I think the direction of your comment is right, with two caveats:
> but is closed now to create scarcity
1. It's not about scarcity. The software has always been given away for free for non-competing use (it was licensed under BUSL for 4+ years with a non-compete Additional Use Grant before this change).
Sentry's cloud offering (sentry.io) has always "competed" with its own free self-hosted users, and the new license doesn't change that. It's strictly about preventing free-riders who monetize the work without giving back.
> it’s different from simply switching to Apache later because it’s the promise that’s doing the heavy lifting
2. I agree, but I want to clarify that it's not a promise (which could be broken). It's a grant that is written into the source code itself (in the LICENSE file). If you possess a copy of the code today with this LICENSE file, in two years that copy will be Apache 2.0.
> but is closed now to create scarcity
1. It's not about scarcity. The software has always been given away for free for non-competing use (it was licensed under BUSL for 4+ years with a non-compete Additional Use Grant before this change).
Sentry's cloud offering (sentry.io) has always "competed" with its own free self-hosted users, and the new license doesn't change that. It's strictly about preventing free-riders who monetize the work without giving back.
> it’s different from simply switching to Apache later because it’s the promise that’s doing the heavy lifting
2. I agree, but I want to clarify that it's not a promise (which could be broken). It's a grant that is written into the source code itself (in the LICENSE file). If you possess a copy of the code today with this LICENSE file, in two years that copy will be Apache 2.0.