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I'm probably going to get a lot of flak for this, but here's an opinion supporting the MongoDB license. Two things: 1. MongoDB has the right to do whatever the

I'm probably going to get a lot of flak for this, but here's an opinion supporting the MongoDB license. Two things: 1. MongoDB has the right to do whatever they like ------------------------------------------------------ The creator of a product: 1. Has a rational interest in maximizing their returns 2. Owns all the rights to their products (barring existing IP restrictions) And if they choose to open source their code: 3. it is of their own prerogative 4. without any obligation to do so. Given 1, and 2, if they open source their code, they're an awesome person because they're revealing some portion of their secret business logic to the public. With that, they are entitled to whatever conditions they put on their code. That includes CLA's regardless of how much potential contributors will protest. It doesn't matter how "against the spirit of open source" a CLA, or an overly radical copy-left license is. The creator of the product will always have an obligation to their own interests first, and since they're already sacrificing trade secrets by revealing their software source (something they were never obligated to), they can honestly do whatever they'd like. And this includes ensuring that everyone using their software open-sources all forks of their software. Heck, even open-sources everything they use in support of their software. Let's face it, if their software just weren't that good, no one would use it. 2. This License Means More Open Source Code ---------------------------------------------------- If the outside world wants more open source code, I don't see why they'd giving MongoDB any flak for this. All this license will do is result in more open-source code. After all, isn't that the point all along? Or are zealous demands for open-source code only valid while it's all about a single popular product by a big company (MongoDB), and not when smaller software components by smaller companies (billing, hosting scripts by SaaS providers)? Edited for grammar and other things my brain missed

pfortuny 8y ago
The reaction you speak of is called “bitter zeal” in classical spiritual direction. One gets upset because someone else does good but “not as I understand it or not within my group.” Nothing new under the sun.
rvanmil 8y ago
> This License Means More Open Source Code I don't think that will happen. I think they will just sell more commercial licenses, which seems to be the entire (valid imo) point of this license change.
feanaro 8y ago
I agree that they might have a legal right to do this, but it doesn't mean this is aligned with the interests of the general free software / open source community and thus it is entirely their right to shun, criticise and disapprove of this move and this licence. Particularly so because they are (arguably) violating an implicit social contract it had with its contributors in the past. This might be a good thing in the end because it exposes a new downside to CLAs and might make people think twice before signing them in the future. > If the outside world wants more open source code, I don't see why they'd giving MongoDB any flak for this. All this license will do is result in more open-source code. After all, isn't that the point all along? It would be a good thing if we could reasonably expect the effect to be that companies might release more open source code as a result. Yet the licence is so vague and broad that the much more likely intention (and effect) is that other companies will be forced to buy the proprietary licence to avoid the impracticability of using code under SSPL. I also don't think this kind of overreach in what is required to be open sourced just because you're using a component X is acceptable.
iSnow 8y ago
To me, that feels more like a hidden contract. Giving away for free a software only to require the user to do the same. That's why I prefer BSD-style licenses - when they write "free", they mean "free".
- pjmlp 8y ago
  And that is why BSDs will never be as big as Linux, companies don't like to give free beer back to the tap. Also why all new open source OSes done companies are all based on BSD/MIT licenses like Zephyr, RTOS, Fuchsia, ... When we get back to PD, Shareware world, don't start complaining companies don't contribute back.
  - brobdingnagians 8y ago
    That's kind of the point though. BSD is truly free, and that means there are a lot of proprietary products which benefit massively from it and create worthwhile products with clear monetization strategies and thrive. Sure, they might not contribute back, but the point of the open source was often to share code to improve the state of the art and provide useful code for people so they don't have to start from scratch. Apple took BSD licensed code to make macOS, and it helped them, they contribute some OS code to Darwin, but there are probably lots of happy mac users who benefit immensely from that BSD code. There are lots of people who do BSD code and improve it, just as there are GPL people. Popularity is not always [i.e. almost never] a measure of correctness, principle, or goodness. I like BSD, because any code I release, I hope it helps someone somewhere to do something useful for the world [even when proprietary], and if it does, then great.
    - nbsd4life 8y ago
      Apple isn't the best example. They generally do publish the modified source code to FOSS projects they do, and sometimes they don't add their own license clause, so the changes can get merged back.
      - trasz 8y ago
dnbgfher 8y ago
I think you've missed the point of most of the uproar. I haven't seen anybody claiming MongoDB doesn't have the right to use whatever license they like. I have however seen lots of people claim that it's a bad decision to use this latest license. And people are free to criticize decisions all they want. It's really no different from the usual claims of bad technical decisions by MongoDB. Now people are just saying they're making bad business decisions too. The rights discussion is largely irrelevant at this point.
jchw 8y ago
This won't lead to more open source code. Reading the actual clause lists a myriad of potentially implicated kinds of software, all of which must be open source licensed, and not just that but also under SSPL. Let's forget about the potential concept that GPLed software like the Linux kernel could very well be implicated, as LWN points out. Regardless, this clause is a literal legal minefield, and I would bet my life savings companies are going to buy commercial licenses rather than open their internal code under SSPL.
- PeterisP 8y ago
  I'd rather bet my life savings that at least some such companies are going to reject both these options (SSPL or commercial licence) and just keep using the last MongoDB version that was released under GPL, possibly maintaining a fork of that version just as MariaDB has done.
  - jchw 8y ago
    That wouldn't really be the worst outcome, either. Well, it would be for MongoDB themselves, but to the rest of the open source community, it would mean a much less restrictive version of MongoDB would be available and maintained, which to me seems like a win.
pdpi 8y ago
They're allowed to license Mongo on whatever terms they see fit, but we're also allowed to judge them on the licence terms they choose. If they had a source-provided, not-for-commercial-use hobbyist/educational licence and a proprietary licence, nobody would bat an eyelid. What they seem to be doing instead (this might or might not be correct, but is definitely the point the article is making) is burdening their "open source" licence with enough gotchas that it becomes quite unclear as to whether it's allowable in a commercial production environment (while still getting to claim it's Open Source Software), thus pushing people towards the proprietary licence without outright demanding it — which might be 100% legal, but is also profoundly dishonest.
- sytse 8y ago
  I think that it is interesting that this is enabled by a CLA. If the project would have used a Developer Certificate of Origin (DCO) this relicensing would not have been possible. When Debian started to use GitLab they asked us to replace our CLA for the open source code to a DCO. They saw the risk of relicensing and addressed it.
  - zzzcpan 8y ago
    Relicensing is still very much possible with DCO. You just put contributions under the license they were originally submitted and use whatever license you want for owned code. Essentially providing a separate license(s) for contributions.
singingboyo 8y ago
The creator certainly has all those rights. On the other hand, it's definitely a goal here to have people use the software - that is, after all, a somewhat necessary precondition to making money off it. Given the difficulties with legally complying here, I'm not sure anyone who comes across this whole thing will want to touch MongoDB with 30ft pole, let alone make it a core component of their project. From a company perspective, the current legal answer to "What happens if I use this under SSPL for <insert side project website here>?" appears to be "the entire site might have to be under SSPL - we don't know". So much for that, I'll use something else. From an OSS perspective - it's generally considered that to maximise OSS, you want to allow supporting software (compilers, DBs, etc) to be used in commercial/proprietary systems. This can't be, not with a license like this.
brobdingnagians 8y ago
"One could see this change as being just another company trying to go proprietary without actually looking proprietary." -- I think this is the key, they have a right to do what they want and monetize as they want (and I think it is good to monetize), but it somewhat of a misnomer to call them "open source" in the sense of code-sharing freely according to some philosophies.
bhickey 8y ago
> This License Means More Open Source Code You're going to get flak for this because you're factually incorrect. The SSPL is not an open source license. It might as well contain a clause that says "Thou shall not compete with MongoDB." As far as I can tell it was submitted to the OSI in bad faith.
- weinzierl 8y ago
  > The SSPL is not an open source license. So far this is just your opinion. If the OSI will approve it has yet to be seen...
  - bhickey 8y ago
    Be that as it may, my opinion is informed. Like the Commons Clause before it the SSPL is an effort at undermining open source. It violates the Open Source Definition in letter and in spirit. The OSI isn't going to approve it and Mongo damn well knew this when they submitted it.
- batty_alex 8y ago
  > The SSPL is not an open source license. It seems like it is to me, it's just extremely protective of the source code owner's rights. > "Thou shall not compete with MongoDB." Sounds to me like, "thou shall not offer MongoDB, and your own custom tooling, in your cloud without talking to us about licensing fees or making your cloud tech open source."
  - cyphar 8y ago
    > It seems like it is to me, it's just extremely protective of the source code owner's rights. It is effectively impossible to follow the conditions of the license -- according to the interpretation by Bradley Kuhn and others this would require you to provide the source code for Linux under this license if you run MongoDB on Linux. Linux is GPLv2 and has thousands of copyright owners -- it is not possible for any individual to relicense it to any other license. If you have an "open source" license (which violates the one of the entries in the OSI definition -- "License Must Not Restrict Other Software") which cannot be followed by anyone then it's obviously not an FOSS software. It doesn't matter that in theory it would be FOSS, what matters is whether it is FOSS in practice.
hannob 8y ago
> 1. MongoDB has the right to do whatever they like Well, no, obviously not. They have to stay within legal bounds. But of course they can have any obscure license that is legal if they want. The thing they get flak for is trying to deceive the public. > 2. This License Means More Open Source Code This license is only open source in a very obscure interpretation of the word. It's basically doing a lot of legal gymnastics to say "we don't want Google+Amazon to sell services based on our database, but we still want to call it Open Source". These two goals are fundamentally incompatible.
- msbarnett 8y ago
  > This license is only open source in a very obscure interpretation of the word. It's "open source" in the dead-obvious meaning "the source code is open for inspection". I'd argue it's all of the extra baggage that the OSI have read into the words "open" and "source" that are considerably more obscure. Neither the word "open" nor "source" implies "free for commercial exploitation to all and sundry"
  - Spivak 8y ago
    The source isn't very useful if you're not allowed to run the software. Being able to compile and run the software for whatever propose you want isn't obscure.
  - mindcrime 8y ago
    The phrase "Open Source" is not necessarily just the summation of the constituent words "open" and "source". "Open Source" is a unique concept with a unique meaning... and the de-facto definition of that concept, is the OSD[1]. Similarly, there are are de-facto terms for the "the source code is open for inspection" (but not otherwise Open Source) models: things like "Source Available"[2] and "Shared Source"[3]. People trying to muddy the waters are generally being intentionally disingenuous because they want the general goodwill and positive buzz associated with being Open Source, without actually, ya know, being Open Source. [1]: https://opensource.org/osd-annotated https://opensource.org/osd-annotated [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Source-available_software https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Source-available_software [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shared_Source_Initiative https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shared_Source_Initiative
bad_user 8y ago
Open Source needs a definition and that definition has been governed by OSI: https://opensource.org/osd https://opensource.org/osd just like how Free Software has been governed by FSF: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html Yes, we need an organization that governs over such a definition and over compliance, because otherwise the term becomes meaningless, due to being sexy for marketing purposes. Back in the day companies like Microsoft actually tried to hijack it via restrictive "shared source" licenses. And those cute little projects on GitHub without a license? Those are a legal minefield ;-) Developers are not lawyers, we don't read the fine print. That's why we have to rely on certain freedoms when hearing the term Open Source. And one of those freedoms has been the freedom to run the program without restrictions. And another freedom has been the freedom to distribute the program along with other programs, without imposing restrictions on those other programs. AGPL has been in my opinion restrictive enough that I don't think it is Open Source to begin with — smarter people than myself disagree, but this new SSPL is a farce because it extends those restrictions far beyond derived works. So I hope SSPL doesn't get approved by either OSI or FSF. The GitHub repository lists 350 contributors. Many of those are third-party I'm sure. So how many of them are happy with MongoDB's bait and switch? For that matter, how many people that advocated for MongoDB over the years would have done so in the knowledge that MongoDB is not Open Source? > MongoDB has the right to do whatever they like Sure, but that's not an argument. We also have the right to complain about it, to campaign against it and to stop using it. The truth is the company behind MongoDB tries to eat their cake and have it too. Well, that's not how things work. Either you're developing Open Source and are thus happy with other companies profiting from your work, or you stop developing Open Source, but when you do, don't be hypocritical about it.
- zzzcpan 8y ago
  So, you don't like for the term "open source" to include anti lock-in conditions to protect users freedoms and only ok with it if the license permits lock-in exploitation of users via hosted services? That's the kind of open source definition I strongly disagree with.
Illniyar 8y ago
Companies don't open source their products, especially their core business products, because they are awesome and want to contribute to the community (at least the majority of for-profit ones). They do it because: * The users demand it (you can be sure that MongoDB wouldn't be even remotely as popular if it started life closed-source) * Because it generates free marketing and helps build a community * Because it allows paying developers less or attract stronger talent * Because it allows leveraging the community's talents to make the code better (I.E. getting outside contributors) When you change the license, you break the unspoken contract between your users and contributors and the company, which is just a form of bait and switch.
jonathanstrange 8y ago
You're forgetting to mention that open source != free software. I have no problem with the license itself, because it maintains the four freedoms. So from a free software perspective it's fine, and that's the spirit of GPL. However, if I was a business owner, I would never run software under that license because it may create unforeseeable license conflicts. As far as I can see (correct me if I'm wrong), any software running on the SaS stack would have to be compatible with GPL, and there are plenty of open source licenses that you might want to or need to use that are incompatible with GPL. For example, it seems that strictly speaking only fully FSF approved GNU/Linux distributions are compatible with that license.[1] Or maybe I'm misinterpreting the license requirements? (IANAL) [1] https://www.gnu.org/distros/free-distros.en.html https://www.gnu.org/distros/free-distros.en.html
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- bad_user 8y ago
  I'm pretty sure that the new license does not "maintain the four freedoms". I don't know if the FSF will approve of this new license, however by the Free Software definition it should be even more damning, first of all because it violates Freedom 0. The corresponding rule in OSI's definition is less strict ;-) The "spirit of the GPL" has nothing to do with this license. The GPL is just a "copyright license", meaning that it's concerned only with distribution and with derived works, where distribution and "derived works" are defined by the copyright law. The GPL is in fact very business friendly and that was by design.
  - jonathanstrange 8y ago
    I think you're right and I was wrong. It does violate freedom 0 and probably will not be approved for that reason by FSF.
geokon 8y ago
The article seems to suggest it can't be used with even Linux b/c Linux isn't under the SSPL. So the license seems to in effect make the software effectively unusable Which in a way isn't their fault.. there is a weird license lock-in that seems to happen with licenses and it really forces your hand to use a particular license for practical reasons I know for instance Clojure is all under the EPL - so it makes it a weird licensing issue to use it with GPL code (The way I understand it is that you can, if you basically treat it all like GPL code.. maybe?)
- kevin_b_er 8y ago
  Because MongoDB is no longer open source. It is a sham license that says it is open source, but isn't, forcing pretty much everyone to use the proprietary license.
jillesvangurp 8y ago
They of course have the legal right to do this and given that they require contributors to hand over copyright, they have no legal right to complain about this either. As the only copyright holder, Mongo gets to license their contributions anyway they want. Of course the latter practice is very common with this style of licenses and doing a bait and switch like this on the license is always a bit controversial, no matter what the intentions. AGPL style licenses without copyright transfer agreements are very uncommon as re-licensing becomes near impossible without full agreement of all copyright holders. This means none of them are able to use the software they worked on other than under the strict terms of the license, which typically precludes many potentially interesting ways of using the software. AGPL as a license is only interesting if you can opt out from it. This is only possible if you own the copyright.
anticensor 8y ago
> will always have an obligation to their own interests first, The producer will usually favor its own interests. Not always. You could have used SQLite. No one forced you to use Mongo.
dragonwriter 8y ago
> This License Means More Open Source Code Probably true, non-open source code provokes multiple open source compeitors when successful, so this non-open (per OSD criterion 9) license will, when used, probably provoke more open source code to be written.

pfortuny 8y ago

The reaction you speak of is called “bitter zeal” in classical spiritual direction. One gets upset because someone else does good but “not as I understand it or not within my group.” Nothing new under the sun.

rvanmil 8y ago

> This License Means More Open Source Code I don't think that will happen. I think they will just sell more commercial licenses, which seems to be the entire (valid imo) point of this license change.

feanaro 8y ago

I agree that they might have a legal right to do this, but it doesn't mean this is aligned with the interests of the general free software / open source community and thus it is entirely their right to shun, criticise and disapprove of this move and this licence. Particularly so because they are (arguably) violating an implicit social contract it had with its contributors in the past. This might be a good thing in the end because it exposes a new downside to CLAs and might make people think twice before signing them in the future. > If the outside world wants more open source code, I don't see why they'd giving MongoDB any flak for this. All this license will do is result in more open-source code. After all, isn't that the point all along? It would be a good thing if we could reasonably expect the effect to be that companies might release more open source code as a result. Yet the licence is so vague and broad that the much more likely intention (and effect) is that other companies will be forced to buy the proprietary licence to avoid the impracticability of using code under SSPL. I also don't think this kind of overreach in what is required to be open sourced just because you're using a component X is acceptable.

iSnow 8y ago

To me, that feels more like a hidden contract. Giving away for free a software only to require the user to do the same. That's why I prefer BSD-style licenses - when they write "free", they mean "free".

pjmlp 8y ago
And that is why BSDs will never be as big as Linux, companies don't like to give free beer back to the tap. Also why all new open source OSes done companies are all based on BSD/MIT licenses like Zephyr, RTOS, Fuchsia, ... When we get back to PD, Shareware world, don't start complaining companies don't contribute back.
- brobdingnagians 8y ago
  That's kind of the point though. BSD is truly free, and that means there are a lot of proprietary products which benefit massively from it and create worthwhile products with clear monetization strategies and thrive. Sure, they might not contribute back, but the point of the open source was often to share code to improve the state of the art and provide useful code for people so they don't have to start from scratch. Apple took BSD licensed code to make macOS, and it helped them, they contribute some OS code to Darwin, but there are probably lots of happy mac users who benefit immensely from that BSD code. There are lots of people who do BSD code and improve it, just as there are GPL people. Popularity is not always [i.e. almost never] a measure of correctness, principle, or goodness. I like BSD, because any code I release, I hope it helps someone somewhere to do something useful for the world [even when proprietary], and if it does, then great.
  - nbsd4life 8y ago
    Apple isn't the best example. They generally do publish the modified source code to FOSS projects they do, and sometimes they don't add their own license clause, so the changes can get merged back.
    - trasz 8y ago

dnbgfher 8y ago

I think you've missed the point of most of the uproar. I haven't seen anybody claiming MongoDB doesn't have the right to use whatever license they like. I have however seen lots of people claim that it's a bad decision to use this latest license. And people are free to criticize decisions all they want. It's really no different from the usual claims of bad technical decisions by MongoDB. Now people are just saying they're making bad business decisions too. The rights discussion is largely irrelevant at this point.

jchw 8y ago

This won't lead to more open source code. Reading the actual clause lists a myriad of potentially implicated kinds of software, all of which must be open source licensed, and not just that but also under SSPL. Let's forget about the potential concept that GPLed software like the Linux kernel could very well be implicated, as LWN points out. Regardless, this clause is a literal legal minefield, and I would bet my life savings companies are going to buy commercial licenses rather than open their internal code under SSPL.

PeterisP 8y ago
I'd rather bet my life savings that at least some such companies are going to reject both these options (SSPL or commercial licence) and just keep using the last MongoDB version that was released under GPL, possibly maintaining a fork of that version just as MariaDB has done.
- jchw 8y ago
  That wouldn't really be the worst outcome, either. Well, it would be for MongoDB themselves, but to the rest of the open source community, it would mean a much less restrictive version of MongoDB would be available and maintained, which to me seems like a win.

pdpi 8y ago

They're allowed to license Mongo on whatever terms they see fit, but we're also allowed to judge them on the licence terms they choose. If they had a source-provided, not-for-commercial-use hobbyist/educational licence and a proprietary licence, nobody would bat an eyelid. What they seem to be doing instead (this might or might not be correct, but is definitely the point the article is making) is burdening their "open source" licence with enough gotchas that it becomes quite unclear as to whether it's allowable in a commercial production environment (while still getting to claim it's Open Source Software), thus pushing people towards the proprietary licence without outright demanding it — which might be 100% legal, but is also profoundly dishonest.

sytse 8y ago
I think that it is interesting that this is enabled by a CLA. If the project would have used a Developer Certificate of Origin (DCO) this relicensing would not have been possible. When Debian started to use GitLab they asked us to replace our CLA for the open source code to a DCO. They saw the risk of relicensing and addressed it.
- zzzcpan 8y ago
  Relicensing is still very much possible with DCO. You just put contributions under the license they were originally submitted and use whatever license you want for owned code. Essentially providing a separate license(s) for contributions.

singingboyo 8y ago

The creator certainly has all those rights. On the other hand, it's definitely a goal here to have people use the software - that is, after all, a somewhat necessary precondition to making money off it. Given the difficulties with legally complying here, I'm not sure anyone who comes across this whole thing will want to touch MongoDB with 30ft pole, let alone make it a core component of their project. From a company perspective, the current legal answer to "What happens if I use this under SSPL for <insert side project website here>?" appears to be "the entire site might have to be under SSPL - we don't know". So much for that, I'll use something else. From an OSS perspective - it's generally considered that to maximise OSS, you want to allow supporting software (compilers, DBs, etc) to be used in commercial/proprietary systems. This can't be, not with a license like this.

brobdingnagians 8y ago

"One could see this change as being just another company trying to go proprietary without actually looking proprietary." -- I think this is the key, they have a right to do what they want and monetize as they want (and I think it is good to monetize), but it somewhat of a misnomer to call them "open source" in the sense of code-sharing freely according to some philosophies.

bhickey 8y ago

> This License Means More Open Source Code You're going to get flak for this because you're factually incorrect. The SSPL is not an open source license. It might as well contain a clause that says "Thou shall not compete with MongoDB." As far as I can tell it was submitted to the OSI in bad faith.

weinzierl 8y ago
> The SSPL is not an open source license. So far this is just your opinion. If the OSI will approve it has yet to be seen...
- bhickey 8y ago
  Be that as it may, my opinion is informed. Like the Commons Clause before it the SSPL is an effort at undermining open source. It violates the Open Source Definition in letter and in spirit. The OSI isn't going to approve it and Mongo damn well knew this when they submitted it.
batty_alex 8y ago
> The SSPL is not an open source license. It seems like it is to me, it's just extremely protective of the source code owner's rights. > "Thou shall not compete with MongoDB." Sounds to me like, "thou shall not offer MongoDB, and your own custom tooling, in your cloud without talking to us about licensing fees or making your cloud tech open source."
- cyphar 8y ago
  > It seems like it is to me, it's just extremely protective of the source code owner's rights. It is effectively impossible to follow the conditions of the license -- according to the interpretation by Bradley Kuhn and others this would require you to provide the source code for Linux under this license if you run MongoDB on Linux. Linux is GPLv2 and has thousands of copyright owners -- it is not possible for any individual to relicense it to any other license. If you have an "open source" license (which violates the one of the entries in the OSI definition -- "License Must Not Restrict Other Software") which cannot be followed by anyone then it's obviously not an FOSS software. It doesn't matter that in theory it would be FOSS, what matters is whether it is FOSS in practice.

hannob 8y ago

> 1. MongoDB has the right to do whatever they like Well, no, obviously not. They have to stay within legal bounds. But of course they can have any obscure license that is legal if they want. The thing they get flak for is trying to deceive the public. > 2. This License Means More Open Source Code This license is only open source in a very obscure interpretation of the word. It's basically doing a lot of legal gymnastics to say "we don't want Google+Amazon to sell services based on our database, but we still want to call it Open Source". These two goals are fundamentally incompatible.

msbarnett 8y ago
> This license is only open source in a very obscure interpretation of the word. It's "open source" in the dead-obvious meaning "the source code is open for inspection". I'd argue it's all of the extra baggage that the OSI have read into the words "open" and "source" that are considerably more obscure. Neither the word "open" nor "source" implies "free for commercial exploitation to all and sundry"
- Spivak 8y ago
  The source isn't very useful if you're not allowed to run the software. Being able to compile and run the software for whatever propose you want isn't obscure.
- mindcrime 8y ago
  The phrase "Open Source" is not necessarily just the summation of the constituent words "open" and "source". "Open Source" is a unique concept with a unique meaning... and the de-facto definition of that concept, is the OSD[1]. Similarly, there are are de-facto terms for the "the source code is open for inspection" (but not otherwise Open Source) models: things like "Source Available"[2] and "Shared Source"[3]. People trying to muddy the waters are generally being intentionally disingenuous because they want the general goodwill and positive buzz associated with being Open Source, without actually, ya know, being Open Source. [1]: https://opensource.org/osd-annotated https://opensource.org/osd-annotated [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Source-available_software https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Source-available_software [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shared_Source_Initiative https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shared_Source_Initiative

bad_user 8y ago

Open Source needs a definition and that definition has been governed by OSI: https://opensource.org/osd https://opensource.org/osd just like how Free Software has been governed by FSF: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html Yes, we need an organization that governs over such a definition and over compliance, because otherwise the term becomes meaningless, due to being sexy for marketing purposes. Back in the day companies like Microsoft actually tried to hijack it via restrictive "shared source" licenses. And those cute little projects on GitHub without a license? Those are a legal minefield ;-) Developers are not lawyers, we don't read the fine print. That's why we have to rely on certain freedoms when hearing the term Open Source. And one of those freedoms has been the freedom to run the program without restrictions. And another freedom has been the freedom to distribute the program along with other programs, without imposing restrictions on those other programs. AGPL has been in my opinion restrictive enough that I don't think it is Open Source to begin with — smarter people than myself disagree, but this new SSPL is a farce because it extends those restrictions far beyond derived works. So I hope SSPL doesn't get approved by either OSI or FSF. The GitHub repository lists 350 contributors. Many of those are third-party I'm sure. So how many of them are happy with MongoDB's bait and switch? For that matter, how many people that advocated for MongoDB over the years would have done so in the knowledge that MongoDB is not Open Source? > MongoDB has the right to do whatever they like Sure, but that's not an argument. We also have the right to complain about it, to campaign against it and to stop using it. The truth is the company behind MongoDB tries to eat their cake and have it too. Well, that's not how things work. Either you're developing Open Source and are thus happy with other companies profiting from your work, or you stop developing Open Source, but when you do, don't be hypocritical about it.

zzzcpan 8y ago
So, you don't like for the term "open source" to include anti lock-in conditions to protect users freedoms and only ok with it if the license permits lock-in exploitation of users via hosted services? That's the kind of open source definition I strongly disagree with.

Illniyar 8y ago

Companies don't open source their products, especially their core business products, because they are awesome and want to contribute to the community (at least the majority of for-profit ones). They do it because: * The users demand it (you can be sure that MongoDB wouldn't be even remotely as popular if it started life closed-source) * Because it generates free marketing and helps build a community * Because it allows paying developers less or attract stronger talent * Because it allows leveraging the community's talents to make the code better (I.E. getting outside contributors) When you change the license, you break the unspoken contract between your users and contributors and the company, which is just a form of bait and switch.

jonathanstrange 8y ago

You're forgetting to mention that open source != free software. I have no problem with the license itself, because it maintains the four freedoms. So from a free software perspective it's fine, and that's the spirit of GPL. However, if I was a business owner, I would never run software under that license because it may create unforeseeable license conflicts. As far as I can see (correct me if I'm wrong), any software running on the SaS stack would have to be compatible with GPL, and there are plenty of open source licenses that you might want to or need to use that are incompatible with GPL. For example, it seems that strictly speaking only fully FSF approved GNU/Linux distributions are compatible with that license.[1] Or maybe I'm misinterpreting the license requirements? (IANAL) [1] https://www.gnu.org/distros/free-distros.en.html https://www.gnu.org/distros/free-distros.en.html

deleted 8y ago
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bad_user 8y ago
I'm pretty sure that the new license does not "maintain the four freedoms". I don't know if the FSF will approve of this new license, however by the Free Software definition it should be even more damning, first of all because it violates Freedom 0. The corresponding rule in OSI's definition is less strict ;-) The "spirit of the GPL" has nothing to do with this license. The GPL is just a "copyright license", meaning that it's concerned only with distribution and with derived works, where distribution and "derived works" are defined by the copyright law. The GPL is in fact very business friendly and that was by design.
- jonathanstrange 8y ago
  I think you're right and I was wrong. It does violate freedom 0 and probably will not be approved for that reason by FSF.

geokon 8y ago

The article seems to suggest it can't be used with even Linux b/c Linux isn't under the SSPL. So the license seems to in effect make the software effectively unusable Which in a way isn't their fault.. there is a weird license lock-in that seems to happen with licenses and it really forces your hand to use a particular license for practical reasons I know for instance Clojure is all under the EPL - so it makes it a weird licensing issue to use it with GPL code (The way I understand it is that you can, if you basically treat it all like GPL code.. maybe?)

kevin_b_er 8y ago
Because MongoDB is no longer open source. It is a sham license that says it is open source, but isn't, forcing pretty much everyone to use the proprietary license.

jillesvangurp 8y ago

They of course have the legal right to do this and given that they require contributors to hand over copyright, they have no legal right to complain about this either. As the only copyright holder, Mongo gets to license their contributions anyway they want. Of course the latter practice is very common with this style of licenses and doing a bait and switch like this on the license is always a bit controversial, no matter what the intentions. AGPL style licenses without copyright transfer agreements are very uncommon as re-licensing becomes near impossible without full agreement of all copyright holders. This means none of them are able to use the software they worked on other than under the strict terms of the license, which typically precludes many potentially interesting ways of using the software. AGPL as a license is only interesting if you can opt out from it. This is only possible if you own the copyright.

anticensor 8y ago

> will always have an obligation to their own interests first, The producer will usually favor its own interests. Not always. You could have used SQLite. No one forced you to use Mongo.

dragonwriter 8y ago

> This License Means More Open Source Code Probably true, non-open source code provokes multiple open source compeitors when successful, so this non-open (per OSD criterion 9) license will, when used, probably provoke more open source code to be written.