outside of the kubernetes cluster. It functions in a very similar fashion to terraform but it’s storing its own state in etcd instead of another state store. That makes GitOps + Crossplane play really nicely together and avoid the extra complexity that happens with terraform apply operations. They have a terraform wrapper provider for importing existing config and state.

It’s really nice to have infra and apps flow through the same pipes.

Re: HashiCorp adopts Business Source License

#235

Post by mindB »

randmeerkat wrote: post #214
andrewstuart2 wrote: post #167

That's pretty disappointing. I personally haven't used much beyond vault (I've used but not enjoyed or built anything on terraform), but this is pretty diametrically opposed to what I appreciated most about hashicorp products. Heck, I've even contributed a chunk of the code I use the most from vault (Cert management) and now I'm going to have to reevaluate whether I can attempt to use that service for customers going…

> 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.

>Literally nothing has changed

This is super disingenuous in a world where things like the GPL exist and any other license that prevents you from putting further restrictions on the combined product.

Re: HashiCorp adopts Business Source License

#236

Post by vmatsiiako »

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…

If so, you can check out Infisical (https://github.com/Infisical/infisical) as an open source alternative to Vault. The absolute majority of our codebase is licensed under MIT and we have no intentions to change that.

Disclaimer: I'm one of the founders.

Re: HashiCorp adopts Business Source License

#237

Post by kam »

lucasfcosta wrote: post #161

It’s really interesting when someone takes contributions under the MPL license for years only to relicense later under a restrictive license. IMO they should just avoid open-sourcing the cloud platform if they want to sell it. Also, why not just have gone with GPL since the beginning to at least benefit from the repackaging too?

They didn't take contributions under the MPL. They required their CLA too, giving them the rights to do this.

Contributors should consider it as a red flag when a project isn't willing to accept inbound contributions under the same terms as they grant to others.

Re: HashiCorp adopts Business Source License

#238

Post by TheRealPomax »

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…

But your contributions stopped being "your" contributions the moment you signed off on them being merged into the vault codebase. Why would they owe you anything when you already indicated you were cool with the fact that you didn't want anything in return by contributing?

This change protects the project from getting outright shut down because huge companies use it to extract value without some of that value going into guaranteeing the project stays supported. If you contributed to it, the minuscule chunk you get is "it keeps existing and you get to keep using it" instead of "this is not worth our time, we're sunsetting this".

Re: HashiCorp adopts Business Source License

#239

Post by tensor »

eppp wrote: post #10
Exuma wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Out of curiosity what is your definition of a freeloader? Is someone who’s been coding but hasn’t made a single OSS commit a freeloader ?

I would imagine that its someone who builds a profitable offering on the back of OSS and doesn't give back anything.

So every person who uses Linux for work and doesn't make a kernel contribution is a freeloader? A plant shop keeper running Linux on their work computer is a freeloader? I don't think that's even the intent of the GNU movement let alone all of open source.

Re: HashiCorp adopts Business Source License

#240

Post by dragonwriter »

CrLf wrote: post #229

Over the years, I think most people came to understand "open source" as something closer to "free software". However, that's clearly not the case for projects controlled by a single entity that require copyright assignments from contributors. Copyright assignments are put in place for exactly this (allowing a single entity to relicense the whole codebase unilaterally based on their own interests), and we should maybe…

IF they have a license that meets the Open Source Definition, the fact that someone has the right (whether its a single owner is the only committer to the main project, or a person or entity who requires copyright assignment before merging outside submissions) has the right to subsequently issue versions with a different license does not change that.

So, no, I don’t see a CLA for an otherwise open source project transforming it into something other than open source.

And, if it did, we’d have to have a serious conversation about the “or any later version” clause of the GPL and how it makes all software using it not open source.

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