ADR-007 Apache 2.0, and money from what surrounds the code

QuantyKube is licensed under the Apache License 2.0. Anyone may use, change and redistribute it, companies included.

What was rejected. Source available licenses such as the Business Source License or the Functional Source License do what was first asked for: free for everyone, paid for those who compete. They were rejected for two reasons. They are not open source under the Open Source Definition, which forbids treating commercial use differently, and this project will not call itself open source if it is not (ADR-002). And the projects this one competes with, kine first among them, are Apache 2.0: a stricter license here would give every potential user a reason to stay where they are. Recent relicensings in this ecosystem were followed by community forks, which is the outcome to avoid.

Apache 2.0 rather than MIT, which QuantyDB uses, because it includes an explicit patent license, which the legal departments of the companies this is meant for look for, and because it is the license the Kubernetes ecosystem expects.

The cost: the code itself cannot be sold. Revenue has to come from what surrounds it: support, operation, and features built on top that are offered separately. Anything that might ever be sold separately must be designed as a separate piece from the start, not cut out of the open code later.