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Ask HN: Question about the Business Source License 1.1

1 points by ianbutler ↗ HN
Today I learned about the BSL (https://mariadb.com/bsl11/)

I read through it and read through the FAQ for adoption: https://mariadb.com/bsl-faq-adopting/

The question I have, is they say:

"On the Change Date, or the fourth anniversary of the first publicly available distribution of the code under the BSL, whichever comes first, the code automatically becomes available under the Change License."

Later on however in the FAQ they write,

"Q: Will the Change Date remain constant?

A: The answer depends on the company providing the BSL software. At MariaDB, the answer is no. Each new major version of the software will have its own Change Date."

and

"Q: What is considered a major version for there to be a new BSL and new Change Date?

A: The answer depends on the company providing the BSL software. At MariaDB, it would be a version that does not only fix bugs but adds features."

It is unclear to me, given those later Q and As, if the first line I quoted is saying 4 years from the release of each version of the code, or the first public release of any of the code.

What is the correct way to interpret this?

I will likely consult a Lawyer as well if I do go to use this but I figured some people here may already be knowledgeable.

3 comments

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PeterZaitsev
KISS: Treat it as any other proprietary license.

In theory 4 (or whatever) years later some version will become licensed under Open Source license but by that time it will be well past EOL ridden with bugs and security holes and unsafe to use.

Of course (in theory) you could take on maintaining such version yourself in practice it does not make any practical sense

ianbutler
I'm actually looking to apply this to one of my own projects. But I'd like something where for each major version it changes to AGPL 1 year (the change date) after it becomes available. That will be somewhat defeated if everything regardless of version just changes to AGPL 4 years later.

You could very reasonably say "Who knows if you'll be working on this 4 years from now"* but I still think it makes sense to fully understand the conditions of a license before slapping it on my stuff. Especially if my initial intent is business related.

*And I think this is generally a good way to stop abandonware

PeterZaitsev
Typically it is used similary to EOL in Software. You know when PostgreSQL 15 goes EOL it is different from PostgreSQL 14

Same here - the change date is different for major versions - when you create new major version of product it gets change date adjusted.