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> Is Hashicorp switching to a BSL any more disruptive to users of the software than if Hashicorp went out of business? Yes. If they went out of the business, t

> Is Hashicorp switching to a BSL any more disruptive to users of the software than if Hashicorp went out of business? Yes. If they went out of the business, the software development would probably grind to halt before/unless the community manages to rescue the project. But if they don't, and instead they "just" change to a license which states you cannot be a competitor and use the project, then that runs the risk of you being sued and pulled into legal battles with another company, usually something you'd like to avoid. So imagine I today use nomad for something, and Hashicorp doesn't have any hosted version of nomad, so I'm in the clear. But who knows what will happen in the future? As soon as Hashicorp does anything that could look like competition to what I already offer, my usage of nomad is now at risk, and in addition my entire business is at risk because they would sue me unless I remove nomad quickly. It would be stupid not to move far away from any BSL projects as soon as you can, unless your entire business model is to get into legal battles with others.

Wowfunhappy 3y ago
Why would you be sued for using a version from before the license change? Aka the last version you'd be able to use anyway if they went out of business.
- CuriousCosmic 3y ago
  You wouldn't but the issue is that you wouldn't be using the maintained version (which is currently the BSL version). If they eventually went out of business instead, the community could at least attempt to pick up the torch and even if development slowly petered out, you'd have a decent runway during which you could migrate to something else. With them changing to BSL, all updates to the MPL version stopped immediately when the change was announced. Your runway is now exactly up to the point where a critical vulnerability is discovered and puts your project and your clients at risk. Or you tread into uncertain legal territory and hope that they don't try to smite you while you figure out what to use next.
  - Wowfunhappy 3y ago
    > If they eventually went out of business instead, the community could at least attempt to pick up the torch and even if development slowly petered out, you'd have a decent runway during which you could migrate to something else. That can also happen without the company going out of business, the community's efforts simply need to be based on the last version before the license change. See for instance how OpenZFS development continues even though Oracle is still around.
    - CuriousCosmic 3y ago
      Yes however the difference is that ZFS was made closed source by Oracle and then basically the entire ZFS team quit oracle to work on OpenZFS instead. With Hashicorp, the project is still "open source" but under a license that makes it potentially dangerous to any competitors. That makes it much harder for a fork to operate without exposing itself to legal risk. For example if any of the code implemented on the fork after the change was too similar to code by Hashicorp that could open the fork devs up to a legal battle. With ZFS that was never a concern since the new changes weren't publicly available on the closed source version and importantly all the brains behind the project promptly quit to work on the open source version instead.

Wowfunhappy 3y ago

Why would you be sued for using a version from before the license change? Aka the last version you'd be able to use anyway if they went out of business.

CuriousCosmic 3y ago
You wouldn't but the issue is that you wouldn't be using the maintained version (which is currently the BSL version). If they eventually went out of business instead, the community could at least attempt to pick up the torch and even if development slowly petered out, you'd have a decent runway during which you could migrate to something else. With them changing to BSL, all updates to the MPL version stopped immediately when the change was announced. Your runway is now exactly up to the point where a critical vulnerability is discovered and puts your project and your clients at risk. Or you tread into uncertain legal territory and hope that they don't try to smite you while you figure out what to use next.
- Wowfunhappy 3y ago
  > If they eventually went out of business instead, the community could at least attempt to pick up the torch and even if development slowly petered out, you'd have a decent runway during which you could migrate to something else. That can also happen without the company going out of business, the community's efforts simply need to be based on the last version before the license change. See for instance how OpenZFS development continues even though Oracle is still around.
  - CuriousCosmic 3y ago
    Yes however the difference is that ZFS was made closed source by Oracle and then basically the entire ZFS team quit oracle to work on OpenZFS instead. With Hashicorp, the project is still "open source" but under a license that makes it potentially dangerous to any competitors. That makes it much harder for a fork to operate without exposing itself to legal risk. For example if any of the code implemented on the fork after the change was too similar to code by Hashicorp that could open the fork devs up to a legal battle. With ZFS that was never a concern since the new changes weren't publicly available on the closed source version and importantly all the brains behind the project promptly quit to work on the open source version instead.