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Comment by the_mitsuhiko | Hacker News Reader

Armin from Sentry here.

> I don't understand why I (or any Open Source contributor) would spend time supporting a product like this.

You might if it scratches your itch, you might not if it doesn't. Here is how I hope people engage with licenses like the FSL: when they start a business rather than going all closed source, they evaluate a license like the FSL. I think it's longer term a superior choice because it protects your business but also longer term ensures that what you create becomes a public good if you step away from it.

On the range of Open Source - Fair Source - Shared Source - Closed Source I would argue that Fair Source is a pretty decent compromise. Not for everybody, but I hope for a lot of folks out there.

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> because it protects your business

That's the only argument in favor of it. Anyone that isn't in it for the money won't give your product a second look.

I'm not sure what your visibility is inside teams, but seeing one of these "BSL" or "fair source" licenses usually terminates the product evaluation with a laugh. People don't treat these licenses even remotely close to Open Source because they're not. They're a business that is spending money to promote an identity that goes against their core desires. I'd rather you be an honest moneygrubber instead of a business muppet wearing a friendly mask.

Community and public good is the first and only priority when developing Open Source software. Trust me when I say that nobody is fooled when you refuse to give these values top-billing in your list of priorities.

> Anyone that isn't in it for the money won't give your product a second look.

I think Sentry in particular has proven that you're wrong here. They have over 10k users self-hosting their software under a Fair Source license [0], which goes against your assumption that it will fail. It has already succeeded.

[0]: https://blog.sentry.io/sentry-is-now-fair-source/

You absolutely do not need to treat these licenses as Open Source, because they are not. However the FSL for instance fully converts into Open Source which means that after the lockup period, it's unquestionable Open Source.

I have been a developer long enough that I have seen bad license choices harm projects even long after the commercial entity that developed it stepped away.

Nobody tries to fool anyone, we're trying to establish a better licensing regime than keeping things closed source.

As for the visibility into teams part: from my experience developers have a lot of opinions of licenses, yet in practical terms these very rarely result in making decisions. It's more common that developers will be told off by the legal department about a license choice, than that a developer would on their own opt against the use of something.

> I'm not sure what your visibility is inside teams, but seeing one of these "BSL" or "fair source" licenses usually terminates the product evaluation with a laugh.

Eric Raymond had a similar take. I wrote this response for him:

https://openpath.chadwhitacre.com/2024/widespread-use-of-a-f...

tl;dr Sentry, in addition to 100,000+ SaaS customers, has 10,000+ unmonetized self-hosted users from hobbyists up to FAANG companies. This is strong evidence against your claim that Fair Source licensing "usually terminates the product evaluation with a laugh."

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