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BSL doesn't necessarily allow you to self host. Without additional grants, it doesn't allow production usage until the license converts.

wongarsu 3y ago
If I make a paid twitter clone using a BSL-licensed database under the hood, I'm allowed to self-host the database for this purpose, in both production and dev environments. What the BSL prevents me from doing is offering paid hosting for others, or offering a product that competes with it (e.g. if postgres would be BSL, supabase couldn't use postgres under the hood since the products kind of compete with each other).
- candiddevmike 3y ago
  You can't use BSL software in production without an additional usage grant: https://mariadb.com/bsl-faq-adopting/ https://mariadb.com/bsl-faq-adopting/
  - sofixa 3y ago
    In practice are there any BSL adopters that don't give a usage grant for production use? All those I've encountered only forbid stuff like hosting to compete with the original software creator, not actually using it in production.
    - sea-gold 3y ago
      It may not be common, but I did find these (fairly popular projects) which don't appear to allow production usage: https://github.com/fingerprintjs/fingerprintjs/blob/master/LICENSE https://github.com/fingerprintjs/fingerprintjs/blob/master/L... https://github.com/exaloop/codon/blob/develop/LICENSE https://github.com/exaloop/codon/blob/develop/LICENSE Here are some others: https://github.com/search?q=%22Business+Source+License%22+%22Additional+Use+Grant%3A+None%22&type=code&p=1 https://github.com/search?q=%22Business+Source+License%22+%2...
  - wongarsu 3y ago
    You are right for the pure BSL. I was misremembering because e.g. Hashicorp just give a blanket Additional Use Grant for production use that doesn't compete with the licensed product [1]. MariaDB is a lot less generous, e.g. restricting you to less than three production servers for MaxScale. So the ability to self-host BSL code depends a lot on the chosen Additional Use Grant. I don't mind Hashicorp's, but the one publicly offered by MariaDB is pretty restricting. 1: https://www.hashicorp.com/bsl https://www.hashicorp.com/bsl
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]

wongarsu 3y ago

If I make a paid twitter clone using a BSL-licensed database under the hood, I'm allowed to self-host the database for this purpose, in both production and dev environments. What the BSL prevents me from doing is offering paid hosting for others, or offering a product that competes with it (e.g. if postgres would be BSL, supabase couldn't use postgres under the hood since the products kind of compete with each other).

candiddevmike 3y ago
You can't use BSL software in production without an additional usage grant: https://mariadb.com/bsl-faq-adopting/ https://mariadb.com/bsl-faq-adopting/
- sofixa 3y ago
  In practice are there any BSL adopters that don't give a usage grant for production use? All those I've encountered only forbid stuff like hosting to compete with the original software creator, not actually using it in production.
  - sea-gold 3y ago
    It may not be common, but I did find these (fairly popular projects) which don't appear to allow production usage: https://github.com/fingerprintjs/fingerprintjs/blob/master/LICENSE https://github.com/fingerprintjs/fingerprintjs/blob/master/L... https://github.com/exaloop/codon/blob/develop/LICENSE https://github.com/exaloop/codon/blob/develop/LICENSE Here are some others: https://github.com/search?q=%22Business+Source+License%22+%22Additional+Use+Grant%3A+None%22&type=code&p=1 https://github.com/search?q=%22Business+Source+License%22+%2...
- wongarsu 3y ago
  You are right for the pure BSL. I was misremembering because e.g. Hashicorp just give a blanket Additional Use Grant for production use that doesn't compete with the licensed product [1]. MariaDB is a lot less generous, e.g. restricting you to less than three production servers for MaxScale. So the ability to self-host BSL code depends a lot on the chosen Additional Use Grant. I don't mind Hashicorp's, but the one publicly offered by MariaDB is pretty restricting. 1: https://www.hashicorp.com/bsl https://www.hashicorp.com/bsl
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]