Hashicorp changes license - similar to MariaDB

[necrevistonnezr]

I just had to deal with it at work: Hashicorp (maker of i.a. Vault) has changed its license quite drastically, similar to MariaDB. Certain SaaS offerings may not be allowed anymore.

The Business Source License – the BUSL or BSL for short, and HashiCorp uses one abbreviation in the announcement and the other in its source code – was the creation of MariaDB, another company walking the tightrope between open source and making money. HashiCorp is at pains to point out that it's not alone in this:

With this change we are following a path similar to other companies in recent years. These companies include Couchbase, Cockroach Labs, Sentry, and MariaDB, which developed this license in 2013. Companies including Confluent, MongoDB, Elastic, Redis Labs, and others have also adopted alternative licenses that include restrictions on commercial usage.

The gist of HashiCorp's BSL is that the software's source code remains freely available, and you're granted "the right to copy, modify, create derivative works, redistribute, and make non-production use." Note the restriction about use in production.

Source: https://www.theregister.com/2023/08/11/hashicorp_bsl_licence/

[girish]

Right, this affects the Vault app

[plusone-nick]

Self Sabotage ️