Open Source Does NOT Mean Free

Corporate Use Restrictions There seems to be a growing trend in Open Source software of adding Terms of Use of a download service to exclude use by businesses (usually defining this as some number of employees, some amount of revenue or both), so that the software itself remains free and open source, but making sure that businesses must pay for the privilage of using the product. These span a wide swath of methods from very obvious paywalls to deeply obfuscated Terms of Use clauses, and they are dangerous for businesses specifically because some programmer who uses one of these technologies at home on an open source project often won’t think twice about installing the same on a business supplied computer to get their job’s work done…...

3 Apr 2024 · 3 min · Gary Allen Vollink