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The GNU Affero GPLv3 has been a recurring topic during RethinkDB's existence, but I cannot substantiate the same having been an issue for MongoDB. Links appreci

by niftich 10y ago

The GNU Affero GPLv3 has been a recurring topic during RethinkDB's existence, but I cannot substantiate the same having been an issue for MongoDB. Links appreciated. Some instances of people asking about GNU Affero GPLv3 and RethinkDB: (2014-11-16) https://github.com/rethinkdb/rethinkdb/issues/3347 https://github.com/rethinkdb/rethinkdb/issues/3347 (2015-06-16) https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/rethinkdb/g5UEck3sqMs https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/rethinkdb/g5UEck3sqM... (2016-10-10) https://sagemath.blogspot.com/2016/10/rethinkdb-must-relicense-now-what-is.html https://sagemath.blogspot.com/2016/10/rethinkdb-must-relicen... (2017-01-09) https://github.com/rethinkdb/rethinkdb/issues/6221 https://github.com/rethinkdb/rethinkdb/issues/6221

Operyl 10y ago
It only recently became a big issue because in MongoDB land, you can purchase an alternative license from the company, from what I understand. In RethinkDB's case, we lost that as soon as the company shut down.
zb 10y ago
Yes, this is a giant issue for MongoDB. For example here's Yahoo explaining (in 2014) why they will never use it: http://lists.openstack.org/pipermail/openstack-dev/2014-March/030510.html http://lists.openstack.org/pipermail/openstack-dev/2014-Marc... For the record, I personally think that this is 100% pure FUD (the thinking behind it is described as "preposterous" later in the thread). Nevertheless, if someone with the title of "Sr. Director Of Open Source, Open Standards" at a company the size of Yahoo can buy in to this FUD, then most smaller companies have no chance of distinguishing between fact and fantasy, and many will steer clear as a precaution.
- dublinben 10y ago
  Unfortunately, it's neither new nor surprising that a director of "Open Source" at a large company would be spreading unfounded doubt about a strongly copyleft free software license. It is ultimately against their employer's interests to be compelled to publish their modifications.
  - jsmthrowaway 10y ago
    If you're playing the incentive game, you missed the obvious one: the AGPL remains completely untested in court (unlike the other one) and "FUD" is a sensible approach to managing corporate risk in the absence of established precedent. There is a lot of uncertainty about how far the AGPL's requirements will go if the license is pressed in court, and how much of a vendor's proprietary code will be "threatened" (I know this term is loaded, but think from the perspective of the lawyers). I realize every hacker on the planet feels that they have the finer points of AGPL interpretation under firm mastery and are in a position to explain contract and licensing law to lawyers, but a vast number of lawyers at the large shops have looked at AGPL now and advised caution in dealing with it nearly across the board. If you want to characterize that as "unfounded doubt" (which I've translated to FUD for you instead of pressing you on what "unfounded" means without precedent), you're not technically wrong, but it polarizes what is otherwise a reasonable position of uncertainty on a significant amount of corporate risk. There are people who spend their entire lives managing risk, and hackers are very quick to dismiss such concerns -- even beyond AGPL, a number of various risks could rapidly unravel an entire corporation, and I'm often in conversations where the solution seems obvious to an engineer. The term FUD itself is dangerous, because very often uncertainty is a perfectly valid approach to a legal problem such as licensing. Belittling uncertainty by equating it to fear creates the flawed impression that we should all act rashly all the time. Sometimes caution is good, even if it's the other side of a debate you feel passionately about, and polarizing it will not help you win over the cautious folks. Understanding their concerns and meeting them at the table will go much further. Knocking open source groups at large shops with scare quotes like that is a bit weird, too. So Yahoo! starts an open source team, speaks openly about their thinking around licenses, generally invests a lot of thinking in license compliance and how to contribute back (Yahoo! is one of the bigger contributors to FOSS that I can think of -- hello, Hadoop?), and then after all that, free software advocates make comments like this one and cast some aspect of the work as hostile to free software. That seems self-defeating to me and I wish this whole conversation were less polarized, given that most companies don't even have an "Open Source Intern."
    - tormeh 10y ago
      Isn't this just a problem with common law? In Civil Law, I would imagine the license in itself would be enough information, no?
- david-given 10y ago
  Why is it FUD? I've heard the same reasoning that the Yahoo director uses in many places, but have never heard a sensible rebuttal.

by niftich 10y ago

Operyl 10y ago

It only recently became a big issue because in MongoDB land, you can purchase an alternative license from the company, from what I understand. In RethinkDB's case, we lost that as soon as the company shut down.

zb 10y ago

Yes, this is a giant issue for MongoDB. For example here's Yahoo explaining (in 2014) why they will never use it: http://lists.openstack.org/pipermail/openstack-dev/2014-March/030510.html http://lists.openstack.org/pipermail/openstack-dev/2014-Marc... For the record, I personally think that this is 100% pure FUD (the thinking behind it is described as "preposterous" later in the thread). Nevertheless, if someone with the title of "Sr. Director Of Open Source, Open Standards" at a company the size of Yahoo can buy in to this FUD, then most smaller companies have no chance of distinguishing between fact and fantasy, and many will steer clear as a precaution.

dublinben 10y ago
Unfortunately, it's neither new nor surprising that a director of "Open Source" at a large company would be spreading unfounded doubt about a strongly copyleft free software license. It is ultimately against their employer's interests to be compelled to publish their modifications.
- jsmthrowaway 10y ago
  If you're playing the incentive game, you missed the obvious one: the AGPL remains completely untested in court (unlike the other one) and "FUD" is a sensible approach to managing corporate risk in the absence of established precedent. There is a lot of uncertainty about how far the AGPL's requirements will go if the license is pressed in court, and how much of a vendor's proprietary code will be "threatened" (I know this term is loaded, but think from the perspective of the lawyers). I realize every hacker on the planet feels that they have the finer points of AGPL interpretation under firm mastery and are in a position to explain contract and licensing law to lawyers, but a vast number of lawyers at the large shops have looked at AGPL now and advised caution in dealing with it nearly across the board. If you want to characterize that as "unfounded doubt" (which I've translated to FUD for you instead of pressing you on what "unfounded" means without precedent), you're not technically wrong, but it polarizes what is otherwise a reasonable position of uncertainty on a significant amount of corporate risk. There are people who spend their entire lives managing risk, and hackers are very quick to dismiss such concerns -- even beyond AGPL, a number of various risks could rapidly unravel an entire corporation, and I'm often in conversations where the solution seems obvious to an engineer. The term FUD itself is dangerous, because very often uncertainty is a perfectly valid approach to a legal problem such as licensing. Belittling uncertainty by equating it to fear creates the flawed impression that we should all act rashly all the time. Sometimes caution is good, even if it's the other side of a debate you feel passionately about, and polarizing it will not help you win over the cautious folks. Understanding their concerns and meeting them at the table will go much further. Knocking open source groups at large shops with scare quotes like that is a bit weird, too. So Yahoo! starts an open source team, speaks openly about their thinking around licenses, generally invests a lot of thinking in license compliance and how to contribute back (Yahoo! is one of the bigger contributors to FOSS that I can think of -- hello, Hadoop?), and then after all that, free software advocates make comments like this one and cast some aspect of the work as hostile to free software. That seems self-defeating to me and I wish this whole conversation were less polarized, given that most companies don't even have an "Open Source Intern."
  - tormeh 10y ago
    Isn't this just a problem with common law? In Civil Law, I would imagine the license in itself would be enough information, no?
david-given 10y ago
Why is it FUD? I've heard the same reasoning that the Yahoo director uses in many places, but have never heard a sensible rebuttal.