Company
Date Published
Author
David Cramer
Word count
1605
Language
English
Hacker News points
43

Summary

We mistakenly labeled Codecov's licensing as "Open Source", which misrepresents its true nature, and failed to clearly articulate the benefits of its semi-restrictive Business Source License (BUSL). The BUSL is a license that allows for commercial use while still granting freedoms to users who self-host or modify the software. This mistake occurred because we drew an analogy with other open source principles without considering the context of the OSI definition, and our emotions got in the way of explaining our position. We plan to improve the conversation around sustainable open source models, including semi-restrictive licenses like the BUSL, and better define what these models can look like.