Yes, that's my exact point - these things are sometimes full of finer points. I don't doubt that DigitalOcean have talked with MongoDB and have probably figured out some sort of a deal, or another way to offer it as a service (someone mentioned them using the enterprise version, where the terms are probably different).
Though offering MongoDB as a service for a small no-name company all of the sudden seems impossible, unless they actually want to open soruce lots of their own code.
> Also, the SSPL seems to be a little controversial [1] as it appears to want to relicence all software it's running near under itself.
Of course, there was backlash to it even existing, much like larger companies didn't really like AGPL being a thing either.
Then again, I guess one could argue that MongoDB definitely can create such a license, as a reaction against cloud platforms utilizing their solution: https://www.mongodb.com/blog/post/mongodb-now-released-under...
This should be a time of incredible opportunity for open source. The revenue generated by a service can be a great source of funding for open source projects, far greater than what has historically been available. The reality, however, is that once an open source project becomes interesting, it is too easy for large cloud vendors to capture most of the value while contributing little or nothing back to the community. As a result, smaller companies are understandably unwilling to wager their existence against the strategic interests of the large cloud vendors, and most new software is being written as closed source.