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Comment by joshuaissac | Hacker News Reader

> If your business model relies on no-one else using your software to compete with you, don't open-source the software.

I think this is the point of the FSL. Businesses with the business model you described can use it instead of open sourcing the software, and the terms switch to an open source licence only after two years.

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Sure, but then just do proprietary and then release the software under Apache. What's the actual point of the FSL?

Proprietary wouldn't allow for free, non-competing use of the software during the 2 year period. The FSL does.

Well, it does up until the point you decide an awkward user is "Competing" and then you start legal action :)

I wish the article had spelled this out a little better, but the reason many businesses have open source licenses for their software is to assuage their customers’ concerns about lock in and permanence (will your startup be around later? Will you jack up the price? Don’t worry, it’s open source). The downside, of course, is that it’s harder to sell stuff if it’s also available for free. I believe the theory here is that this license promises to open later to fix the lock in fear, but is closed now to create scarcity. So under its logic, it’s different from simply switching to Apache later because it’s the promise that’s doing the heavy lifting.

I’m not sure it’s actually a good idea, just that I think I understand the intended logic of it.

I think the direction of your comment is right, with two caveats:

> but is closed now to create scarcity

1. It's not about scarcity. The software has always been given away for free for non-competing use (it was licensed under BUSL for 4+ years with a non-compete Additional Use Grant before this change).

Sentry's cloud offering (sentry.io) has always "competed" with its own free self-hosted users, and the new license doesn't change that. It's strictly about preventing free-riders who monetize the work without giving back.

> it’s different from simply switching to Apache later because it’s the promise that’s doing the heavy lifting

2. I agree, but I want to clarify that it's not a promise (which could be broken). It's a grant that is written into the source code itself (in the LICENSE file). If you possess a copy of the code today with this LICENSE file, in two years that copy will be Apache 2.0.

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