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by sneak 1905 days ago
No, it is not.

It's only source available: it is licensed under the BSL which is not a free software license. Use of the term open source is not appropriate.

A friend works there and tried to recruit me; I declined because of this sort of fake open source charlatan nonsense.

The software in TFA (VPNCloud) is indeed free software/open source: it is licensed under the GPL, just like Linux.
2 comments
hedora 1905 days ago
ZeroTier reverts to Apache after 4 years, and there’s a GPL version from 2019.

So, older versions are indeed open source, and new versions will eventually be so as well.

What’s your objection to the BSL? It seems like a great way to provide ongoing funding to open source, and guarantees popular commercially developed software won’t end up as abandonware.

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ensignavenger 1905 days ago
There are several problems with it. The license prevents me from paying some one other than ZeroTier Inc. from hosting it for me, and providing related services. This is a business risk because ZeroTier Inc may have diverging business needs from me. THey may even go bankrupt or be bought out by some one who abandons the product. This would mean I would have to host it myself (Until the version I need becomes Open Source), and I may not want to do that.

It also makes it hard for a fork to develop traction, as a fork would have to start at a much older version that is Open Source, or the ecosystem would have to forgo the opportunity for third-party hosting services to support it.

The freedom to fork is an essential freedom. Without it, I would not feel comfortable contributing to the project. Nor would I feel comfortable basing critical business infrastructure on it.

Others may be fine with proprietary source-available software, and that is fine for them, but I strongly prefer Open Source for my needs, especially for core infrastructure.

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nh2 1905 days ago
The downvotes of the parent are unjustified; the license's own text literally says:

> The Business Source License (this document, or the "License") is not an Open Source license.

https://github.com/zerotier/ZeroTierOne/blob/a7f652781faedfb...

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kenmacd 1905 days ago
It seems like a pretty good license to me. I just can't host it (same as GPLv3), but in a few years it switches to an every more free license.

Is the concern simply that governments can only use it to help people?

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GekkePrutser 1905 days ago
I looked at it also but for me the concern was that all access management and configuration is done via their cloud. So they can easily add nodes to my VPN. This is an absolute dealbreaker for me.

I know I can self-host even that top management layer (I think they called it "earth" or something). but they make that pretty complicated, probably on purpose.

In the end I just wrote it off in the end as something that has goals not aligned with mine. I'm going to look at Nebula (from Slack) soon. I use tinc at the moment but I wish it was more performant.

There's many options in this arena now so there's no point in sticking with something that doesn't completely fit your needs.

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kenmacd 1905 days ago
> there's no point in sticking with something that doesn't completely fit your needs.

True. The stateless firewall is rather important to me and I haven't found that in anything else (I'll keep an eye on Nebula).

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sneak 1905 days ago
The concern is the same as that with any other software license that restricts the freedoms of the world to build upon, adapt, and use the software for any purpose.

I'm not some free software zealot; I use macOS and the Creative Cloud and a bunch of other proprietary crap on a daily basis. I just don't pretend it respects my freedom. Nonfree licenses are like that.

It's not like it "switches to even more free": it is presently nonfree.

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kenmacd 1905 days ago
> It's not like it "switches to even more free": it is presently nonfree.

It's free for any use-case I'm concerned with. I can modify the source, self-host it, and run thousands of nodes through it if I want. All I can't do is take their work, slap my name on it, and sell it.

If that was your intent then VPNCloud is even less free. The GPL3 license means you could never host a closed-source version.

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sneak 1905 days ago
That's false. The GPL allows for running a service with a closed source fork.

It's the AGPL that prohibits this, which is why I consider the AGPL nonfree.

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kenmacd 1904 days ago
Okay, well then replace service with sell device with the code in it, or put any type of DRM on a device using the code.

The point being that any license is going to have some amount of:

> restricts the freedoms of the world to build upon, adapt, and use the software for any purpose.

It's just up to if you like the terms or not.

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