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Are you familiar with the TimescaleDB license[1]? It basically means open source but companies cannot just take the product and offer it as a (paid?) service. They are allowed to provide other services services that are built with timescale underneath but not offer the product itself as a service.

[1]: https://github.com/timescale/timescaledb/blob/master/tsl/LIC...

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The Polyform Project has two source-available licenses that achieve a similar result.

* Perimeter

https://polyformproject.org/licenses/perimeter/1.0.0

* Shield

https://polyformproject.org/licenses/shield/1.0.0/

The TimescaleDB license can only apply to TimescaleDB.

There is nothing holding you back to create a similar license for your own product.

Except for the fact that I can't afford to pay a lawyer a few thousand dollars to draft a license for my OSS libraries.

Treat it like code. Do some refactoring and that's it. I do see your point, if the license had to be written from scratch. But you already have a template. Use it.

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