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Apparently

MarketingDragon

We don't really do marketing. Apparently this is the marketing page, so here is the honest explanation of what we do instead.

Saphira MarketingDragon waving a megaphone among marketing targets and charts

BUSL means BUSL. MIT means MIT.

Saphira software is not all under one licence. Some Saphira-owned code is MIT licensed. New Saphira-owned code is generally released under the Business Source License 1.1 (BUSL-1.1), which is source-available rather than an OSI-approved open-source licence during its restricted period. Third-party software retains its own licence.

We do not change the licence retrospectively. Software already released under MIT remains MIT. Those permissions do not disappear because we choose a different licence for later work.

BUSL-1.1 protects the work without charging people to use Saphira Linux. The Additional Use Grant permits production and commercial use of BUSL-licensed Saphira code as part of Saphira Linux. Run it at home. Run a business on it. Host customers. Manage infrastructure. Earn money providing services. There is no licence fee for those permitted uses.

What the grant does not permit is taking Saphira-owned BUSL code out of Saphira and using it in another commercial software product, distribution, appliance, platform or service without the necessary commercial licence from AKADATA. You can use Saphira to build your business. That does not give you permission to take our work, rebrand it and sell it as your own competing software.

Every BUSL-licensed version has a Change Date. No later than four years after its initial public release under BUSL-1.1, that version automatically transitions to GPL-2.0-or-later, according to its accompanying licence. The applicable Change Date is stated in the LICENSE file.

MIT remains MIT. Code released under MIT retains the freedoms that MIT grants, including commercial reuse, modification, redistribution and forking, subject to its licence conditions.

Upstream remains upstream. Saphira includes software written by other projects. Those packages retain their respective upstream licences. AKADATA does not acquire ownership of third-party code merely by building, packaging or distributing it.

Free means free for the uses permitted by the applicable licence. It does not mean every component has identical redistribution rights.

Read the LICENSE file accompanying the particular software and version. That is the licence which governs it, not a marketing slogan.

No salesperson is required to run Saphira Linux. A separate agreement may be required to commercially reuse BUSL-licensed Saphira code outside the permitted grant.

Apparently, licensing matters too.