HashiCorp adopts the Business Source License to ensure continued investment in its community and to continue providing open, freely available products.

No more open source.

Vendors who provide competitive services built on our community products will no longer be able to incorporate future releases, bug fixes, or security patches contributed to our products.

  • A1kmm@lemmy.amxl.comEnglish
    12·
    1 year ago

    People contributed to HashiCorp products - the software is not something solely made by HashiCorp. This might technically be legal under their CLA and indeed even in the absence of the CLA, under the Apache License, but it certainly isn’t fair to people who contributed to it voluntarily in the expectation it would form part of a Free software project.

    I think maybe the best way to combat this type of thing in the future is if F/L/OSS communities (i.e. everyone who contributes to a project without being paid) starts: 1) preferencing copyleft projects over BSD/MIT type licenses, and 2) refusing to sign any kind of CLA (maybe with an exception for obligate non-profit organisations). Then, companies will either have to pick developing entirely at their own cost, or to accept contributions on the incoming=outgoing model, meaning they are also bound by the copyleft licence and are forced to keep it as Free software. That would end the bait-and-switch of getting people to work on your product for free and then saying “surprise suckers, it’s no longer Free software!”.

    • GreyEyedGhost@lemmy.ca
      4·
      1 year ago

      Where I don’t disagree with anything you say here, someone who contributes to a project with a license like this should already be aware and have accepted that it may ultimately be taken out of their hands, and that’s fine if that’s what they want to do. In fact, I prefer it for some types of software (I can’t think of a better way to promote adoption of reference designs such as TCP/IP). That said, if the idea of working with a group and losing control or access to it is a problem for you, then by all means don’t do so and tell others of the risks.

      • einsteinx2@programming.dev
        1·
        1 year ago

        Yep my go to is MIT for libraries/frameworks and GPL for full applications. I don’t want to restrict the use of my libraries to only GPL code unless I have a specific reason to do so.

    • Pixel@lemmy.sdf.org
      3·
      1 year ago

      All the contributions are still open, we just have to fork it - which is exactly what I’m waiting for

  • g5pw@feddit.it
    9·
    1 year ago

    Aw man… and I was just thinking about deploying Nomad in my homelab…

      • SwingingKoala@discuss.tchncs.deOP
        8·
        1 year ago

        Not affected today, many businesses were started from home. We already know it’s not possible any more to build a business using hashicorp products as they could pivot at any moment and then you’d be “competing” and in breach of license.

        • vojel@feddit.de
          2·
          1 year ago

          Yes but is that affecting you businesswise, for example using terraform for proviosioning infrastructure for a customer? As far as I understand this move it affects companies like gruntwork who makes a business on top of terraform with terragrunt. Dont get me wrong, I do dislike this change also but saying „it is not open source anymore“ is just wrong. It is still open source but its usage changed for companies making a dollar here or there with technologies they dont develop.

      • ck_@discuss.tchncs.de
        6·
        1 year ago

        That is a rather short sighted interpretation of what is happening I feel. Essentially the company is moving from FLOSS to “free as in beer”, which will very likely affect the product in the long run.

        • julianwgs@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
          1·
          1 year ago

          Not quite, it‘s only restricting competitors and so all companies and home labbers can still use it for free and contribute as in free speech.

          However this can bring a lot more financial sustainability to a project. I don‘t know the specifics, but the main problem is that companies make profit of the software, but don’t invest enough money back into the product. This cannot be good for users. Open source must be financially stable.

          Also right now all those competitors (and users) can create a fork and maintain it. So it is up to the community what will happen to the project.

      • g5pw@feddit.it
        5·
        1 year ago

        Sure, but it’s a question of principle. I try to use and support FLOSS software if possible.

        • SwingingKoala@discuss.tchncs.deOP
          2·
          1 year ago

          The reason I went with terraform is really because of the demand on the job market. Oh well, if I have never done that in the past and am still doing fine 🤷

          • ck_@discuss.tchncs.de
            1·
            1 year ago

            Then you are good either way. All of the IaC tools generally revolve around the same principles, they just express them in different ways. Learning terraform is definitely not a waste, you’ll be able to transfer what you learned to other tools like pulimi, CDK or what have you pretty easily.

            If you were to buy into a technology for a long time project, then I’d encourage you giving the alternatives a closer look.

  • kobold@beehaw.orgEnglish
    2·
    1 year ago

    i know someone i used to work with who went there because he was effectively their employee bc of how much he contributed via open source and in community

    capitalism bullshit strikes again

  • wiki_me@lemmy.mlEnglish
    2·
    1 year ago

    People might not like this change, but if it helps them makes money that gets put back into the project maybe that is a good thing (for those who does not know, it converts to a open source license after four years), maybe that is better then a open core model.

    • Zapp@beehaw.orgEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      Yeah. I’ve always thought timed open source was probably a sweet spot, but I don’t have a lot of trust that companies will actually follow through on the open license at the end, so it doesn’t buy my goodwill just yet.

      • wiki_me@lemmy.mlEnglish
        2·
        1 year ago

        IANAL but don’t think they can opted out of it , it’s part of the license

        Effective on the Change Date, or the fourth anniversary of the first publicly available distribution of a specific version of the Licensed Work under this License, whichever comes first, the Licensor hereby grants you rights under the terms of the Change License, and the rights granted in the paragraph above terminate.