I definitely don't consider the BSL to be a true "open source" license. However, I think that if the Additional Use Grant is written clearly and unambiguously, it may well be a reasonable compromise.

That said - the Additional Use Grant for Restate is fairly ambiguous:

> Additional Use Grant: You may make use of the Licensed Work, provided that you may not use the Licensed Work for an Application Platform Service.

> An “Application Platform Service” is a commercial offering that allows third parties (other than your employees and contractors) to access the functionality of the Licensed Work by registering new services (directly or indirectly) with the Licensed Work for the purpose of invoking such services through the Licensed Work.

What does it mean to "access the functionality"? What does it mean to "register [a] new service" ? How do you determine the "purpose" of invoking such services?

I understand that the intent is to prevent someone from launching a competing "Restate-as-a-Service" business; but broadly written clauses like this scare me off. If I want to build a totally different kind of business that heavily _relies_ on Restate, I would worry that these ambiguous, broad definitions could easily be used against me.

I really wish that companies adopting the BSL would put much more clarity into the license text. I know there's likely very good business reasons not to - you may constrain yourself in the future by doing so - but in my mind it would be the "right" thing to do. You'd get people actually using and contributing back to your software, much like they would under a more permissive license.