[ersatz_username]

We are pretty open to feedback on licensing and have gone back and forth internally because, frankly, we'd rather use a copy-left license.

We believe a project like this needs financial backing and a dedicated team driving development along but therein lies the tension. The common monetization paths either feature-lock critical self-hosted capabilities like SSO behind a paywall and/or monetize behind a cloud hosted option.

The Elastic license is an attempt to maintain feature parity between the cloud and self-hosted tool while still being protected from something like the big cloud providers ripping the code off altogether.

In all seriousness though, we would love to hear suggestions if you think there's a better path.

[ssddanbrown]

I personally don't have anything against the license you've chosen, and I respect your right to protect your efforts against usage you don't desire. I just think it's better to avoid using "open source" if going down the ELv2 path, and using something like "source available" or "fair code" instead to prevent confusion in misrepresenting this as, what is commonly considered, open source.

If you'd like further detail in regards to why I (and others) think this matters, I've previously written my thoughts up here: https://danb.me/blog/posts/why-open-source-term-is-important...

[sanderjd]

Thanks for the link. Some personal thoughts:

I think the effort to standardize what is meant by a term like "open source" is generally good, but I also think the meaning of language is always up for debate, and the OSI's definitions are only right if they are useful.

Of the two clauses you pulled out of the EL2 license, the first one - "You may not provide the software to third parties as a hosted or managed service ..." - seems fine to me as "open source", while the second - "You may not move, change, disable, or circumvent the license key functionality ..." - seems not-fine.

(So for what it's worth, because of that second clause, I am agreeing with you that this license shouldn't be called "open source" - but it seems unfortunate for OP if they aren't relying on that clause.)

I think the issue I have is with the 6th OSI definition you pulled out - "No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor" - it seems to me like that one could use some tweaking. I do think it's important that the ability to run "Derived Works" is not limited by "field of endeavor", but I think selling managed software as a service could be a specific carve-out to that. It seems totally reasonable and not violating the spirit of "open source" to say you can modify and self-host for any purpose, but you can't re-sell.

[ssddanbrown]

> It seems totally reasonable and not violating the spirit of "open source" to say you can modify and self-host for any purpose, but you can't re-sell.

Personally I would heavily disagree with that, and that statement is something I see as against the spirit of open source. In my view, open source and free software mainly intend to use licensing to put the freedoms and rights of the code & it's users in front of those of it's authors. Being able to re-sell has always been a significant point, and part of the spirit, in free software and open source.

[sanderjd]

It's just an honest disagreement. I don't think your opinion is the way, but I don't begrudge it.

I'm just not an ideologue. What matters to me is having as much software tooling that is as useful to me as possible. I consider tools that I can modify and run myself to be more useful than those that are proprietary. But I don't require or demand the ability to re-sell someone else's software; that isn't a capability that is useful to me. That capability is pretty much entirely only useful to Amazon and Google, and that's just not something I care about optimizing for.

[jagtstronaut]

This question is for my education alone, but since you seem quite passionate I am curious.

I just read a super long article about licensing to understand your comment as well as the article you wrote. Under these "source available" licenses, I can still sell the software within some kind of package correct? Like if I create my own PR linter I can use Grai and still sell it? I just can't host grai with some observability and sell it? Or am I misunderstanding?

[ssddanbrown]

Just to be clear for my responses, I am not a legal expert in any way.

> Under these "source available" licenses, I can still sell the software within some kind of package correct? Like if I create my own PR linter I can use Grai and still sell it?

"Source available" means the source is accessible. Whether you can sell the software depends on the license. In the case of the Elastic License v2 as used here, I believe you could re-sell the works but you cannot re-license and the original limitations will remain which include providing as a hosted/managed service. There are other limitations too, the limitations around license keys functionality could be a significant hindrance depending on specific use and implementation.

> I just can't host grai with some observability and sell it? Or am I misunderstanding?

That is kind of the most significant limitation, but ultimately you are subject to the detail of all limitations:

~~

>> You may not provide the software to third parties as a hosted or managed service, where the service provides users with access to any substantial set of the features or functionality of the software.

>> You may not move, change, disable, or circumvent the license key functionality in the software, and you may not remove or obscure any functionality in the software that is protected by the license key.

>> You may not alter, remove, or obscure any licensing, copyright, or other notices of the licensor in the software. Any use of the licensor’s trademarks is subject to applicable law.

~~

Note that there's nothing about selling at all. Also think about how widely that first limitation could cover different types of use-case. And, as touched on above, that second limitation could be used in quite a protective/combative way to make significant parts of the software unusable in re-use.

[ersatz_username]

Totally fair and appreciate the (well written) thoughts.

[klabb3]

> The Elastic license is an attempt to maintain feature parity between the cloud and self-hosted tool while still being protected

I don’t know enough about the elastic license but I very much prefer this approach. I’ve seen a lot of source available projects deliberately refuse to implement features, and just generally let the product managers spend time on dark pattern bait-and-switch to drive sales. It misaligns the incentives, and complicates the product offering. It’s infuriating for developers. This is much clearer for everyone.

[jedberg]

> We believe a project like this needs financial backing and a dedicated team driving development

What benefits do you get from being open source other than the OS stamp of approval?

Perhaps the solution is to just go closed source. I'm all for open source, but I'm not the biggest fan of open core or source available. All it does it hurt the business with little benefit to me. I'd rather you make more money and support me or go full altruistic and make it truly open source.

[ersatz_username]

We aren't open source because we want to get anything out of it is the short answer. Of course to each their own but I've personally gotten a ton of value from open core tools in the past.

[sanderjd]

Don't its customers get the benefit of being able to self-host and modify for their own internal use? Seems like a big benefit to me...

[jedberg]

My point is if it's a commercial entity, I'd rather pay them to make the modifications and then maintain it than pay my own engineers to do it.

[sanderjd]

Yes, but if I want to make larger modifications than would make sense for the core project, I'd like to have the ability to self host my modified version (and ideally have a support contract as well, if they're into that).

So you asked what the point of doing this is for them, from a business perspective. I think the point is marketing / smoothing the sales process. I feel much better about using SaaS products that I know I can self host if necessary, even if I'm unlikely to actually do so.

Frankly, it's just the same reason I prefer any of my tools to be open source. I don't like using proprietary programming languages or frameworks, because I can't fix things that are broken even if I want to. This remains true even though I can count the number of times I've actually done this on one hand.