Couchbase has announced a shift in the licensing of its Sync Gateway and Couchbase Lite products from Apache 2.0 to Business Source License version 1.1 (BSL 1.1) with the release of Couchbase Mobile 3, following a similar change for its server products last year. This new license allows for control over commercialization while still providing the source code to the community, permitting non-commercial use and transitioning to an Apache 2.0 license after four years. The change is expected to have minimal impact on existing users and paying customers, as it mainly affects those intending to use the source code for commercial purposes. Developers can still create commercial plugins using pre-packaged Couchbase Lite APIs but cannot build commercial derivatives from the source code itself. The motivation behind this change is to prevent third parties from creating commercial derivatives without contributing back to the community, especially with the new enhancements in Couchbase Mobile 3.