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Comment by wyldfire | Hacker News Reader

> including without limitation fees for hosting or consulting/ support services related to the Software

Wow! That seems like a mistake. This casts too wide a net and catches more than it should.

> ... product or service whose value derives, entirely or substantially, from the functionality of the Software...

Ugh. Instead of unambiguous freedom-granting terms, this leaves it up to a court to help determine this vague notion of the product or service's "value".

Steer clear of these license terms!

EDIT: deleted request for OSI to clarify

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If I am running a CRUD app for some business domain, does its value derive "substantially" from the functionality of the underlying database? Could a lawyer argue that because one of Slack's major selling points is the speed with which messages are delivered, its value derives "substantially" from whatever technology they use to enable pub-sub?

Even if Redis Labs wouldn't be so aggressive against Slack, could we count on that if they were acquired by Oracle, or if their acquirer were acquired by Oracle? In such a case, Slack would be in a pickle - they might be liable for having used the software without a license historically, which is in many ways a worse situation vs. having had to negotiate a commercial license in the first place. It's an insidious gotcha term wearing the cloak of open source, and thus it tarnishes the brand of the entire open source community.

> Wow! That seems like a mistake. This casts too wide a net and catches more than it should.

It catches everything. Commons Clause makes the software proprietary.

Why do you want OSI to weigh in? The license describes itself as not Open Source, according to https://commonsclause.com/

> It this “Open Source”? [sic]

> No, at least not by the official definition set forth by the OSD. Applying the Clause to an open source project will transition the project to “source-available”.

Good point. I will delete this request.

It's already not open source software (OSS). That said, if some people might think it's OSS, then it'd be useful for the OSI and others to make that even clearer.

For hosting, I can see how that may be a useful clause.

But for consulting or support? That's even worse than the usual terms for proprietary software. As far as I know, I can offer consulting services for Microsoft or Apple software without breaking any license.

Similarly for software that builds upon proprietary software. As far as I know, this is commonly allowed without any additional license.

Or am I missing something?

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