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There are several other use cases that will be affected: - Borrowing bits of code from Sentry for use in an unrelated, non-competing commercial product will no

There are several other use cases that will be affected: - Borrowing bits of code from Sentry for use in an unrelated, non-competing commercial product will no longer be possible for many people -- I suspect many companies' legal teams will bar use of BSL-licensed code out of caution, at least until the 3-year conversion point. - Using bits of Sentry for internal, non-distributed projects may not be allowed if there's any chance the project will convert to a commercial product (competing or not) within 3 years. - I suspect there are other scenarios that are technically and legally possible (at least by Sentry's interpretation) but that many corporate lawyers will nix based on an abundance of caution. - And of course, starting a new open-source project with open governance based on current Sentry code will no longer be an option. The thing is, BSL's permissions may seem clear to developers, but lawyers will likely get hung up on how to define "competing", and whether a judge would allow a suit to proceed against a (intuitively speaking) clearly non-competing product based on real or perceived ambiguity in the license or in the case itself. Too often, legal teams "just say no" to anything that falls outside their clearly defined (and legally tested) comfort zones. I don't blame corporate lawyers entirely for that, though - it's really a consequence of the legal climate arising from prior case law (which I believe often proceeded on dubious grounds).

bentlegen 7y ago
> Using bits of Sentry for internal, non-distributed projects may not be allowed if there's any chance the project will convert to a commercial product (competing or not) within 3 years. The license is clear that there is a specific application of the software that is protected; you are not prevented from using the software in a way that prohibits all commercial use. https://github.com/getsentry/sentry/blob/master/LICENSE#L12 https://github.com/getsentry/sentry/blob/master/LICENSE#L12
atonse 7y ago
Good points but I would say, just like legal teams have become more familiar such open source licenses and their nuances, they’ll eventually come around on this too and be able to better articulate the differences.
heyoni 7y ago
Only your first paragraph is a potential concern. The rest are fine according to the license.
- TimTheTinker 7y ago
  The difference between theory and practice is that in theory, there is no difference.
  - heyoni 7y ago
    Other comments are interpreting the license as allowing money to be made so long as the service you’re providing is not hosting error logging. You’re right, the license isn’t as good as it was before, but it’s also not as bad as some are saying.

bentlegen 7y ago

> Using bits of Sentry for internal, non-distributed projects may not be allowed if there's any chance the project will convert to a commercial product (competing or not) within 3 years. The license is clear that there is a specific application of the software that is protected; you are not prevented from using the software in a way that prohibits all commercial use. https://github.com/getsentry/sentry/blob/master/LICENSE#L12 https://github.com/getsentry/sentry/blob/master/LICENSE#L12

atonse 7y ago

Good points but I would say, just like legal teams have become more familiar such open source licenses and their nuances, they’ll eventually come around on this too and be able to better articulate the differences.

heyoni 7y ago

Only your first paragraph is a potential concern. The rest are fine according to the license.

TimTheTinker 7y ago
The difference between theory and practice is that in theory, there is no difference.
- heyoni 7y ago
  Other comments are interpreting the license as allowing money to be made so long as the service you’re providing is not hosting error logging. You’re right, the license isn’t as good as it was before, but it’s also not as bad as some are saying.