The rest of Bitwarden is free both as in beer and as in speech. Dunno why you think otherwise. Vaultwarden exists, and Bitwarden clients are compatible with it.
Bitwarden is not free as in speech, as it requires me to register with Bitwarden, Inc and get a license key to be able to self host. Also, then it uses some closed cloud services.
As for the free as in beer - this is more nuanced, but I still think it is far from free. For individuals - hosting something that requires 2-4 GB of RAM [1] is definitely not free. For companies - hosting something that doesn’t include SSO is pointless. The Bitwarden source available license, that includes SSO, does not allow production use [2], and requires a paid subscription instead.
BTW I completely understand the reasons to not open source everything. What I don’t understand is: why not use the source available Bitwarden license for the entire server codebase?
[1]: https://bitwarden.com/help/install-on-premise-linux/
[2]: https://github.com/bitwarden/server/blob/master/LICENSE_FAQ....
That is not the right understanding of the term "free" because the code is completely open-source and you can remove the parts that have to do with registration and enterprise features yourself without breaking the license agreement. You would have to maintain such a fork on your own though. It would be easier if Bitwarden Inc. themselves would maintain a completely open-sourced version and an open core version with non-free parts and registration, but they are not obligated to do so.
I did, however, assume the Open Source <=> OSI approved license. How else to define Open Source?
Transparency alone could be achieved with their own Source Available license, so it doesn't seem like a reason for double licensing.
So, the argument is simply that Open Source is a branding that attracts developers as a target group.
I wonder when will we start seeing commercial, source available projects posted to GitHub with a single file like stringutils.[ts|go|java|etc] MIT-licensed for a single purpose of calling the entire project "Open Source"
[1]: https://redmonk.com/sogrady/2023/08/03/why-opensource-matter...
> ... api includes... Commercial Core which is under the Bitwarden License, however this can be disabled by using /p:DefineConstants="OSS" as an argument to dotnet while building the module.
Bitwarden server is dual-licensed [1]
- part of it is licensed with AGPL (Open Source)
- some features are licensed with a source available Bitwarden license
Now, even the Open Source core requires you to register if you want to self host. This is to provide you with complementary services like security updates, push relay servers (?), and licensing checks. [2] Although not stated in the docs, I guess this also improves their telemetry data, as they suggest to never share the license keys between installations.
I completely understand the need to use source available licenses instead of open source. What I don't understand is why to even license parts of your app as Open Source? The resulting product is not free. Neither as in beer, nor as in speech. Does anyone know good reasons for doing that? I'm asking seriously. I'd like to better understand how companies benefit by marketing their products as Open Source, even if they are barely open source.
[1]: https://github.com/bitwarden/server/blob/master/LICENSE_FAQ....
[2]: https://bitwarden.com/help/hosting-faqs/#q-what-are-my-insta...