action to empower community contributors.

[aleeusgr]

Empowering open-source contributors through business-friendly licensing involves adopting permissive licenses like MIT, BSL or FSL.
Clear licensing terms attract more contributors, reassure businesses, and promote a healthy ecosystem by balancing openness and commercial viability.
Regularly engaging with the community, providing support, and promoting transparent governance also enhance collaboration and contributor empowerment.

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_models_for_open-source_software

[aleeusgr]

What are the alternatives:

• https://mariadb.com/bsl-faq-adopting/#whatis
• https://techcrunch.com/2023/11/20/with-functional-source-license-sentry-wants-to-grant-developers-freedom-without-harmful-free-riding/

Sentry, a company that provides app performance monitoring services, has introduced a new software license called the Functional Source License (FSL). This license is designed to grant freedom to SaaS firms without allowing harmful free-riding. The FSL is an evolution of the Business Source License (BSL) previously used by Sentry. It addresses some of the limitations of the BSL, such as the time limit, and aims to balance user freedom and developer sustainability. The FSL does not include an additional use grant and has a time limit of two years, after which associated products will automatically transition to an Apache 2.0 or MIT license. This move has sparked a debate within the open source community, with some criticizing Sentry for abandoning the open source model that initially made them successful. Thierry Carrez, a general manager at the Open Infrastructure Foundation, has expressed concerns that the FSL, like the BSL, restricts developers' self-sovereignty in their technical choices and is a form of proprietary gatekeeping disguised as open source.

Citations:
[1] https://techcrunch.com/2023/11/20/with-functional-source-license-sentry-wants-to-grant-developers-freedom-without-harmful-free-riding/#:~:text=Yet%20another%20software%20license%20i

promote:

• https://docs.intersectmbo.org/intersect-overview/working-on-cardano
• https://github.com/input-output-hk/cardano-engineering-handbook
• https://github.com/cardano-foundation/developer-portal

[aleeusgr]

Archive: BSL OSC 2 Feb 2023

https://mariadb.com/bsl-faq-adopting/#what-is

The Business Source License (BSL) is a middle ground of sorts between open source and end-user licenses.
BSL prohibits the licensed code from being used in production — without explicit approval from the licensor.
After a set period of time, either four years or an earlier period set by the licensor, the BSL automatically converts to an open source license of the licensor's choosing. However, the open source license must be compatible with GPL, and it usually applies only to specific software versions on a rolling basis, based on the date of release.

Response: The Business Source License (BSL) is a type of software license used by IBM for its products and services. It allows businesses to use, modify, and distribute IBM's software within their organization while ensuring that they comply with specific terms and conditions set forth by IBM. These licenses are designed to protect the intellectual property rights of IBM and ensure that customers can utilize the software in a manner consistent with their business needs.

It does stretch the definition of "Open Source" away from the common open source definition principles. It might not matter for some friendly-managed BSL projects but where do you draw the line on what restrictions are acceptable and still considered as open? Right now the current definition provides that line.

It presents a fundamental ideological change of Open Source software for many people. The current definition protects the code and its use over the protections of its owners/business/authors. Adding non-OSD restrictions flips this to put the business/owners/authors first. Again, I have nothing against that, but it's against what many would consider as Open Source.

Sources

• https://www.reddit.com/r/opensource/comments/yj27pl/thoughts_on_the_business_source_license/
• https://fossa.com/blog/business-source-license-requirements-provisions-history/
• https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/drawbacks-hashicorps-business-source-license-implications-open
• Prompt: what is the business source license?

Originally posted by @aleeusgr in #80 (comment)

[aleeusgr]

[aleeusgr]

moved to minutes