Why not just release the software after your set threshold of time versus opening it up with such a license? To get eyes on it before-hand?

Also how does this work with contributor contributions? Does the owning SaaS get the benefit of contributor work instantly while everyone else has to wait 2 years? What about the contributers themselves?

> Why not just release the software after your set threshold of time versus opening it up with such a license?

That requires trust that the company will do this. The FSL is irrevocable and comes with a future promise.

> Also how does this work with contributor contributions?

The same way as any other thing with a CLA works. If you don't have a CLA, then you have a bit of a mess.

presumably because a) it still allows the source code to be available and used for the 'permitted purposes' (i.e. anything that's not directly competing), and b) it represents a concrete commitment to open up, not just a pinkie promise (even if they were to have a license or contract which promised it, it would not be as easy to rely on as actually having the source code published. Companies have reneged on such promises before).

And yeah, by my reading essentially people can contribute code or publish patches (with just a plain MIT license in principle), just the original and derivatives still can't be used for non-permitted purposes until the timer is up.

> Why not just release the software

You may want to allow certain uses (self-hosting, etc) even before it transitions to a fully open-source license. Having access to the source code can also help SaaS users debug certain situations.