Comment by bloppe
2 months ago
Most source-available licenses that I've encountered have no paid license requirements for users. They only require a paid license if you want to sell the product commercially. Normally, you're still allowed to use the software as a piece of a larger commercial product, as long as it does not compete with the original author, or "substantially reproduce the functionality" of the source-available bits, depending on the exact language.
While it's true that this the kind of "source available" license the article is talking about, other examples exist.
For instance, the source code to Epic's Unreal Engine[1] is hosted in a private GitHub repo, accessible by anyone who agrees to a clickthrough license, and free for personal, educational, and commercial use up to $1 million gross revenue, at which point royalty payments are required.
[1] https://www.unrealengine.com/