Hacker News Reader

I don’t think you read that entire article (or even looked at the sidebar). SSPL is copyleft, but not FOSS.

From that article:

> In January 2021, following the re-licensing move by Elastic, OSI released a statement declaring that the SSPL does not comply with its Open Source Definition because it discriminates against specific fields of endeavor, describing it as a "fauxpen" source license.

> Debian FSG compatible No

> OSI approved No

> GPL compatible No

I read it

I don't hold to the extremes OSI does as to whether something fits their esoteric view of "open source", however

It's not just OSI. Debian, FSF, etc. all don't see that as free software specifically because it restricts the ways that you can use the software - thereby defeating the point of having the source code in the first place.

That's no different than some EULA saying you can't do xyz with this software without purchasing a $xxx,xxx license from the vendor or whatever: it's the same effect. It's an artificial boundary put in place that restricts the user from doing something.

I don't find that particular view "esoteric" and I'm curious about why you do.

Exactly. It is fine to call it "source available" or something.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com