[hedora]

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.

[ensignavenger]

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.