15 ms·

“Worrying about licensing is what PG would call a sitcom idea”

133 points by tepidandroid 10y ago

tepidandroid 10y ago
It's not my intention to start a flame-war, I'm just interested in hearing hn's opinion on the merit of this viewpoint.
- tyingq 10y ago
  Seems fairly straightforward to me. The more viral nature of AGPL is limiting their options for stewardship. One way of getting around that is to be the owner of the original IP, whereby you could relicense it under something that wouldn't limit stewardship options. It seems that's not a possibility, because: "One of the creditors owns the IP and IMO they're unlikely to sell it unless the project raises fairly substantial sums of money" So, basically, they will have to sort out stewardship with fewer options than what would be optimal. There seems to be a "far left" and "far right" view on the thread. The "far left" is that the issues above somehow don't matter at all. The "far right" view is that they are showstoppers for any kind of stewardship solution. The truth is somewhere in the middle.
  - wmf 10y ago
    I don't understand why everything has to be part of ASF or LF these days. Our code is open but our thinking seems pretty cargo cult.
    - vorg 10y ago
      ASF have had IP and governance problems with Open Office (wrt Libre Office), Cassandra (wrt DataStax), and Apache Groovy (wrt OCI, IP).
falcolas 10y ago
> It's a hundred times easier to solve any potential IP problems for a successful project Tell that to the original author of libevhtp, who is currently homeless. To paraphrase him, "the ideals behind BSD are great until someone derives massive profits from your work and doesn't share." Yes, there are other issues contributing to his being homeless; my point is that putting careful thought into your licensing is important, if only because you can't always change it later. Being clear on IP ownership is also quite important, especially with the threat of someone with an army of lawyers landing on your doorstep. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13423607 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13423607 EDIT: Fixed name of library, thanks for the check.
- timtadh 10y ago
  That is a reason to use the AGPL when working on free software. Using a BSD license gives you (the creator) zero protection from bad commercial actors who want to use the software without contributing back. The AGPL is not the right choice for every project but I do believe it is a good choice for software which can be trivially setup as a service. For instance, an open source web application, an open source database, an open source irc server, etc... I think Linus did the right thing going with the GPL for Linux and sticking with version 2.
  - ricardobeat 10y ago
    Protection from what? Most people release their open-source work in the "just do whatever the f you want" spirit. If there is a commercial opportunity you can always re-license / offer paid support.
    - falcolas 10y ago
      Protection from someone monitizing your work before you can monetize on it. If they get a copy of the code released under the BSD license, no amount of re-licensing will help get a penny. In fact, many people will simply re-host re-licensed work, in an effort to keep the "free" version available.
- picardo 10y ago
  > Tell that to the original author of libevent, who is currently homeless. Can you cite your sources for this claim? I checked the Wikipedia article for Libevent[0]. The original author, Niels Provos, appears to work for Google[1]. ----- [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libevent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libevent [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niels_Provos https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niels_Provos
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - falcolas 10y ago
notacoward 10y ago
I've been through relicensing exercises a couple of times. They're a pain, but a necessary pain because this stuff really does matter and can come back to haunt you. I might not agree with bcantrill on the "toxicity" of AGPL, but he's totally on point about the likely effect of failing to deal with the license issue. "Sitcom idea" only betrays the author's own ignorance.
- bcantrill 10y ago
  My view on its toxicity comes in part from too many conversations with lawyers over the years: lawyers (like engineers, honestly) are conservative, worst-case thinkers by nature -- and with the AGPL, one needn't much imagination to get to a worst-case that threatens one's entire business. As further evidence: there are a few projects that have started as AGPL, but moved away from it as they have needed broader adoption[1] -- but there is one notable example of a project that moved to the AGPL. That project was BerkeleyDB -- which was relicensed to be AGPL by Oracle.[2] Oracle knew exactly what they were doing here: cynically using the AGPL's toxicity to drive enterprise adopters of BerkeleyDB towards a commercial license. [1] http://blog.opalang.org/2012/05/opa-license-change-not-just-agpl.html http://blog.opalang.org/2012/05/opa-license-change-not-just-... [2] http://www.infoworld.com/article/2611450/open-source-software/oracle-switches-berkeley-db-license.html http://www.infoworld.com/article/2611450/open-source-softwar...
  - ScottBurson 10y ago
    As a disinterested observer -- I haven't used RethinkDB and have no stake in it -- I think you're probably right. I am familiar with my BigCo's approval process for open source components used in our products, and I know that the AGPL is a non-starter.
    - ScottBurson 10y ago
      I should have added: the LGPL is fine; we use lots of LGPL components. The LGPL tends to be my choice for my personal projects as well. I think it strikes a good balance, allowing use in products, but requiring users who improve the component itself to contribute those changes back.
marknadal 10y ago
Look, Slava and Mike are incredible guys and ridiculously smart. If Slava thinks "I wouldn't spend a dime of that money on IP" then you should do that for two reasons: 1) He's the original founder and should be respected out of courtesy. 2) He just gave you an amazing opportunity to not worry, so take it. I explore more of my thoughts on Open Source license and the post-mortem on this just-released The Change Log podcast episode - https://changelog.com/podcast https://changelog.com/podcast . One of the things that we are doing is making sure to always license our code as MIT or ZLIB or Apache 2. This is a promise (and a legal one too) to developers that the ideals and values of Open Source will always be there, first and foremost. In fact, the license was determined by a community vote (see here: https://github.com/amark/gun/issues/17 https://github.com/amark/gun/issues/17 ). People have asked why others (like us) won't shut down in the same way Parse and Rethink have, I think the answer is simple: 5 billion new people are coming online by 2020 and the technical challenges of creating scalable systems still exists. So the opportunity is enormous and proportional to how scalable your system can be - which means decentralized tools will win out over time compared to their centralized alternatives. Second, unlike attempts to sell support licenses or DBaaS or crippleware premium upgrades, we're taking the approach of partnering with developers/companies that build industry transformational product and solutions for governments and enterprises. We believe that if we can enable others to be able to create answers for the needs of large organizations, then we both can mutually benefit by creating revenue shared partnerships. This is already happening with several companies, and we're rolling out to a government (but I can't disclose who/what/how yet). We think this will work, and it will pave the pathway for other Open Source vendors that a real business model can work, without any of the unfortunate alternatives strategies others have taken (open core crippleware, unlikely support licenses, struggling DBaaS). This creates the best "win-win-win" environment, where startups get to piggy back for free while governments and enterprises pay for the much needed technology solutions to handle the coming transformation. What transformation am I talking about? Again, the 5B new people, the advent of IoT and every autonomous car or burrito delivery drone, and the demand for doing machine learning on the whole system, at a global scale - see this article on distributed machine learning with gun: http://myrighttocode.org/blog/artificial%20intelligence/particle%20swarm/genetic%20algorithm/collective%20knowledge/machine%20learning/gun-db-artificial-knowledge-sharing http://myrighttocode.org/blog/artificial%20intelligence/part... . This transformation won't succeed unless it can be built on top of truly Open technology, and that is why license is important.
TeMPOraL 10y ago
For those of us who don't follow RethinkDB story: I was initially confused about this - they're talking about "open-rethinkdb", even though RethinkDB itself is open source. It seems that the company between RethinkDB is shutting down, but trying to let the project be continued by the community. Some context I found here: https://rethinkdb.com/blog/rethinkdb-shutdown/ https://rethinkdb.com/blog/rethinkdb-shutdown/.
fusiongyro 10y ago
He's extremely right. I like RethinkDB, but it's not going to fail because of accidental success attracting parasitic litigious organisms in the post-corporate open-source phase. It's going to fail because the only people who know the code well enough to work on it aren't working on it anymore. I like RethinkDB a lot, but A) I have no time to contribute and B) my ability to use and enjoy databases does not automatically confer the ability to write them. I think most people who liked RethinkDB are in a similar boat to me. I'd love to see this project take off. But I didn't have money or time for it before and I still don't. I don't have those things for Postgres either but it doesn't seem to need them as direly.
- jankotek 10y ago
  I disagree. If code would be Apache licensed, I personally would consider to start new company around it. Maybe it would not 'scale', but it would be enough to pay my bills.
  - mrkurt 10y ago
    This isn't an asshole question, I'm actually curious: what could you do with the Apache license that you can't do with the agpl?
    - jankotek 10y ago
      - Consulting is much harder with AGPL. It is pain to ship products with this license - No way to operate under Apache foundation or other umbrella - AGPL is simply banned in many corporations - No way to create 'enterprise' proprietary version - No way to charge for extended customer support (patches only for subscribers after free support runs out).
      - michaelmrose 10y ago
        Couldn't you as the author offer any of the above by dual licensing it?
  - 10y ago
Nomentatus 10y ago
There's nothing theoretical about the billions that have already been spent (wasted) replacing GPL projects with code with a more permissive license - namely one that actually permits companies to keep their patents, among other things. Think about Chromium (which is not derived from webkit, that had to be replaced by Blink) and Android (replacing the GNU libraries and making them redundant. Total waste, caused by a license that over-reaches. Not everyone wants to abandon the idea of having patents.
- eridius 10y ago
  > Think about Chromium (which is not derived from webkit, that had to be replaced by Blink) Blink itself is derived from WebKit.
  - Nomentatus 10y ago
    Blink was NOT derived, if derived means fork. It's a functional copy, with no copyright taint. A recreation with all-new code.
    - icebraining 10y ago
      https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/forum/#!msg/blink-dev/J41PSKuMan0/zcDKOchLmu0J https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/forum/#!msg/blink-d... https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/blink/+/master/Source/core/LICENSE-APPLE https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/blink/+/master/So...
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
    - eridius 10y ago
      No. Blink is, in fact, a fork of WebCore (which is WebKit minus JavaScriptCore).
- dragandj 10y ago
  > Not everyone wants to abandon the idea of having patents. That is fine, but then replacing GNU libraries is not waste, but investment. The authors of GNU libraries give their work for free, and would also like to be able to use other people's (potentially patentable) work in return.
rch 10y ago
> the differences are mostly theoretical This is simply untrue, and bad advice to anyone thinking of using the product in a way that's inconsistent with the license. Is the author actually suggesting people should do that?
mshenfield 10y ago
Can someone explain if/when the AGPL can be used as part of a closed source software project?
- icebraining 10y ago
  It's not clear. Supposedly yes as long as it's a separate component (like using RethinkDB from another process), but not if it's linked into the same executable. Then again, some people disagree with the FSF on that regarding, saying that simply linking isn't enough to make it a derived work. I'm not sure any of this has been well tested in court.
  - mshenfield 10y ago
    Makes sense, thanks

133 points by tepidandroid 10y ago

tepidandroid 10y ago

It's not my intention to start a flame-war, I'm just interested in hearing hn's opinion on the merit of this viewpoint.

tyingq 10y ago
Seems fairly straightforward to me. The more viral nature of AGPL is limiting their options for stewardship. One way of getting around that is to be the owner of the original IP, whereby you could relicense it under something that wouldn't limit stewardship options. It seems that's not a possibility, because: "One of the creditors owns the IP and IMO they're unlikely to sell it unless the project raises fairly substantial sums of money" So, basically, they will have to sort out stewardship with fewer options than what would be optimal. There seems to be a "far left" and "far right" view on the thread. The "far left" is that the issues above somehow don't matter at all. The "far right" view is that they are showstoppers for any kind of stewardship solution. The truth is somewhere in the middle.
- wmf 10y ago
  I don't understand why everything has to be part of ASF or LF these days. Our code is open but our thinking seems pretty cargo cult.
  - vorg 10y ago
    ASF have had IP and governance problems with Open Office (wrt Libre Office), Cassandra (wrt DataStax), and Apache Groovy (wrt OCI, IP).

falcolas 10y ago

> It's a hundred times easier to solve any potential IP problems for a successful project Tell that to the original author of libevhtp, who is currently homeless. To paraphrase him, "the ideals behind BSD are great until someone derives massive profits from your work and doesn't share." Yes, there are other issues contributing to his being homeless; my point is that putting careful thought into your licensing is important, if only because you can't always change it later. Being clear on IP ownership is also quite important, especially with the threat of someone with an army of lawyers landing on your doorstep. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13423607 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13423607 EDIT: Fixed name of library, thanks for the check.

timtadh 10y ago
That is a reason to use the AGPL when working on free software. Using a BSD license gives you (the creator) zero protection from bad commercial actors who want to use the software without contributing back. The AGPL is not the right choice for every project but I do believe it is a good choice for software which can be trivially setup as a service. For instance, an open source web application, an open source database, an open source irc server, etc... I think Linus did the right thing going with the GPL for Linux and sticking with version 2.
- ricardobeat 10y ago
  Protection from what? Most people release their open-source work in the "just do whatever the f you want" spirit. If there is a commercial opportunity you can always re-license / offer paid support.
  - falcolas 10y ago
    Protection from someone monitizing your work before you can monetize on it. If they get a copy of the code released under the BSD license, no amount of re-licensing will help get a penny. In fact, many people will simply re-host re-licensed work, in an effort to keep the "free" version available.
picardo 10y ago
> Tell that to the original author of libevent, who is currently homeless. Can you cite your sources for this claim? I checked the Wikipedia article for Libevent[0]. The original author, Niels Provos, appears to work for Google[1]. ----- [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libevent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libevent [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niels_Provos https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niels_Provos
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- falcolas 10y ago

notacoward 10y ago

I've been through relicensing exercises a couple of times. They're a pain, but a necessary pain because this stuff really does matter and can come back to haunt you. I might not agree with bcantrill on the "toxicity" of AGPL, but he's totally on point about the likely effect of failing to deal with the license issue. "Sitcom idea" only betrays the author's own ignorance.

bcantrill 10y ago
My view on its toxicity comes in part from too many conversations with lawyers over the years: lawyers (like engineers, honestly) are conservative, worst-case thinkers by nature -- and with the AGPL, one needn't much imagination to get to a worst-case that threatens one's entire business. As further evidence: there are a few projects that have started as AGPL, but moved away from it as they have needed broader adoption[1] -- but there is one notable example of a project that moved to the AGPL. That project was BerkeleyDB -- which was relicensed to be AGPL by Oracle.[2] Oracle knew exactly what they were doing here: cynically using the AGPL's toxicity to drive enterprise adopters of BerkeleyDB towards a commercial license. [1] http://blog.opalang.org/2012/05/opa-license-change-not-just-agpl.html http://blog.opalang.org/2012/05/opa-license-change-not-just-... [2] http://www.infoworld.com/article/2611450/open-source-software/oracle-switches-berkeley-db-license.html http://www.infoworld.com/article/2611450/open-source-softwar...
- ScottBurson 10y ago
  As a disinterested observer -- I haven't used RethinkDB and have no stake in it -- I think you're probably right. I am familiar with my BigCo's approval process for open source components used in our products, and I know that the AGPL is a non-starter.
  - ScottBurson 10y ago
    I should have added: the LGPL is fine; we use lots of LGPL components. The LGPL tends to be my choice for my personal projects as well. I think it strikes a good balance, allowing use in products, but requiring users who improve the component itself to contribute those changes back.

marknadal 10y ago

Look, Slava and Mike are incredible guys and ridiculously smart. If Slava thinks "I wouldn't spend a dime of that money on IP" then you should do that for two reasons: 1) He's the original founder and should be respected out of courtesy. 2) He just gave you an amazing opportunity to not worry, so take it. I explore more of my thoughts on Open Source license and the post-mortem on this just-released The Change Log podcast episode - https://changelog.com/podcast https://changelog.com/podcast . One of the things that we are doing is making sure to always license our code as MIT or ZLIB or Apache 2. This is a promise (and a legal one too) to developers that the ideals and values of Open Source will always be there, first and foremost. In fact, the license was determined by a community vote (see here: https://github.com/amark/gun/issues/17 https://github.com/amark/gun/issues/17 ). People have asked why others (like us) won't shut down in the same way Parse and Rethink have, I think the answer is simple: 5 billion new people are coming online by 2020 and the technical challenges of creating scalable systems still exists. So the opportunity is enormous and proportional to how scalable your system can be - which means decentralized tools will win out over time compared to their centralized alternatives. Second, unlike attempts to sell support licenses or DBaaS or crippleware premium upgrades, we're taking the approach of partnering with developers/companies that build industry transformational product and solutions for governments and enterprises. We believe that if we can enable others to be able to create answers for the needs of large organizations, then we both can mutually benefit by creating revenue shared partnerships. This is already happening with several companies, and we're rolling out to a government (but I can't disclose who/what/how yet). We think this will work, and it will pave the pathway for other Open Source vendors that a real business model can work, without any of the unfortunate alternatives strategies others have taken (open core crippleware, unlikely support licenses, struggling DBaaS). This creates the best "win-win-win" environment, where startups get to piggy back for free while governments and enterprises pay for the much needed technology solutions to handle the coming transformation. What transformation am I talking about? Again, the 5B new people, the advent of IoT and every autonomous car or burrito delivery drone, and the demand for doing machine learning on the whole system, at a global scale - see this article on distributed machine learning with gun: http://myrighttocode.org/blog/artificial%20intelligence/particle%20swarm/genetic%20algorithm/collective%20knowledge/machine%20learning/gun-db-artificial-knowledge-sharing http://myrighttocode.org/blog/artificial%20intelligence/part... . This transformation won't succeed unless it can be built on top of truly Open technology, and that is why license is important.

TeMPOraL 10y ago

For those of us who don't follow RethinkDB story: I was initially confused about this - they're talking about "open-rethinkdb", even though RethinkDB itself is open source. It seems that the company between RethinkDB is shutting down, but trying to let the project be continued by the community. Some context I found here: https://rethinkdb.com/blog/rethinkdb-shutdown/ https://rethinkdb.com/blog/rethinkdb-shutdown/.

fusiongyro 10y ago

He's extremely right. I like RethinkDB, but it's not going to fail because of accidental success attracting parasitic litigious organisms in the post-corporate open-source phase. It's going to fail because the only people who know the code well enough to work on it aren't working on it anymore. I like RethinkDB a lot, but A) I have no time to contribute and B) my ability to use and enjoy databases does not automatically confer the ability to write them. I think most people who liked RethinkDB are in a similar boat to me. I'd love to see this project take off. But I didn't have money or time for it before and I still don't. I don't have those things for Postgres either but it doesn't seem to need them as direly.

jankotek 10y ago
I disagree. If code would be Apache licensed, I personally would consider to start new company around it. Maybe it would not 'scale', but it would be enough to pay my bills.
- mrkurt 10y ago
  This isn't an asshole question, I'm actually curious: what could you do with the Apache license that you can't do with the agpl?
  - jankotek 10y ago
    - Consulting is much harder with AGPL. It is pain to ship products with this license - No way to operate under Apache foundation or other umbrella - AGPL is simply banned in many corporations - No way to create 'enterprise' proprietary version - No way to charge for extended customer support (patches only for subscribers after free support runs out).
    - michaelmrose 10y ago
      Couldn't you as the author offer any of the above by dual licensing it?
- 10y ago

Nomentatus 10y ago

There's nothing theoretical about the billions that have already been spent (wasted) replacing GPL projects with code with a more permissive license - namely one that actually permits companies to keep their patents, among other things. Think about Chromium (which is not derived from webkit, that had to be replaced by Blink) and Android (replacing the GNU libraries and making them redundant. Total waste, caused by a license that over-reaches. Not everyone wants to abandon the idea of having patents.

eridius 10y ago
> Think about Chromium (which is not derived from webkit, that had to be replaced by Blink) Blink itself is derived from WebKit.
- Nomentatus 10y ago
  Blink was NOT derived, if derived means fork. It's a functional copy, with no copyright taint. A recreation with all-new code.
  - icebraining 10y ago
    https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/forum/#!msg/blink-dev/J41PSKuMan0/zcDKOchLmu0J https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/forum/#!msg/blink-d... https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/blink/+/master/Source/core/LICENSE-APPLE https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/blink/+/master/So...
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - eridius 10y ago
    No. Blink is, in fact, a fork of WebCore (which is WebKit minus JavaScriptCore).
dragandj 10y ago
> Not everyone wants to abandon the idea of having patents. That is fine, but then replacing GNU libraries is not waste, but investment. The authors of GNU libraries give their work for free, and would also like to be able to use other people's (potentially patentable) work in return.

rch 10y ago

> the differences are mostly theoretical This is simply untrue, and bad advice to anyone thinking of using the product in a way that's inconsistent with the license. Is the author actually suggesting people should do that?

mshenfield 10y ago

Can someone explain if/when the AGPL can be used as part of a closed source software project?

icebraining 10y ago
It's not clear. Supposedly yes as long as it's a separate component (like using RethinkDB from another process), but not if it's linked into the same executable. Then again, some people disagree with the FSF on that regarding, saying that simply linking isn't enough to make it a derived work. I'm not sure any of this has been well tested in court.
- mshenfield 10y ago
  Makes sense, thanks