| 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. |
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.