[License-discuss] Pritunl "open source"

[B Galliart]

A couple months ago, I evaluated Pritunl, the "Open Source Enterprise
Distributed OpenVPN and IPsec Server"

The primary web page is available here:
https://pritunl.com/

The github project is available here:
https://github.com/pritunl/pritunl

The license is available here:
https://github.com/pritunl/pritunl/blob/master/LICENSE

The license summary states:

* Source-code or binary products cannot be resold or distributed

* Non-commercial use only

* Can modify source-code but cannot distribute modifications (derivative
works)

The primary web page uses the term Open Source nine times including:

(A) Pritunl Zero: Open source BeyondCorp server from Pritunl providing ...

(B) Open Source Alternative: Pritunl is the best open source alternative to
proprietary commercial vpn products such as Aviatrix and Pulse Secure

(C) Free and open source alternative to Aviatrix and Pulse Secure.

(D) pritunl client: Open Source OpenVPN Client

(E) Free and open source cross platform OpenVPN client.

(F) Connect to any OpenVPN server with a secure open source client.

(G) Free and open source alternative to Viscosity.

Pritunl also has a security web page available at:

https://pritunl.com/security

This web page uses the term Open Source three more times including:

(H) All source code for Pritunl is open source and can be audited by any
organization to ensure there are no security issues.

(I) Only open source software can guarantee the security of your network.

I originally assumed this use of the term open source came from a
misunderstanding of the term.  I emailed Zachary Huff with Pritunl to get
further clarification and got the following responses:

"The license isn’t compliant with the Open Source Initiative, it’s a
limited license intended to allow the source code to be public while still
protecting the commercial product."

"Traditional open source licenses would not be able to protect the
commercial product. The license is intended to allow the users of Pritunl
access to the source code and nothing more. This same license applies to
all other Pritunl products. The OSI will not accept or approve the license."

This response seems to me to result in two key questions that I have for
the OSI:

(1) What advocacy information does the Open Source Initiative provide which
indicates it is possible to protect the commercial viability of a product
when honoring the Open Source Definition?

(2) If someone still is not convinced the OSD is right for their product
but still wants to market their limited license code as Open Source, what
is the downside in doing so?

Thanks
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