Thoughts on non-compete open source licenses?
Hey, fellow devs.
What do think about licenses such as Business Source License?
https://github.com/getsentry/sentry/blob/master/LICENSE
Another example: CockroachDB https://www.cockroachlabs.com/blog/oss-relicensing-cockroachdb/
As far as I understand it - you can use this software for yourself but cannot compete with the licensor (offering it as SaaS for example)
It seems to be very interesting because I would like to publish the source code of what I'm working on when possible.
What do you think?
I'm thinking of just using a header comment like
Clear enough? Copyright is the default.
I've heard about that but what about people who will contribute new files to the project?
Technically I think something like that could work
Curious about this as well. Slater is SaaS, but I believe it must be 100% open source, front to back.
( Slater says "never run a closed-source program on your hardware, and never upload your secrets to a cloud..." )
But in any case, I guess we'll see more cases and more licenses like this one in the future.
Yep, I'm really trying to learn more about this since licenses like that could allow devs to open source their work and get all benefits of that and at the same time not worrying that somebody will just take their code and offer it as SaaS or something without their permit
The crucial detail that I think should be mentioned is that you can't compete with them unless you buy a license from them. Certainly they are entitled to set that term.