How We Are Building a Self-Sustaining Open-Source Business in the Cloud Era

Timescale first announced its plan to build a self-sustaining open-source business in the cloud era back in 2018, introducing the Timescale License (TSL). The TSL is a source-available license that maintains an open-source spirit but restricts companies from offering software licensed under it via a hosted database-as-a-service. This approach has been successful and enabled TimescaleDB to grow its community significantly. TimescaleDB, the leading relational database for time-series data, is engineered on top of PostgreSQL and offers massive scale, high compression rates, faster queries, and overall reliability. The growth of the Timescale Community indicates a strong demand for a new database to handle time-series data. Cloud Protection Licenses like the TSL attempt to maintain an open-source spirit but protect the right of offering the software in the cloud for the main creator and maintainer of the project. This "cloud protection" enables open-source businesses like TimescaleDB to become self-sustaining in the cloud era. The response from the community has been overwhelmingly positive, with many developers supporting the general direction of the TSL. The updated license in 2020 added some rights and removed others based on user feedback while preserving the main restriction preventing other companies from offering TimescaleDB-as-a-service. In summary, the Timescale License allows users to run TimescaleDB for internal use or utilize it as part of a value-added service, but restricts them from utilizing it for external use unless as part of a value-added service and distributing modified source code.