FOSS Access & Use Barriers

Some FOSS projects may have barriers or complications when it comes to accessing or using the project. Examples of such barriers could be:

• Payment required for use/access.
• Paid “license” checks, or gating of features.
• Tangential service terms which deny access when exercising given FOSS license rights.

It should be noted that these factors are not specifically against the definitions or idea of FOSS at all, and therefore won’t affect the categorization on this site (unless especially problematic in some way). In fact, things like the ability to require payment for (sell) FOSS software is a fundamental right of the FOSS definitions, and can be a very important beneficial factor for the ability of many FOSS projects to sustainably thrive.

This is noted as a concern where applicable as these kinds of barriers may not always be made transparent by the project itself and, for some, such barriers may go against their expectations of a FOSS project, or at least it can be an indicator of a project’s intent/direction relative to a viewer’s own values in respect to free use & distribution.