HashiCorp Adopts Business Source License

Re:HashiCorp Adopts Business Source License by INTPenis on Thursday August 10, 2023 @07:08PM (#37082894)

License ethics discussion aside, this is going to cause mayhem! :D

I know of at least one massive global company using vault in production, for free as a backend to their own password manager frontend.

My own $dayjob was just going to set it up actually, I guess we'll have to re-evaluate that now.

I can't even imagine how many companies use vault in production.

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Re:HashiCorp Adopts Business Source License by tensor on Thursday August 10, 2023 @07:53PM (#37083283)

On the plus side they don't need to panic, they can keep using the last open source version and patch it themselves if needed.

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Re:HashiCorp Adopts Business Source License by wlonkly on Thursday August 10, 2023 @08:08PM (#37083412)

But the license prohibits competitive use, not commercial use, right? So using Vault in production is no problem if you're using it as part of the infrastructure of a company that isn't competing with Hashicorp.

Using it as a backend for a password manager... more of a grey area, but Hashicorp doesn't offer a password manager.

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Re:HashiCorp Adopts Business Source License by deadbunny on Thursday August 10, 2023 @08:55PM (#37083790)

But what if they do in X years? Suddenly that company is out of compliance with the BSL.

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Re:HashiCorp Adopts Business Source License by wlonkly on Friday August 11, 2023 @09:18AM (#37088365)

Oh, for sure, and if you're a developer tooling/devopsy-stuff company that would give me pause (or convince me to plan a migration, or to use an alternative, etc.)

But if you're, say, fashion retail, or something, then the risk is pretty low.

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Re:HashiCorp Adopts Business Source License by iavael on Wednesday August 16, 2023 @11:35AM (#37148703)

> then the risk is pretty low

And then Amazon buys Hashicorp.

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Re:HashiCorp Adopts Business Source License by INTPenis on Friday August 11, 2023 @04:54AM (#37086542)

The very first lines of the license text say that you're permitted to use the software for "non-production use".

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Re:HashiCorp Adopts Business Source License by ednxzu on Friday August 11, 2023 @08:37AM (#37088008)

https://github.com/hashicorp/vault/blob/main/LICENSE#L8-L11

Clearly states that you can use it in a production setup.

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Re:HashiCorp Adopts Business Source License by INTPenis on Friday August 11, 2023 @10:21AM (#37088990)

Thanks for pointing that out, so this must have been added by Hashicorp then.

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Re:HashiCorp Adopts Business Source License by ezekg on Friday August 11, 2023 @05:11PM (#37094086)

That's the point of the BUSL. It defaults to non-production, use, but the licensor adds an Additional Use Grant that allows production use, which typically covers everything except competing with the licensor's cloud offering.

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