Hashicorp has announced that it is giving up its previous MPL 2.0 license in favor of a more restrictive BSL v1.1 license for its developer tools like Vault, Terraform, and Nomad. This change means that HashiCorp no longer considers itself an open source company, but rather a company providing "community" software. The new license restricts production use without hosting or embedding the software in an offering competitive with Hashicorp's products or services. Companies are advised to be cautious about using HashiCorp products for free due to unclear definitions of what constitutes a competitive offering, which could lead to risks such as freelancers being considered competitors. However, future releases of HashiCorp products will still be under the previous MPL 2.0 license. Alternative options like Infisical, an open source secret management tool, are available for those looking to switch from HashiCorp's tools.