[pierat]

You can excuse or justify it however you want. But it's still false and deceptive advertising to use "free" in situations like this.

To say some service is "Free" (for now) means you're paying something that isn't disclosed. Even if you're paying in time as beta-tester, you're still paying. And you're still paying in data.

Whereas, GitLab on-prem install is largely under MIT license, which is widely considered to be a very permissive license. I could see the FTC coming to similar agreement with that statement.

[freedomben]

instead of "free" what term/expression should the company use for their "free" tier?

[sigg3]

Demo or freeware.

Personally I prefer demo, because it's a demonstration of what you can expect.

[freedomben]

Demo is interesting, although it nearly always implies limited functionality and/or limited timeframe you can use the software, which may be misleading for some free tiers.

Freeware could be a good term, but wouldn't it still have the same nothing-is-free issue that GP brought up calling it "false and deceptive advertising"? The term certainly doesn't connote the "why" behind the offering