Dries Buytaert Weighs In on “Open Source” vs. “Source Available” Debate

The debate began after DHH released Fizzy under the O'Saasy license, which restricts competing SaaS offerings. Despite community pushback, he insisted that open source simply means open code. Mullenweg rebutted that the Open Source Initiative’s definition exists for a reason and can’t be disregarded for convenience. Dries agrees with Mullenweg that words matter, but urges that more attention be paid to the underlying tension: how projects stay sustainable when companies profit from open source but contribute little in return.

He notes that while WordPress is bound to the GPL, DHH is free to experiment with alternative licenses for new projects. In Drupal, the community has tried solutions like contribution credits and targeted incentives, but the imbalance remains. Dries argues that “source available” is a more accurate label for Fizzy its source is visible and modifiable, but commercial rights are reserved. That’s a defensible business model, he says, but not open source.

Dries concludes that the real challenge is not policing terminology, but asking how we encourage sustainable, reciprocal engagement. Questions like how to distinguish between companies that can't contribute versus those that won't, and what incentives actually work, deserve more focus than rhetorical disputes. He sees value in licenses like O'Saasy if they provoke better answers to those long-standing questions.