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Post author here. I'm surprised at the number of comments in this thread that say it's about the messaging or the Commons Clause license. They've cleared up the

Post author here. I'm surprised at the number of comments in this thread that say it's about the messaging or the Commons Clause license. They've cleared up the confusion about what is still BSD (almost all of it) and that it's just some enterprise modules that are commons clause. If the Commons Clause license is confusing or ambiguous to you, simply treat it as a commercial license. Functionally that would be equivalent. Saying that the Commons Clause it the source of everyone's outrage is disingenuous. Would you really be less outraged if they were simply commercial licenses? I used to think this way about OSS before I actually had to run and maintain a significant project. Add to that trying to build a business and those two together have formed my current view. In my ideal world, everything would be permissively licensed, but that doesn't match with reality. And every major open source maintainer I've ever talked to has acknowledged that tradeoffs are made. Either in the form of what is open, how it's licensed, or how the project is funded.

ABS 8y ago
Paul I'm surprised you are surprised this is about the confusion (and FUD) the Redis Labs announcement created since that's exactly the single most repeated piece of feedback/comment in the previous two HN threads on this topic.
- pauldix 8y ago
  If it was really about the confusion, people would stop taking them to the wood shed after they cleared things up. But that's not what's happening. People are still railing about this and talking about the "bait and switch". I haven't seen a single comment or tweet that said "ok, we understand now, thanks for clearing that up."
shadowmint 8y ago
I don't think many people are seriously suggesting RedisLabs don't have the right to pursue a valid business model to secure the future of themselves and redis in general; I mean, look at elastic search, that's exactly what they do with their extension pack, and it works very well for them. No one bats an eyelid about that. > If the Commons Clause license is confusing or ambiguous to you, simply treat it as a commercial license... I have to say, this really is the issue for me. It's got both Apache and Commons in the title, that probably means its even more free than the apache license right? No? Wait... so I can use it for free? Or am I reselling it? I guess I need a lawyer if I'm going to touch this stuff now right? Mmm... no. I think that we can safely put all of those modules in the 'never use for any purpose' box, thanks. This kind of thing, seems like deceptive conduct, and that's something that is anathema to stable businesses looking for infrastructure to use. Licensing is important, it should be clear and unambiguous in naming and purpose.

ABS 8y ago

Paul I'm surprised you are surprised this is about the confusion (and FUD) the Redis Labs announcement created since that's exactly the single most repeated piece of feedback/comment in the previous two HN threads on this topic.

pauldix 8y ago
If it was really about the confusion, people would stop taking them to the wood shed after they cleared things up. But that's not what's happening. People are still railing about this and talking about the "bait and switch". I haven't seen a single comment or tweet that said "ok, we understand now, thanks for clearing that up."

shadowmint 8y ago

I don't think many people are seriously suggesting RedisLabs don't have the right to pursue a valid business model to secure the future of themselves and redis in general; I mean, look at elastic search, that's exactly what they do with their extension pack, and it works very well for them. No one bats an eyelid about that. > If the Commons Clause license is confusing or ambiguous to you, simply treat it as a commercial license... I have to say, this really is the issue for me. It's got both Apache and Commons in the title, that probably means its even more free than the apache license right? No? Wait... so I can use it for free? Or am I reselling it? I guess I need a lawyer if I'm going to touch this stuff now right? Mmm... no. I think that we can safely put all of those modules in the 'never use for any purpose' box, thanks. This kind of thing, seems like deceptive conduct, and that's something that is anathema to stable businesses looking for infrastructure to use. Licensing is important, it should be clear and unambiguous in naming and purpose.