Ask HN: Thoughts on Elastic V2, SSPL, or mixed software licenses?

6 points

3 years ago

Hey all, we’re launching our start-up next month and are planning to pick Elastic V2 as our software license.

Link to the license: https://www.elastic.co/licensing/elastic-license

Link to our project: https://github.com/ubicloud/ubicloud

A recent HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36971490

We’re choosing Elastic V2 for three reasons: (1) We’re planning to monetize through a managed service and we’d like the license to support that, (2) Later if we change our mind, we think it’s easier on our users if we go from a restrictive license to a more permissive one, and (3) The Elastic V2 license is much simpler than its cousin, Server Side Public License (SSPL).

That said, Elastic V2 is a new license and doesn’t seem to be as popular as SSPL. Also, some projects out there mix and match multiple licenses in their repo to be able to call themselves open source.

Any insights / feedback on Elastic V2 or software licenses in general?

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