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Spare a thought for poor Landoop (https://www.landoop.com/ https://www.landoop.com/), not AWS. They built up their business around Confluent's open-source tools

Spare a thought for poor Landoop (https://www.landoop.com/ https://www.landoop.com/), not AWS. They built up their business around Confluent's open-source tools - like the schema registry, ksql, kafka streams. I guess they will have to fork from the latest version and try and develop competing versions of Confluent's tools now. Maybe they could bootstrap a community effort around this?

boredandroid 8y ago
This is Jay, the CEO of Confluent. No, actually quite the opposite. We took pains to ensure that the license was written so that software products like Landoop were free to embed our open source and compete with us in that way. This FAQ covers the competition in more detail: https://www.confluent.io/confluent-community-license-faq https://www.confluent.io/confluent-community-license-faq
- jamesblonde 8y ago
  I am no expert on this, but based on Bryan's analysis, if Landoop were to release a SAAS offering of their product, they would be in breach of the license. As Landoop are pushing Kafka on Kubernetes, I assume that is their strategy - to have a SAAS offering at some stage (we are all going to the cloud, i thought?).
  - jamesblonde 8y ago
    That's why you use the word "product", Jay. Yes? That's weasel -speak, IMO.
- shabbyrobe 8y ago
  > Embed our open source I thought the FAQ said you wouldn't refer to it as such: > Because of this, we will not refer to the Confluent Community License or any code released under it as open source.
  - nl 8y ago
    I believe the trademarked term is “Open Source” (with capitals) and they are avoiding that. IMO it’s a deliberately deceptive technique to try to confuse the market and dilute open source.
    - plopz 8y ago
      There is no trademark on "Open Source", whats trademarked is "OSI Certified".
    - slavik81 8y ago
      The quoted passage from the FAQ says "open source" in lowercase.
    - wongarsu 8y ago
      > dilute open source. I think you mean "dilute Open Source" with capitals :P More seriously: most terms dilute over time, and it takes a lot of effort to prevent that. I wouldn't assume every instance is malicious
- phoe-krk 8y ago
  > were free to embed our open source Source available. Your license is not open source as understood by OSI or free software as understood by FSF.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
andmarios 8y ago
Marios from Lenses.io ( landoop ) here. On a brief look, although IANAL, the new license doesn't affect us directly. Our core product has native Kafka and Kubernetes SQL capabilities which aren't based on Confluent's KSQL. Lenses does integrate with open source schema registries —Confluent's and HortonWork's— and this integration is also not affected by the licensing change. On a personal opinion (I don't represent my employer), the new license affects both behemoths like AWS and smaller providers like Aiven alike. It may be a bargaining chip for the business, a trojan horse or it may backfire; only time will tell. I think many HNers know first-hand how hard it is to balance business and open source. It is a sign of health that the community is concerned and the best way to ensure an open platform going forward imo.
- oskari 8y ago
  This is Oskari from Aiven - wanted to mention that we posted a brief blog post about the licensing changes in the Kafka ecosystem at https://aiven.io/blog/aiven-statement-on-kafka-license/ https://aiven.io/blog/aiven-statement-on-kafka-license/ The summary is that we're committed to open source software and this change won't affect our users. We'll follow-up with a more details about our plans in early January.

boredandroid 8y ago

This is Jay, the CEO of Confluent. No, actually quite the opposite. We took pains to ensure that the license was written so that software products like Landoop were free to embed our open source and compete with us in that way. This FAQ covers the competition in more detail: https://www.confluent.io/confluent-community-license-faq https://www.confluent.io/confluent-community-license-faq

jamesblonde 8y ago
I am no expert on this, but based on Bryan's analysis, if Landoop were to release a SAAS offering of their product, they would be in breach of the license. As Landoop are pushing Kafka on Kubernetes, I assume that is their strategy - to have a SAAS offering at some stage (we are all going to the cloud, i thought?).
- jamesblonde 8y ago
  That's why you use the word "product", Jay. Yes? That's weasel -speak, IMO.
shabbyrobe 8y ago
> Embed our open source I thought the FAQ said you wouldn't refer to it as such: > Because of this, we will not refer to the Confluent Community License or any code released under it as open source.
- nl 8y ago
  I believe the trademarked term is “Open Source” (with capitals) and they are avoiding that. IMO it’s a deliberately deceptive technique to try to confuse the market and dilute open source.
  - plopz 8y ago
    There is no trademark on "Open Source", whats trademarked is "OSI Certified".
  - slavik81 8y ago
    The quoted passage from the FAQ says "open source" in lowercase.
  - wongarsu 8y ago
    > dilute open source. I think you mean "dilute Open Source" with capitals :P More seriously: most terms dilute over time, and it takes a lot of effort to prevent that. I wouldn't assume every instance is malicious
phoe-krk 8y ago
> were free to embed our open source Source available. Your license is not open source as understood by OSI or free software as understood by FSF.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]

andmarios 8y ago

Marios from Lenses.io ( landoop ) here. On a brief look, although IANAL, the new license doesn't affect us directly. Our core product has native Kafka and Kubernetes SQL capabilities which aren't based on Confluent's KSQL. Lenses does integrate with open source schema registries —Confluent's and HortonWork's— and this integration is also not affected by the licensing change. On a personal opinion (I don't represent my employer), the new license affects both behemoths like AWS and smaller providers like Aiven alike. It may be a bargaining chip for the business, a trojan horse or it may backfire; only time will tell. I think many HNers know first-hand how hard it is to balance business and open source. It is a sign of health that the community is concerned and the best way to ensure an open platform going forward imo.

oskari 8y ago
This is Oskari from Aiven - wanted to mention that we posted a brief blog post about the licensing changes in the Kafka ecosystem at https://aiven.io/blog/aiven-statement-on-kafka-license/ https://aiven.io/blog/aiven-statement-on-kafka-license/ The summary is that we're committed to open source software and this change won't affect our users. We'll follow-up with a more details about our plans in early January.