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by orra 1043 days ago
> But I do think this purist perspective on open source is just going to result in more Snowflakes and fewer Hashicorps, because why bother with this fight?

Orgs like Hashicorp clearly think they benefit by pretending to be open source.

They could simply stop being disingenuous about their source available proprietary software, and nobody would stop them.
1 comments
sanderjd 1043 days ago
First of all, as is probably clear if you read my comments on this, I personally think it would be better if the definition of "open source" did not exclude this kind of re-sale limitation. I don't think it's intuitive at all that this is required to fit the definition of "open source". It seems to me like a tacked on ideological stance from the gatekeeper of the definition, that isn't present in or implied by the words themselves.

But while that's what I think, it isn't at all the view espoused here by Hashicorp. They aren't claiming this is open source. They are accepting the OSI definition and not claiming their new license falls within it.

They aren't being disingenuous. You're putting words in their mouth, and then getting mad at them about those words they didn't say.

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orra 1043 days ago
> They aren't being disingenuous. You're putting words in their mouth, and then getting mad at them about those words they didn't say.

No, they say open source needs to evolve, the implication this is an evolution (not devolution) of open source.

Their announcement talks about how they spoke to OSS experts. That's not relevant: the experts would simply have said: that's not open source.

Hashicorp several times say the BSL is permissive. Permissive is a well established term in software licensing. No, the BSL is not. The BSD and MIT and Apache licenses are permissive.

Finally there is this claptrap from their FAQ:

> 17. Does HashiCorp still believe in open source? > > Yes. [...]

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sanderjd 1042 days ago
> the implication this is an evolution (not devolution) of open source.

"implication"

> the experts would simply have said: that's not open source.

Presumably the experts did tell them that it is not an open source license, which is why they chose not to claim that it is.

> Permissive is a well established term in software licensing. No, the BSL is not.

I think BSL easily fits the bill for the word "permissive".

It's just all so much gatekeeping, and it's really tiring.

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