For a different view

Posted Jan 24, 2021 7:27 UTC (Sun) by ras (subscriber, #33059)
In reply to: For a different view by Cyberax
Parent article: Banon: License changes to Elasticsearch and Kibana

The key question for me is why the OSI didn't consider the SSPL to be open source. The OSI's statement on the matter wasn't at all helpful https://opensource.org/node/1099

I'll take a stab at it, and say corbet's comment into the linked article is the heart of the matter:

> The affected code must not only be released, it must be made available under the SSPL.

At a guess, had they said it must be released under an OSI approved licence (so for open source projects the existing one would do), it would have been OK. As it is, it's incompatible with lots of them. That makes using SSPL licences code in any commercial project, even one that open sources all of its code, impossible.

As someone who firmly believes earning a buck and open source belong in bed together, SSPL looks as bad as pure proprietary.