3 ms·

I mean.. I'm sure they're concerned far more about corporations making money off their unpaid work by hiding it under many layers of abstraction. "Use our stuf

I mean.. I'm sure they're concerned far more about corporations making money off their unpaid work by hiding it under many layers of abstraction. "Use our stuff for free to do new stuff. But if you're making money off our stuff by selling our stuff's features, then we need to talk licensing first." If this is an accurate summary, I really don't see anything scandalous about it.

justinjlynn 8y ago
Surely this kind of resale of enterprise proprietary software modules is already prohibited by their enterprise licensing scheme. If it's open source, this is precisely what open source is meant to do. It's supposed to be a means to an end to enable new functionality - the fact that it's being sold doesn't matter. The key is that we all gain that ability. If they want to compete in that space with their open source product then they should run a hosting outfit - not try to rent seek from people adding value by actually running their code in production.
- mattdeboard 8y ago
  This is absolutely not Redis rent-seeking. In fact, what the Commons Clause is designed to protect against, from my lay-reading of it, is in fact rent-seeking. As for the rest, the Redis Labs post addresses every point you make pretty definitively. I don't think many of the people who are bothered by this business decision read that post. And if they did, and they comprehended it all, but they still think Redis decided poorly, then I think there's a different convo to have. A broader one about values. Or... hey, maybe they're just not as cynical as me. Maybe they don't think it's plausible companies are out there right now selling their "Redis with a few bells & whistles" product. Then it stands to reason that you'd see the Commons Clause as some kind of enablement to somehow rent-seek from innocent corporations. I mean hell I'd prefer that. If that's the case then I'd probably share that person's opinion about Commons Clause. I just don't think that's the case. I believe Redis is making this licensing change in good faith. Not because I know anything about Redis that leads me to believe they're honest people. But because a product team lazily putting together a product at AMZN or GOOG or whatever else and not even thinking to look at the Redis license sounds pretty realistic to me! Occam's Razor would say this is not an elaborate scheme by Redis to extort Fortune 500 companies.
  - justinjlynn 8y ago
    > But because a product team lazily putting together a product at AMZN or GOOG or whatever else and not even thinking to look at the Redis license sounds pretty realistic to me! No.
geofft 8y ago
I don't think there's anything scandalous here. I'm not Stallman; releasing non-Free Software is a perfectly legitimate and unscandalous thing to do IMO. Just be honest about it. Don't call it "Apache with this tiny little change that won't affect most people." Call it freeware (or shareware) with source available. And if you don't want to do that because FOSS has trounced shareware in the enterprise sales market... well, that's for you to figure out. I'm just here to say that it's actual FOSS that can be fully part of the FOSS ecosystem, like being in Linux distros, that trounced shareware. FOSS-but-not-really hasn't. Be honest with yourselves too, as well as honest with the world.

justinjlynn 8y ago

Surely this kind of resale of enterprise proprietary software modules is already prohibited by their enterprise licensing scheme. If it's open source, this is precisely what open source is meant to do. It's supposed to be a means to an end to enable new functionality - the fact that it's being sold doesn't matter. The key is that we all gain that ability. If they want to compete in that space with their open source product then they should run a hosting outfit - not try to rent seek from people adding value by actually running their code in production.

mattdeboard 8y ago
This is absolutely not Redis rent-seeking. In fact, what the Commons Clause is designed to protect against, from my lay-reading of it, is in fact rent-seeking. As for the rest, the Redis Labs post addresses every point you make pretty definitively. I don't think many of the people who are bothered by this business decision read that post. And if they did, and they comprehended it all, but they still think Redis decided poorly, then I think there's a different convo to have. A broader one about values. Or... hey, maybe they're just not as cynical as me. Maybe they don't think it's plausible companies are out there right now selling their "Redis with a few bells & whistles" product. Then it stands to reason that you'd see the Commons Clause as some kind of enablement to somehow rent-seek from innocent corporations. I mean hell I'd prefer that. If that's the case then I'd probably share that person's opinion about Commons Clause. I just don't think that's the case. I believe Redis is making this licensing change in good faith. Not because I know anything about Redis that leads me to believe they're honest people. But because a product team lazily putting together a product at AMZN or GOOG or whatever else and not even thinking to look at the Redis license sounds pretty realistic to me! Occam's Razor would say this is not an elaborate scheme by Redis to extort Fortune 500 companies.
- justinjlynn 8y ago
  > But because a product team lazily putting together a product at AMZN or GOOG or whatever else and not even thinking to look at the Redis license sounds pretty realistic to me! No.

geofft 8y ago

I don't think there's anything scandalous here. I'm not Stallman; releasing non-Free Software is a perfectly legitimate and unscandalous thing to do IMO. Just be honest about it. Don't call it "Apache with this tiny little change that won't affect most people." Call it freeware (or shareware) with source available. And if you don't want to do that because FOSS has trounced shareware in the enterprise sales market... well, that's for you to figure out. I'm just here to say that it's actual FOSS that can be fully part of the FOSS ecosystem, like being in Linux distros, that trounced shareware. FOSS-but-not-really hasn't. Be honest with yourselves too, as well as honest with the world.