Hi jpambrun we're definitely open to comments and suggestions around this!

I imagine it was rhetorical, but as you probably imagined I have no suggestions. I understand your needs and imperatives, but they are unfortunately incompatible with mine. Getting a green light on using custom licence is near impossible. Procurement and contracting for database as service is also a nightmare.

I think mongo and elastic could get away with it because they already had captive users. For illustration, I didn't really look at your offering, I went to the licencing section and just summarily disqualified. I am also unlikely to use it personal pet projects, because the learnings cannot be leverage in my paying job.

No not rhetorical - was genuinely interested in any suggestions. Out of interest, if the product was split (like other database products) into a 'core' open-source version, and an 'enterprise' limited license version, would this make any difference?

Depends what is behind the custom license and how well it's communicated. If it's only the db as service management magic I wouldn't mind. Anything more and I would worry I would miss out on upcoming features few years down the line.