Unclear FOSS Offering

When a project advertises relation to free or open source software, with various offerings under different licenses, ideally it should be very clear to users what’s provided as FOSS. Some projects appear to conflate their FOSS and non-FOSS offerings in ways which could benefit themselves.

Here are common signs and examples of this kind of issue at play:

• Marketing as FOSS with non-FOSS features/offerings mentioned in the same content.
• The project provides non-FOSS offerings as the default/main option.
• They don’t clearly distinguish between FOSS and non-FOSS variations in marketing/information.
• Information about the actual differences between FOSS and non-FOSS variations is difficult to find.

Ideally, in a scenario where FOSS and non-FOSS variations exists, a project should clearly distinguish between these in marketing, licensing and distribution to help avoid users being misled about the FOSS value provided.