> /v1/glossary/bsl · LICENSE-MODEL
Business Source License(BSL)
A source-available license that converts to an open source license after a delay (typically 4 years). Used by HashiCorp, Sentry, and others.
The Business Source License (BSL) — also written BUSL-1.1 — is a source-available license created by MariaDB and adopted by companies like HashiCorp (Terraform), Sentry, CockroachDB, and Couchbase. Source code is publicly available, but commercial competitive use is restricted during a "change date" period (usually 4 years), after which the code converts to a true open source license like Apache 2.0 or MPL 2.0.
BSL is not OSI-approved as open source, because the additional commercial restrictions violate the Open Source Definition's "no discrimination against fields of endeavor" clause. It's better described as "source-available" or "delayed open source."
Companies adopt BSL when they want public source code (for trust, audit, and ecosystem) but want to prevent cloud hyperscalers (AWS, Microsoft, Google) from selling competing managed services off their work.
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