Open source is not synonymous with free software. The world is evolving and so open source should also evolve with it. Confluent have made it abundantly clear that the Apache Kafka project is and always will be Apache 2 licensed. Therefore that's where you go for your completely free solution. The community license is additional features free for use but not for you to provide as a managed service. Enterprise is something you have to pay for.
There's clear distinction and delineation between these. To an outside observer this might seem confusing and nuanced. In which case use the apache 2 licensed software which should unquestionably be open source and free. But otherwise those building businesses around open source technology have to find a way to protect against cloud providers. Licensing innovation is the only path forward right now until the cloud providers start to philosophically realign themselves back with what open source stood for and stop being bad actors.
There's clear distinction and delineation between these. To an outside observer this might seem confusing and nuanced. In which case use the apache 2 licensed software which should unquestionably be open source and free. But otherwise those building businesses around open source technology have to find a way to protect against cloud providers. Licensing innovation is the only path forward right now until the cloud providers start to philosophically realign themselves back with what open source stood for and stop being bad actors.