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> These companies are some of the biggest contributors to open source. I wouldn't expect AWS to make a lot of code contributions to MongoDB when they've built

> These companies are some of the biggest contributors to open source. I wouldn't expect AWS to make a lot of code contributions to MongoDB when they've built something else that's 3.6 compatible, though. It's not like they're going to make contributions to a new, incompatible version of MongoDB. They've already made the call to fork. I agree with what you're saying about other products, but not this particular case.

avar 8y ago
Well yeah, that's the point. MongoDB's business model before was trying to sell Amazon CD's. Then they turned the screws on that and switched to an even more onerous license that a company like Amazon wasn't going to accept, so they wrote their own replacement. If it's an economic lesson in anything it's that companies and individual open source users alike are going to be a lot more careful about using any project where one for-profit company demands copyright assignment and can re-license the project at any time to squeeze existing users. MongoDB's bet was that they had enough of a moat that Amazon et al would fold up and accept their new terms, that was obviously miscalculated, but there still might be other similar cloud companies who'll fold. But both Amazon and other users are going to be a lot more careful in the future to not run critical infrastructure on some project that's likely to be subject to a future bait & switch by upstream.
lwf 8y ago
It isn't a fork, it's an entirely new database that implements the same API. c.f. https://twitter.com/nathankpeck/status/1083385031207387136 https://twitter.com/nathankpeck/status/1083385031207387136 from someone at AWS DevRel. There's nothing about Mongo's license that's super relevant here -- it's a similar situation to other cloud providers offering "S3"- or "EC2"-compatible APIs. (IANAL, but AIUI API copyright/fair-use isn't entirely settled in the US, Oracle v. Google nonwithstanding, since 9th Cir. isn't per se controlling precedent nationwide in copyright matters)
- count 8y ago
  Also important is the API that AWS is compatible with was itself part of the OSS licensed code of an old version of mongo. Oracle vs. Google is different as Java was never OSS licensed.
skywhopper 8y ago
I'm not sure how much AWS contributes back to Redis or Elasticsearch, but in this case, MongoDB has already made the decision for them. AWS certainly won't be contributing to MongoDB, but it's not on AWS from now on.

avar 8y ago

Well yeah, that's the point. MongoDB's business model before was trying to sell Amazon CD's. Then they turned the screws on that and switched to an even more onerous license that a company like Amazon wasn't going to accept, so they wrote their own replacement. If it's an economic lesson in anything it's that companies and individual open source users alike are going to be a lot more careful about using any project where one for-profit company demands copyright assignment and can re-license the project at any time to squeeze existing users. MongoDB's bet was that they had enough of a moat that Amazon et al would fold up and accept their new terms, that was obviously miscalculated, but there still might be other similar cloud companies who'll fold. But both Amazon and other users are going to be a lot more careful in the future to not run critical infrastructure on some project that's likely to be subject to a future bait & switch by upstream.

lwf 8y ago

It isn't a fork, it's an entirely new database that implements the same API. c.f. https://twitter.com/nathankpeck/status/1083385031207387136 https://twitter.com/nathankpeck/status/1083385031207387136 from someone at AWS DevRel. There's nothing about Mongo's license that's super relevant here -- it's a similar situation to other cloud providers offering "S3"- or "EC2"-compatible APIs. (IANAL, but AIUI API copyright/fair-use isn't entirely settled in the US, Oracle v. Google nonwithstanding, since 9th Cir. isn't per se controlling precedent nationwide in copyright matters)

count 8y ago
Also important is the API that AWS is compatible with was itself part of the OSS licensed code of an old version of mongo. Oracle vs. Google is different as Java was never OSS licensed.

skywhopper 8y ago

I'm not sure how much AWS contributes back to Redis or Elasticsearch, but in this case, MongoDB has already made the decision for them. AWS certainly won't be contributing to MongoDB, but it's not on AWS from now on.