[mrahmadawais]

As an open source dev, I think the new SSPL license of @MongoDB is interesting. SaaS is the new black nowadays, I have seen too many companies burnt down trying to support their OSS licensing with SaaS taking all the benefit. SSPL can help #OpenSource.

I also think that SSPL can be very helpful if you want to open source your SaaS. Most of the startups that I consult with are not interested in open sourcing their actual SaaS software since they fear being ripped off.

So, what happens is that they end up not taking the benefit of open source. With SSPL these SaaS companies will be able to open source their SaaS is software to manage SaaS — without the fear of being misused by competition.

If the competition just takes their free software and makes money with SaaS that hurts them instead of helping them since you can't make sure that other SaaS players will actually contribute back to the software.

With SSPL, we get a safety net — companies either won't use it as a SaaS, will pay to use it as a SaaS i.e. they'll help pay for open source software support which is a very good business model and if not that, then they'll have to open source their SaaS as well.

As a non-lawyer developer, it feels like GPL. GPL code that you fork should remain GPL. Similarly, if SSPL code you use as a SaaS then you should keep your SaaS as SSPL and open source it as well.

Peace! ️