The following source-available software licenses are considered
non-free licenses because they have limitations that prevent them from being
open-source according to the
Open Source Initiative and
free to the
Free Software Foundation.
Commons Clause The Commons Clause, created by Fossa, Inc., is an
addendum to an
open-source software license that restricts users from selling the software. Under the combined license, the software is source-available, but not open-source. On 22 August 2018,
Redis Labs shifted some
Redis Modules from the
GNU Affero General Public License to a combination of the
Apache License 2.0 and the Commons Clause. In September 2018,
Matthew Garrett criticized Commons Clause calling it an "older way of doing things" and said it "doesn't help the
commons".
Business Source License Business Source License has been introduced by
MariaDB Corporation in 2016 and rapidly became one of the most adopted "delayed open source" licenses. It prohibits use of the code in production environments, where a commercial license is required.
Functional Source License Functional Source License has been introduced in November 2023 by Sentry, as a simpler alternative to Business Source License. It prohibits any "competing" use of the code, to preserve the rights of the author to economically exploit it, but applies for a limited time, after which the code itself is considered to be available under
Apache License or
MIT License.
GitLab Enterprise Edition License (EE License) The GitLab Enterprise Edition License is used exclusively by
GitLab's commercial offering. GitLab Inc. openly discloses that the EE License makes their Enterprise Edition product "proprietary, closed source code." GitLab also releases an open-source Community Edition under the
MIT License. This makes GitLab an example of an
open core company.
Mega Limited Code Review Licence In 2016, Mega Ltd. released the
source code of their
Mega clients under the Mega Limited Code Review Licence, which only permits usage of the code "for the purposes of review and commentary". The source code was released before former director
Kim Dotcom stated that he would "create a Mega competitor that is completely open source and non-profit" following his departure from Mega Ltd.
Microsoft Shared Source Initiative Microsoft's
Shared Source Initiative, launched in May 2001, comprises 5 licenses, 2 of which are
open-source and 3 of which are restricted. The restricted licenses under this scheme are the Microsoft Limited Public License (Ms-LPL), the Microsoft Limited Reciprocal License (Ms-LRL), and the Microsoft Reference Source License (Ms-RSL). but had a license that forbade commercial redistribution of modified versions. Versions 5 and later are distributed under the
GPL-compatible
CeCILL license.
Server Side Public License The
Server Side Public License is a modification of the
GNU Affero General Public License created by the
MongoDB project. It modifies a clause relating to usage of the licensed work over a network, stating that if SSPL-licensed software is incorporated into a "service" offered to other users, the source code for the entirety of the service (including without limitation all software and APIs that would be required for a user to run an instance of the service themselves) must be released under the SSPL. The license is considered non-free by the
Open Source Initiative,
Debian and
Red Hat, as it contains conditions that are unduly discriminatory towards commercial use of the software.
Open Compensation Token License The Open Compensation Token License is commercial source-available software license. The key idea is to keep software extendable by everyone and to combine this with fair payment. Commercial uses of the software require commercial licensing and the funds are distributed via technical means to the contributors. The German company iunera created the license during a project to optimize public transport usage. The license works by registering source code artifacts as code tokens on the blockchain. Every developer who builds on prior software needs to register the dependencies that he or she uses via the blockchain. This ensures that the prior labor by other developers is acknowledged. Commercial applications require an obtaining a license via the blockchain. The license cost is computed as a percentage of the invested work hours. Licensing funds are distributed based on the dependencies to the code token owners via blockchain. Anyone who extends source code which is licensed with the Open Compensation Token License is required to use the same license. The license webpage is explicitly stating it is non
Open Source.
SugarCRM Public License In 2007
Michael Tiemann, president of OSI, had criticized companies such as
SugarCRM for promoting their software as "open source" when in fact it did not have an OSI-approved license. In SugarCRM's case, it was because the software is so-called "
badgeware" since it specified a "badge" that must be displayed in the user interface. SugarCRM's open source version was re-licensed under the GPL version 3 in 2007, and later the
GNU Affero GPL version 3 in 2010.
TrueCrypt License The TrueCrypt License was used by the
TrueCrypt disk encryption utility. When TrueCrypt was discontinued, the
VeraCrypt fork switched to the
Apache License, but retained the TrueCrypt License for code inherited from TrueCrypt. The
Open Source Initiative rejects the TrueCrypt License, as "it has elements incompatible with the
OSD." The
Free Software Foundation criticizes the license for restricting who can execute the program, and for enforcing a trademark condition.
BeeGFS End User License Agreement BeeGFS EULA is the license of the distributed parallel file system BeeGFS, except the client for Linux, which is licensed under
GPLv2. BeeGFS source code is publicly available from their website, and because of this they claim that BeeGFS as "Open-Source" software; it is in fact not because this license prohibits distributing modified versions of the software, or using certain features of the software without authorization. ==See also==