A software license that prohibits use by individuals or groups (of any size) who do not pay a fee would violate section 5 of the Open Source Definition: > 5. N

A software license that prohibits use by individuals or groups (of any size) who do not pay a fee would violate section 5 of the Open Source Definition: > 5. No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups > The license must not discriminate against any person or group of persons. It's okay to charge for open source software, but for software to be open source, the license cannot discriminate against users who do not pay the developer. This means: - If someone pays for open source software, the license cannot require the user to make any additional payments. This prevents the developer from imposing a recurring fee to use the same version of the software via the license, but the developer is still free to charge for future software releases. - If someone pays for open source software and then shares it with other people, the license cannot require the people who use copies of the software to pay the developer. Software releases under your proposed license would be source-available, but not open source. As a sibling comment mentions, the DoD FAQ you linked describes the Open Source Definition as 1 of 2 "industry review processes" that a software license should pass to be considered open source.