15 ms·

Redis Labs Changes Its Open-Source License Again

180 points by dankohn1 8y ago

SloopJon 8y ago
"The community now understands that the original concept of open source has to be fixed." Well, how lucky for the community that a wise startup came along and fixed open source. I get that open source business models are hard, especially in an increasingly commoditized space like databases. Still, it rubs me the wrong way when a business wants the goodwill of open source, then tries its hardest to bend the rules in its favor.
- djsumdog 8y ago
  Why does one have to make money with open source? Why does that have to be a goal in and of itself. Are people going to take your stuff and not contribute back? Possibly .. that's why there's the FSF/Stallman and GPLv3 argument. Out of curiosity would the GPLv3 at least force providers like Amazon to release any modifications they make to FOSS stuff to turn it into a hosted/managed service? With things like Apache/BSD/MIT, does AWS currently mod stuff without releasing the results as FOSS? (Is Aurora DB really modified MySql or MariaDB under its core?) But going back to the point, yes this clearly violates the spirit of what many in the 90s viewed as FOSS culture. You write it because it's fun and you want to share. If you can make money off of it, that's great. If not, whatevers. The big players only open source middleware. Facebook will never FOSS messenger or any big critical parts of the platform itself. They only open the middle parts so other people can build applications dependent on them and the other big players. I wrote about OSS both in the 90s and today a while back. It's kinda a log read though: https://penguindreams.org/blog/the-philosophy-of-open-source-in-community-and-enterprise-software/ https://penguindreams.org/blog/the-philosophy-of-open-source...
  - wmf 8y ago
    Why does one have to make money with open source? Making money is really a shorthand for sustainability. If developers aren't paid, their code can easily fall into disrepair which hurts all their users. Out of curiosity would the GPLv3 at least force providers like Amazon to release any modifications they make to FOSS stuff to turn it into a hosted/managed service? They may not make any modifications and those modifications wouldn't contribute to sustainability anyway. Developers can't eat contributions, so if a project is going to have any full-time developers then money needs to enter the system somewhere.
    - meditate 8y ago
      If all their users are threatening to switch to some AWS managed service because it is better for them, then perhaps the software should fall into disrepair and the developers should get other jobs. There isn't anything wrong with this, it happens all the time. It's probably true that Amazon is able to accomplish this only through strong-arm tactics, but it also seems unfortunate that Redis Labs feels the need to resort to similar strong-arm tactics in retaliation. It doesn't invite anything besides more pressure from Amazon and companies like it. Nobody wins in this in this scenario, especially not the customers who now have no refuge because both competitive offerings are trying to rope them into participating in a turf war.
      - themacguffinman 8y ago
        What jobs? How can the developers get other jobs if no one is paying for their open source software in the first place?
        meditate 8y ago
        I don't understand, there are still lots of companies that fund FOSS. Publishing FOSS doesn't mean you can't go out of business, it means customers get an additional layer of protection from you going out of business or deciding you don't want to be in a certain market anymore, as Redis Labs has clearly done here.
        ivalm 8y ago
        Sure, those companies make money, ergo why people want to be able to make money while working on FOSS.
      - sauceop 8y ago
        It's a free-rider problem - if large cloud companies fork every successful open source infrastructure project, don't contribute back, and pull away a significant chunk of users, then there's a lot less incentive for other companies to invest in future open source development, because they'll have fewer users and get fewer code contributions. Potentially that shifts things from a good equilibrium where everyone reaps the benefit of many people contributing to the same projects, to a bad equilibrium where every major cloud player develops closed-source products separately. I don't think it affects all open-source projects, particularly not small ones or ones where some is scratching their own it. But it's hard to build certain types of complex production-quality infrastructure without full-time employed developers working on it.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - iceninenines 8y ago
    GPLv3 prevents TiVo, AGPL prevents AWS. Puppet has an Apache licensed community edition, and they make money just fine. RedHat, Canonical, and so on.
    - anth_anm 8y ago
      AGPL doesn't prevent AWS, AGPL forces AWS to be open with their changes. Which I think is better. You might not enable FOSS devs to make much off their work, but you at least force companies to contribute.
      - benatkin 8y ago
        I think AWS would still rather do what they did with DocumentDB.
      - kemitchell 8y ago
        > AGPL forces AWS to be open with their changes. Unfortunately, AGPL is full of loopholes, which are emerging now, because large enterprises with access to specialist legal talent are putting the microscope on licenses for projects like AGPL MongoDB. https://writing.kemitchell.com/2018/11/04/Copyleft-Bust-Up.html#bounty https://writing.kemitchell.com/2018/11/04/Copyleft-Bust-Up.h... MongoDB's counsel mentioned this directly in their statement submitting SSPL to OSI.
  - anth_anm 8y ago
    > Why does one have to make money with open source? Why does that have to be a goal in and of itself. Because we need money to live in our society right now. I don't think GPLv3 will help, You need AGPL or even more aggressive licensing.
  - ezrast 8y ago
    > Out of curiosity would the GPLv3 at least force providers like Amazon to release any modifications they make to FOSS stuff to turn it into a hosted/managed service? With things like Apache/BSD/MIT, does AWS currently mod stuff without releasing the results as FOSS? (Is Aurora DB really modified MySql or MariaDB under its core?) Aurora is absolutely a fork of MySQL; they're careful never to explicitly admit this in most of their documentation and marketing but their CTO's blog[1] links to a paper that mentions "obtaining significant throughput improvements over the base MySQL code base from which we started," and given how tightly they mirror MySQL with things like version numbers and goofy configuration flags that only exist for backwards-compatibility reasons, it would be hard to believe they built it from scratch. GPLv2 and v3 both allow this because they only require source modifications to be made available when the resulting program is distributed outside one's organization. Since the public only ever talks to an interface and never obtains the binary, Amazon doesn't have to redistribute. This is not true of the AGPL, which has additional redistribution requirements meant to prevent (what copyleft activists perceive as) this kind of abuse. There's an argument that since Amazon's changes are focused around integrating the storage layer with their particular infrastructure, the general public would find their changes useless even if they were to be distributed. Personally don't think this is terribly relevant to the larger discussion around licensing, even if it's true. [1] https://www.allthingsdistributed.com/2017/05/amazon-aurora-design-considerations.html https://www.allthingsdistributed.com/2017/05/amazon-aurora-d...
    - e12e 8y ago
      Good points. But regarding: > This is not true of the AGPL, which has additional redistribution requirements meant to prevent (what copyleft activists perceive as) this kind of abuse. It's important to note that the "kind of abuse" AGPL is fighting is denying the end user the four freedoms. Eg freedom zero: if Amazon shuts down aurora, you lose the right to run the program. Upstreaming of modifications is kind of orthogonal to the GPL licenses - sure if A sells a program to B under the gpl, B modifies it and sells it to C, C will have the [ed: new and modified] source and may give it to anyone - including back to A. But the main thing gpl tries to enforce is that C will be able to use and improve the program as needed. The AGPL is a reaction to the rise of rent-a-program (SaaS etc) - where the user has very few of the four freedoms guaranteed - both if the provider goes bankrupt, and if the provider makes changes.
  - burtonator 8y ago
    > Why does one have to make money with open source? Why does that have to be a goal in and of itself Money is air... without money good luck competing against other technologies. I find that the OSS community is insanely naive about where OSS comes from. There's this assumption that it just comes for free like manna from heaven. I seem HN geeks (saying that in a good way) say how they want to use Firefox vs Chrome because Firefox is somehow less evil. But where does Firefox get its money from? Google. Google gets its money from ads. If you track down the source of all the OSS we're using there's some root source that most HN people would not be too happy about. And the flip side is also true too. I often hear people complaining about how they don't want to pay for apps and expect things to come for free. This REALLY screws over a lot of ISVs that are literally just trying to build cool apps. This is really a tragedy of the commons that we don't address very often. Most billionaires have figured out some way to exploit this issue - much to our collective disadvantage.
    - tybit 8y ago
      Just because Mozilla and Google are both predominantly funded by ads doesn’t make them equivalent. It’s not naïveté that leads OSS supporters to believe that, it’s a focus on multiple factors, money is an important factor but it’s not everything. There’s a reason Linux has been so successful even when Microsoft was vehemently against it with incomparable funds.
    - paulstovell 8y ago
      So much this! At first the huge corporations saw OSS as a threat. Their model had been to spend money building software, then charge people for that software. Competing with $0 software scared them and caught them off guard. Now the corporations and VCs figured out how to use OSS as a weapon. And it’s a deadly one! The developer insistence on everything being open source means that it’s very easy for a large corporation to destroy a whole lot of ISVs by just releasing an OSS equivalent. VCs know this too. OSS is used as a PR tool. Projects like React and Angular go a long way to making the parent companies look developer-friendly, even though many developers would normally consider those company’s missions against their values. OSS is also a powerful way for corporations to commodotise their complements. You see this with the cloud vendors jumping behind Kubernetes to ensure Docker wouldn’t be the next Oracle. Developers expect everything to be free and open source. We’ll end up in a world where the only programming jobs left will be at the corporations who weaponise OSS the best.
  - jandrewrogers 8y ago
    There are generally useful software projects that require initial investment of time and expertise that exceed what can be realistically achieved as a hobby for a first version. Most of the gaps in open source are software systems of this type. If you need a type of software system that requires 100k LoC of high-expertise code to get to a Version 1.0, you will need to spend millions of dollars. You can neither recruit non-experts to do a credible job, severely limiting the pool of people that could contribute in practice, and most people with a day job will be reluctant to spend the additional time required to write tens of kLoC of difficult, production-quality code -- man-years essentially. And this ignores that most "high-expertise" software designers are prohibited from working on open source versions of what they do separate from their paying job. This is the reason, for example, that the myriad exotic high-performance database engines don't have open source equivalents -- only a handful of people know how to design those systems and their closed source work precludes participation in open source. But even if they could, the level of individual effort required will exceed what they are likely to want to do for free.
  - orangeshark 8y ago
    These Redis modules were originally using the AGPL. From what I understand the issue wasn't that they didn't have access to the modifications but that they provided it as a service on AWS which is what Redis Labs also offers.
  - fuzz4lyfe 8y ago
    My dream for how to make money with open source is to create some software that is useful to people and then have a subset of my users pay me to implement, modify or maintain it for their specific purposes (example: "My accounting department would like quick books integration I'll pay you to add it in"). Given that i'd be the creator I should be the worlds foremost expert on it by default. Maybe that's naive?
    - rectang 8y ago
      I did this for 10 years, 2 years as a freelancer (barely getting by) and 8 years as an employee. The project has now completed its lifecycle. You don't have to be a founder, you just need to be an expert. In terms of career development, I think the ROI is better on joining an existing project. But "progress depends on the unreasonable" and some people become founders nevertheless.
      - kikoreis 8y ago
        I did this -- working on open source founded by other people, from Bugilla to GNOME -- for two decades, and my experience is similar. Contract work is available for customizing open source broadly, and pays well, but it has all the common downsides of contract work. Notably, it conflicts with the growth-driven VC model which is where open source has ironically become a cornerstone.
    - kemitchell 8y ago
      This is possible. Folks have done it. But consider that by releasing the open source under permissive terms, like MIT, anyone else can come by and do integration/adaptation work, too. That leads to a kind of cross-purpose incentives. It won't be in your interest to make the code easy to understand or adapt. It won't be in your interest to document how you go about fulfilling those needs. You may face conflict in promoting the availability of your own services through documentation or other materials about the open source project.
- spectre256 8y ago
  I think one thing that's changed is that there are lots of useful projects that would be great to have available in the open, but can't realistically be created as a side project. If small businesses can stay around while creating software that is open to use, and can be contributed to by the greater community, that will allow a lot more good stuff to be built and seems like a win for everyone.
- iceninenines 8y ago
  You mean like Sugar CRM?
- anth_anm 8y ago
  Rubs me the wrong way when a cloud computing company repackages open source code and starts making huge money without contributing. Rubs me the wrong way when these same companies can just re implement the API and cause massive hurt to an open source competitor.
  - michaelmrose 8y ago
    > Rubs me the wrong way when these same companies can just re implement the API and cause massive hurt to an open source competitor. What do you propose in that scenario. Copyrighting api has never been a thing prior and likely wont be as soon as the whole affair is appealed yet again. Why should you be able to control who makes a compatible part? Do you want your car company maximizing revenue by not allowing you to buy anything but new parts of their manufacture installed by their techs? Lets do it one better fueled by gas bought at a station willing to give the manufacturer a kickback. Perhaps to license the design of the pump connection. This future is so fundamentally broken and stupid we would do better to abolish all forms of intellectual property rather than fall into this moronic trap.
    - anth_anm 8y ago
      > Do you want your car company maximizing revenue by not allowing you to buy anything but new parts of their manufacture installed by their techs? DRM for machinery is absolutely already a thing. What about shifting open source licenses so that duplicating an open source API in a proprietary product, or using a product that does so, is a violation of the license agreement?
      - michaelmrose 8y ago
        You have to be party to such a license in the first place do you expect anyone to be stupid enough to sign up for that bullshit?
  - djur 8y ago
    This is what web hosting companies have been doing for many years. It's not new to AWS or cloud computing. There's an entire industry built up around running and maintaining open source software for customers. Redis Labs itself is part of that industry, selling a service called "Redis Enterprise Cloud". I imagine that somewhere in that stack they're using open source software that they don't contribute to, don't you?
mrob 8y ago
The biggest change here is the name. Instead of "Apache 2 modified with Commons Clause", which risked causing confusion with Open Source software, and with Creative Commons licenses, we get the much clearer "Redis Source Available License". "Source available" is standard terminology for this type of proprietary software license, so nobody should be mislead. I approve.
- CharlesW 8y ago
  That helps me understand what's different this time, thank you.
- Pyxl101 8y ago
  Thanks for pointing that out. That is a clearer name for their proprietary license. On that note, the title of the article is misleading. Redis hasn't changed its open source license. Redis remains BSD-licensed. This article is about the change in the proprietary license of certain Redis Modules.
  - numbsafari 8y ago
    The title isn’t misleading, but the name of Redis Labs is. I would wager that far less confusion and hand wringing would have gone on with this if the company were named something else, like sbaL sideR.
  - kemitchell 8y ago
    Rule 1 of open source licensing journalism: The title must be misleading. Otherwise, who would read this stuff?
- dcbadacd 8y ago
  I think it's still open-source, it's just not free (as in freedom) software. I'm annoyed how suddenly redis, even when source is available, is put into the same bin as say MSSQL, with rest of the "proprietary software".
  - gdwatson 8y ago
CharlesW 8y ago
> “When we came out with this new license, there were many different views,” he acknowledged. “Some people condemned that. But after the initial noise calmed down — and especially after some other companies came out with a similar concept — the community now understands that the original concept of open source has to be fixed because it isn’t suitable anymore to the modern era where cloud companies use their monopoly power to adopt any successful open source project without contributing anything to it.” So, is it true that HN now understands and is cool with Redis Labs "fixing" the concept of open source? From reading previous threads on HN this seems like a mischaracterization, but it's quite possible I missed the relevant thread(s).
- spectre256 8y ago
  I think it's fair to say that people are acknowledging the problem: it's possible for a large company to use the rights offered to them by an open source license to create products that effectively end the financial viability of smaller companies that lead core development of the project. There's definitely not yet agreement on the solution, and Redis Labs alone is not going to solve it. Roughly I think different people believe several things such as: 1.) The purity of open source (no restrictions on use) trump the needs of a company that does core development to profit, and so nothing should change. 2.) Its ok for companies doing core OSS development to "build a moat" that protects their revenue stream, but it shouldn't be done at the license level. Instead companies should look somewhere else like their expertise/reputation, building products on top of their open source code, etc 3.) Adjusting licenses is a reasonable way to allow interesting code to be available for use by anyone (under a not-quite pure open source license), and we are figuring out the best way to do that
  - CharlesW 8y ago
    I appreciate you taking the time to explain, Julian.
  - jhall1468 8y ago
    > I think it's fair to say that people are acknowledging the problem: it's possible for a large company to use the rights offered to them by an open source license to create products that effectively end the financial viability of smaller companies that lead core development of the project. That's been true since the MIT and Apache license came into existence. Your third item just reeks of justification. "not-quite pure open source license" is nonsense. This is not an open source license, at its core. The goal here is to prevent use. So I don't think the third is a valid option when we're discussing "fixing" open source. It's a valid option for protecting a companies revenue stream, but in doing so that company is no longer an "open source company" by definition.
omeid2 8y ago
"The community now understands that the original concept of open source has to be fixed." The open source issue is fixed, it is called AGPL. However, the issue that Redis along many other suffering from is called brutal competition, it is not even just tech or open source tech, Amazon is eating everyone's lunch. I don't have any idea how this problem can be solved. But, I know that restricting building API compatible software is not a solution, not a good one at least. Letting anyone build API compatible software is a natural order of things that enables innovation and helps consumers avoid lock-in, specially with stagnated software, this is a big deal and something that we shouldn't give up, so on that topic, fark Oracle.
- djsumdog 8y ago
  If Redis had some big product people used, and their Redis server was just a middleware component, it could be a great side business where they sell support, but not the primary business. All the other big players like Google/Facebook will open source those middle pieces to help people who will make apps that will most likely have to interact with their platforms. They'll never release the source to actual end products. Are there any examples where the middle-tier stuff is successful on its own as a business model? I guess you could say Redhat or Canonical, but even then they're developing a lot of commercial stuff around the core open source operating systems/distros .. things like Landscape. Also they got in early, years ago, and might be able to build a better foundation than more recent companies.
  - omeid2 8y ago
    Even with closed source software, Amazon will eat your lunch, even if you're Microsoft: AWS WorkMail is Exchange compatible. It is a hard problem.
    - bpicolo 8y ago
      > even if you're Microsoft: AWS WorkMail is Exchange compatible That may be the case, but WorkMail is definitely not eating MSFT's lunch. Microsoft continues to be incredibly successful in enterprise
kodablah 8y ago
> the community now understands that the original concept of open source has to be fixed because it isn’t suitable anymore to the modern era where cloud companies use their monopoly power to adopt any successful open source project without contributing anything to it. Assuming "community" means general open source devs/users, this doesn't speak for everyone. The (admittedly small) stuff I make open source is given to rich and poor, startup and big cloud company alike. I don't feel "taken advantage of" when my code is taken, used in secret, and nothing is given back. I'm glad I could help. Lots of the best open source software are just byproducts of the primary method of making money instead of its sole driver. All approaches/opinions are ok, but not everyone has this vindictive attitude towards how what you give away is used.
- tcd 8y ago
  > I don't feel "taken advantage of" when my code is taken, used in secret, and nothing is given back. I'm glad I could help. If you make a new technology and an entity bigger than you comes along and makes profit, gives you no credit and contributes nothing in return, you are not going to be "glad to help", you're going to want something in return. These companies do not contribute so they're required to adopt the new rules as a consequence. It's not fair Amazon profits off work others do entirely for free. They should be required by law to contribute a % of profits to the open source community, based on software they've used. Similar to artists being paid a % of streams of their music. You use that NPM package? They have a donate button? You should be required to donate if you're a giant like Amazon/Microsoft/Google etc.
  - kodablah 8y ago
    > you are not going to be "glad to help", you're going to want something in return That's not true and the very point of my comment. To each his own, but no need to assume it of others.
  - xj9 8y ago
    > You use that NPM package? They have a donate button? You should be required to donate if you're a giant like Amazon/Microsoft/Google etc. a license with these terms wouldn't conform to any definition of open source or free software. if you want that, go for it, but if you've licensed something with any libre license you are already consenting to allow anyone use your software for profit as long as they meet the license terms. you may or may not agree with this state of affairs, but adding these types of restrictions/requirements also means that you aren't doing open source or free software anymore.
Sir_Cmpwn 8y ago
Dammit TechCrunch... neither this nor the previous license were/are "open source". My comment from another thread: >As an outspoken critic of the original change, I applaud this move. I still wish it were open source, but this solves a lot of the confusing nomenclature I took offense with. Kudos. That being said, this is some serious bullshit: >But after the initial noise calmed down — and especially after some other companies came out with a similar concept — the community now understands that the original concept of open source has to be fixed
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- zokier 8y ago
  The only place TechCrunch refers to it as open source is the title. The article body even explains that it isn't open source > By definition, an open-source license can’t have limitations. This new license does, so it’s technically not an open-source license.
  - Sir_Cmpwn 8y ago
    This language is still awful. The title is inexcusable and this "technically" qualifier is implying that open source is some flimsy title to be bandied about with software that is not.
Proven 8y ago
Nothing changed for me. I will use Redis if I have to thanks to my circumstances, otherwise I will avoid to use or contribute to restrictively licensed ("fake free") software. Redis has a business problem and they are trying to solve it. Fine. If need be just make it proprietary and move on, but don't waste our time on trying to persuade me that Open Source always means free. Today they're targeting Amazon, tomorrow it may be the rest of us. If it's not BSD, MIT or Apache-licensed, it's likely restrictive so treat it as proprietary (nothing wrong with that, just don't waste my time by selling me your fake Open Source fairy tales).
tanilama 8y ago
What are Redis's alternatives? Might be a good idea to have one, had their VC backers pushed them too far into monetization, leading to even more drastic licensing changes.
- djur 8y ago
  It doesn't look like Redis requires a copyright assignment from its contributors. The bulk of the files have a copyright statement for Salvatore Sanfilippo (antirez), but other contributors have copyrights in there as well (including Redis Labs). Redis Labs employs antirez and bought the trademark from him, but it doesn't appear that he transferred copyright to them. Even if he had, I don't think Redis Labs would be able to unilaterally relicense Redis. What Redis Labs owns (and is distributing under this new proprietary license) is a set of modules that they developed for use with Redis. They aren't officially part of Redis.
  - WorldMaker 8y ago
    Yeah, it's a very ugly and confusing case of "trademark overload" where "Redis™ Labs" is not directly the owner of "redis" the server application but is directly the owner of "Redis™ Modules" add-ons for the server application. Redis™ is not exactly "redis", one of these things is not like the other.
johncolanduoni 8y ago
I don't really see how cloud providers are using their "monopoly power to adopt any successful open source project without contributing anything to it". The fact that e.g. AWS is a (near) monopoly, or even just massive has little to do with it. They provide VMs, those VMs can run software, and if you want they'll manage the VMs with the given software for you if you'd rather not worry about it. Rackspace does the same thing, and they're a million miles away from a monopoly. I don't see how these measures are practical either. Redis is much easier to do a cleanroom implementation of than MongoDB, so I doubt this kind of thing will produce any other kind of response from Amazon.
- skrebbel 8y ago
  It's not about VMs, it's about "Amazon so-and-so is a fully managed cloud database that speaks the XYZ protocol", which is code for "we forked a popular open source product and we're not going to contribute our changes back".
  - johncolanduoni 8y ago
    I don’t believe that DocumentDB actually runs any MongoDB code. On the other extreme, there aren’t any apparent Amazon-only features in their services that are simply hosted versions like they do with Redis (via Elasticache). If that was the issue these companies could have just gone with the AGPL. The problem isn’t that they’re maintaining internal forks with changes they won’t contribute back, it’s that they’re either (a) running unmodified versions or (b) cleanrooming the whole shebang. I don’t see how to make the first impossible without effectively using a proprietary license, and banning the second would hurt open source much more than it would help it
detaro 8y ago
Redislabs' announcement: https://redislabs.com/blog/redis-labs-modules-license-changes/ https://redislabs.com/blog/redis-labs-modules-license-change...
jarym 8y ago
I’m beginning to think the coolness of open sourcing stuff is wearing off a bit. If it is core tech to a business then why bother? Lots of cool projects don’t really get that many contributors. No point getting a community hooked on your software if you have to give it away and hope they’ll one day buy some services so you get paid. All in all I foresee it becoming easier that source is kept closed for all things non-core to a business.
- kemitchell 8y ago
  F/OSS' counterculture days are over. They are the culture. Consider: https://opensource.org/sponsors https://opensource.org/sponsors
avar 8y ago
I wish Redis and its ecosystem was 100% open source, but I also wish for a pony. I applaud Redis Labs for not being one of the companies (such as MongoDB) that appears to be intentionally trying to muddy the waters by blurring the distinction between open source and proprietary software.
- kemitchell 8y ago
  > intentionally trying to muddy the waters by blurring the distinction between open source and proprietary software Consider this quote from RMS, in Copyleft: Pragmatic Idealism: > I make my code available for use in free software, and not for use in proprietary software, in order to encourage other people who write software to make it free as well. I figure that since proprietary software developers use copyright to stop us from sharing, we cooperators can use copyright to give other cooperators an advantage of their own: they can use our code. https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/pragmatic.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/pragmatic.en.html
hannob 8y ago
Hey Techcrunch, I fixed this headline for you: "Redis Labs Changes Its Non-Open-Source License Again"
eberkund 8y ago
Given the choice between close source software and open source software which is restricted legally I will still gladly take the latter.
antirez 8y ago
Please make sure to read the official Redis Labs story about the license change because this TC article is just terrible. https://redislabs.com/blog/redis-labs-modules-license-changes/ https://redislabs.com/blog/redis-labs-modules-license-change...
- brazzledazzle 8y ago
  TC isn’t exactly known for their journalistic prowess.
flurdy 8y ago
Think we need a standardised AGPL-like license that includes API as well as code. (Cue Oracle v Google ) There may be several in existence already? To prevent AWS and its ilk duplicating features of other's products but not really run (or pretending to not...) their software underneath. I also hoped Morsi's tweaks to AGPL, the Lesser Affero GPLv3, would have become more popular. [1] http://mo.morsi.org/blog/2009/08/13/lesser_affero_gplv3/ http://mo.morsi.org/blog/2009/08/13/lesser_affero_gplv3/
- Dayshine 8y ago
  Wow, that license (LAGPL?) is exactly what I wish people would use in reaction to commercial abuse of their LGPL/GPL licenses. Seeing people move from LGPL to AGPL is very concerning as someone who is working for a charity.
  - detaro 8y ago
    I'm curious about examples of things that moved from LGPL to AGPL, given that LGPL is more for libraries, and AGPL seems way more common in software that can standalone?
- kemitchell 8y ago
  I'd love more feedback on this license: https://github.com/kemitchell/api-copyleft-license/blob/master/license.md https://github.com/kemitchell/api-copyleft-license/blob/mast... It's written in everyday English. We've already had some great feedback from interested hackers.
  - flurdy 8y ago
    This looks very good to me. I do not speak legalese but it seems to me to cover the API clauses I was looking for. I may be using this license for some projects going forward. :)
    - kemitchell 8y ago
      I am about to release a version 1.0.0. I'd strongly suggest you watch releases on GitHub. I'd also appreciate a note on GitHub about any projects using the license. Eventually, I'd like to add a list to the repo.
irq-1 8y ago
Community edition (open) and Enterprise edition (closed) has been a strategy for years, but now AWS/GCP/Azure are building the enterprise part themselves using the community software. Changing the enterprise/closed license won't stop the cloud providers. Changing the open source license will: imagine a 4-part BSD that adds a license fee for organizations with over a billion in revenue. That goes to the heart of the problem and still lets everyone else use the software like it's a 3-part BSD.
deleted 8y ago
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luord 8y ago
So they've essentially admitted that redis labs is now open core. Good for them, I remember how adamantly they tried to deny it during the "commons clause" debacle.

180 points by dankohn1 8y ago

"The community now understands that the original concept of open source has to be fixed." Well, how lucky for the community that a wise startup came along and fixed open source. I get that open source business models are hard, especially in an increasingly commoditized space like databases. Still, it rubs me the wrong way when a business wants the goodwill of open source, then tries its hardest to bend the rules in its favor.

djsumdog 8y ago
Why does one have to make money with open source? Why does that have to be a goal in and of itself. Are people going to take your stuff and not contribute back? Possibly .. that's why there's the FSF/Stallman and GPLv3 argument. Out of curiosity would the GPLv3 at least force providers like Amazon to release any modifications they make to FOSS stuff to turn it into a hosted/managed service? With things like Apache/BSD/MIT, does AWS currently mod stuff without releasing the results as FOSS? (Is Aurora DB really modified MySql or MariaDB under its core?) But going back to the point, yes this clearly violates the spirit of what many in the 90s viewed as FOSS culture. You write it because it's fun and you want to share. If you can make money off of it, that's great. If not, whatevers. The big players only open source middleware. Facebook will never FOSS messenger or any big critical parts of the platform itself. They only open the middle parts so other people can build applications dependent on them and the other big players. I wrote about OSS both in the 90s and today a while back. It's kinda a log read though: https://penguindreams.org/blog/the-philosophy-of-open-source-in-community-and-enterprise-software/ https://penguindreams.org/blog/the-philosophy-of-open-source...
- wmf 8y ago
  Why does one have to make money with open source? Making money is really a shorthand for sustainability. If developers aren't paid, their code can easily fall into disrepair which hurts all their users. Out of curiosity would the GPLv3 at least force providers like Amazon to release any modifications they make to FOSS stuff to turn it into a hosted/managed service? They may not make any modifications and those modifications wouldn't contribute to sustainability anyway. Developers can't eat contributions, so if a project is going to have any full-time developers then money needs to enter the system somewhere.
  - meditate 8y ago
    If all their users are threatening to switch to some AWS managed service because it is better for them, then perhaps the software should fall into disrepair and the developers should get other jobs. There isn't anything wrong with this, it happens all the time. It's probably true that Amazon is able to accomplish this only through strong-arm tactics, but it also seems unfortunate that Redis Labs feels the need to resort to similar strong-arm tactics in retaliation. It doesn't invite anything besides more pressure from Amazon and companies like it. Nobody wins in this in this scenario, especially not the customers who now have no refuge because both competitive offerings are trying to rope them into participating in a turf war.
    - themacguffinman 8y ago
      What jobs? How can the developers get other jobs if no one is paying for their open source software in the first place?
      - meditate 8y ago
        I don't understand, there are still lots of companies that fund FOSS. Publishing FOSS doesn't mean you can't go out of business, it means customers get an additional layer of protection from you going out of business or deciding you don't want to be in a certain market anymore, as Redis Labs has clearly done here.
        ivalm 8y ago
        Sure, those companies make money, ergo why people want to be able to make money while working on FOSS.
    - sauceop 8y ago
      It's a free-rider problem - if large cloud companies fork every successful open source infrastructure project, don't contribute back, and pull away a significant chunk of users, then there's a lot less incentive for other companies to invest in future open source development, because they'll have fewer users and get fewer code contributions. Potentially that shifts things from a good equilibrium where everyone reaps the benefit of many people contributing to the same projects, to a bad equilibrium where every major cloud player develops closed-source products separately. I don't think it affects all open-source projects, particularly not small ones or ones where some is scratching their own it. But it's hard to build certain types of complex production-quality infrastructure without full-time employed developers working on it.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- iceninenines 8y ago
  GPLv3 prevents TiVo, AGPL prevents AWS. Puppet has an Apache licensed community edition, and they make money just fine. RedHat, Canonical, and so on.
  - anth_anm 8y ago
    AGPL doesn't prevent AWS, AGPL forces AWS to be open with their changes. Which I think is better. You might not enable FOSS devs to make much off their work, but you at least force companies to contribute.
    - benatkin 8y ago
      I think AWS would still rather do what they did with DocumentDB.
    - kemitchell 8y ago
      > AGPL forces AWS to be open with their changes. Unfortunately, AGPL is full of loopholes, which are emerging now, because large enterprises with access to specialist legal talent are putting the microscope on licenses for projects like AGPL MongoDB. https://writing.kemitchell.com/2018/11/04/Copyleft-Bust-Up.html#bounty https://writing.kemitchell.com/2018/11/04/Copyleft-Bust-Up.h... MongoDB's counsel mentioned this directly in their statement submitting SSPL to OSI.
- anth_anm 8y ago
  > Why does one have to make money with open source? Why does that have to be a goal in and of itself. Because we need money to live in our society right now. I don't think GPLv3 will help, You need AGPL or even more aggressive licensing.
- ezrast 8y ago
  > Out of curiosity would the GPLv3 at least force providers like Amazon to release any modifications they make to FOSS stuff to turn it into a hosted/managed service? With things like Apache/BSD/MIT, does AWS currently mod stuff without releasing the results as FOSS? (Is Aurora DB really modified MySql or MariaDB under its core?) Aurora is absolutely a fork of MySQL; they're careful never to explicitly admit this in most of their documentation and marketing but their CTO's blog[1] links to a paper that mentions "obtaining significant throughput improvements over the base MySQL code base from which we started," and given how tightly they mirror MySQL with things like version numbers and goofy configuration flags that only exist for backwards-compatibility reasons, it would be hard to believe they built it from scratch. GPLv2 and v3 both allow this because they only require source modifications to be made available when the resulting program is distributed outside one's organization. Since the public only ever talks to an interface and never obtains the binary, Amazon doesn't have to redistribute. This is not true of the AGPL, which has additional redistribution requirements meant to prevent (what copyleft activists perceive as) this kind of abuse. There's an argument that since Amazon's changes are focused around integrating the storage layer with their particular infrastructure, the general public would find their changes useless even if they were to be distributed. Personally don't think this is terribly relevant to the larger discussion around licensing, even if it's true. [1] https://www.allthingsdistributed.com/2017/05/amazon-aurora-design-considerations.html https://www.allthingsdistributed.com/2017/05/amazon-aurora-d...
  - e12e 8y ago
    Good points. But regarding: > This is not true of the AGPL, which has additional redistribution requirements meant to prevent (what copyleft activists perceive as) this kind of abuse. It's important to note that the "kind of abuse" AGPL is fighting is denying the end user the four freedoms. Eg freedom zero: if Amazon shuts down aurora, you lose the right to run the program. Upstreaming of modifications is kind of orthogonal to the GPL licenses - sure if A sells a program to B under the gpl, B modifies it and sells it to C, C will have the [ed: new and modified] source and may give it to anyone - including back to A. But the main thing gpl tries to enforce is that C will be able to use and improve the program as needed. The AGPL is a reaction to the rise of rent-a-program (SaaS etc) - where the user has very few of the four freedoms guaranteed - both if the provider goes bankrupt, and if the provider makes changes.
- burtonator 8y ago
  > Why does one have to make money with open source? Why does that have to be a goal in and of itself Money is air... without money good luck competing against other technologies. I find that the OSS community is insanely naive about where OSS comes from. There's this assumption that it just comes for free like manna from heaven. I seem HN geeks (saying that in a good way) say how they want to use Firefox vs Chrome because Firefox is somehow less evil. But where does Firefox get its money from? Google. Google gets its money from ads. If you track down the source of all the OSS we're using there's some root source that most HN people would not be too happy about. And the flip side is also true too. I often hear people complaining about how they don't want to pay for apps and expect things to come for free. This REALLY screws over a lot of ISVs that are literally just trying to build cool apps. This is really a tragedy of the commons that we don't address very often. Most billionaires have figured out some way to exploit this issue - much to our collective disadvantage.
  - tybit 8y ago
    Just because Mozilla and Google are both predominantly funded by ads doesn’t make them equivalent. It’s not naïveté that leads OSS supporters to believe that, it’s a focus on multiple factors, money is an important factor but it’s not everything. There’s a reason Linux has been so successful even when Microsoft was vehemently against it with incomparable funds.
  - paulstovell 8y ago
    So much this! At first the huge corporations saw OSS as a threat. Their model had been to spend money building software, then charge people for that software. Competing with $0 software scared them and caught them off guard. Now the corporations and VCs figured out how to use OSS as a weapon. And it’s a deadly one! The developer insistence on everything being open source means that it’s very easy for a large corporation to destroy a whole lot of ISVs by just releasing an OSS equivalent. VCs know this too. OSS is used as a PR tool. Projects like React and Angular go a long way to making the parent companies look developer-friendly, even though many developers would normally consider those company’s missions against their values. OSS is also a powerful way for corporations to commodotise their complements. You see this with the cloud vendors jumping behind Kubernetes to ensure Docker wouldn’t be the next Oracle. Developers expect everything to be free and open source. We’ll end up in a world where the only programming jobs left will be at the corporations who weaponise OSS the best.
- jandrewrogers 8y ago
  There are generally useful software projects that require initial investment of time and expertise that exceed what can be realistically achieved as a hobby for a first version. Most of the gaps in open source are software systems of this type. If you need a type of software system that requires 100k LoC of high-expertise code to get to a Version 1.0, you will need to spend millions of dollars. You can neither recruit non-experts to do a credible job, severely limiting the pool of people that could contribute in practice, and most people with a day job will be reluctant to spend the additional time required to write tens of kLoC of difficult, production-quality code -- man-years essentially. And this ignores that most "high-expertise" software designers are prohibited from working on open source versions of what they do separate from their paying job. This is the reason, for example, that the myriad exotic high-performance database engines don't have open source equivalents -- only a handful of people know how to design those systems and their closed source work precludes participation in open source. But even if they could, the level of individual effort required will exceed what they are likely to want to do for free.
- orangeshark 8y ago
  These Redis modules were originally using the AGPL. From what I understand the issue wasn't that they didn't have access to the modifications but that they provided it as a service on AWS which is what Redis Labs also offers.
- fuzz4lyfe 8y ago
  My dream for how to make money with open source is to create some software that is useful to people and then have a subset of my users pay me to implement, modify or maintain it for their specific purposes (example: "My accounting department would like quick books integration I'll pay you to add it in"). Given that i'd be the creator I should be the worlds foremost expert on it by default. Maybe that's naive?
  - rectang 8y ago
    I did this for 10 years, 2 years as a freelancer (barely getting by) and 8 years as an employee. The project has now completed its lifecycle. You don't have to be a founder, you just need to be an expert. In terms of career development, I think the ROI is better on joining an existing project. But "progress depends on the unreasonable" and some people become founders nevertheless.
    - kikoreis 8y ago
      I did this -- working on open source founded by other people, from Bugilla to GNOME -- for two decades, and my experience is similar. Contract work is available for customizing open source broadly, and pays well, but it has all the common downsides of contract work. Notably, it conflicts with the growth-driven VC model which is where open source has ironically become a cornerstone.
  - kemitchell 8y ago
    This is possible. Folks have done it. But consider that by releasing the open source under permissive terms, like MIT, anyone else can come by and do integration/adaptation work, too. That leads to a kind of cross-purpose incentives. It won't be in your interest to make the code easy to understand or adapt. It won't be in your interest to document how you go about fulfilling those needs. You may face conflict in promoting the availability of your own services through documentation or other materials about the open source project.
spectre256 8y ago
I think one thing that's changed is that there are lots of useful projects that would be great to have available in the open, but can't realistically be created as a side project. If small businesses can stay around while creating software that is open to use, and can be contributed to by the greater community, that will allow a lot more good stuff to be built and seems like a win for everyone.
iceninenines 8y ago
You mean like Sugar CRM?
anth_anm 8y ago
Rubs me the wrong way when a cloud computing company repackages open source code and starts making huge money without contributing. Rubs me the wrong way when these same companies can just re implement the API and cause massive hurt to an open source competitor.
- michaelmrose 8y ago
  > Rubs me the wrong way when these same companies can just re implement the API and cause massive hurt to an open source competitor. What do you propose in that scenario. Copyrighting api has never been a thing prior and likely wont be as soon as the whole affair is appealed yet again. Why should you be able to control who makes a compatible part? Do you want your car company maximizing revenue by not allowing you to buy anything but new parts of their manufacture installed by their techs? Lets do it one better fueled by gas bought at a station willing to give the manufacturer a kickback. Perhaps to license the design of the pump connection. This future is so fundamentally broken and stupid we would do better to abolish all forms of intellectual property rather than fall into this moronic trap.
  - anth_anm 8y ago
    > Do you want your car company maximizing revenue by not allowing you to buy anything but new parts of their manufacture installed by their techs? DRM for machinery is absolutely already a thing. What about shifting open source licenses so that duplicating an open source API in a proprietary product, or using a product that does so, is a violation of the license agreement?
    - michaelmrose 8y ago
      You have to be party to such a license in the first place do you expect anyone to be stupid enough to sign up for that bullshit?
- djur 8y ago
  This is what web hosting companies have been doing for many years. It's not new to AWS or cloud computing. There's an entire industry built up around running and maintaining open source software for customers. Redis Labs itself is part of that industry, selling a service called "Redis Enterprise Cloud". I imagine that somewhere in that stack they're using open source software that they don't contribute to, don't you?

mrob 8y ago

The biggest change here is the name. Instead of "Apache 2 modified with Commons Clause", which risked causing confusion with Open Source software, and with Creative Commons licenses, we get the much clearer "Redis Source Available License". "Source available" is standard terminology for this type of proprietary software license, so nobody should be mislead. I approve.

CharlesW 8y ago
That helps me understand what's different this time, thank you.
Pyxl101 8y ago
Thanks for pointing that out. That is a clearer name for their proprietary license. On that note, the title of the article is misleading. Redis hasn't changed its open source license. Redis remains BSD-licensed. This article is about the change in the proprietary license of certain Redis Modules.
- numbsafari 8y ago
  The title isn’t misleading, but the name of Redis Labs is. I would wager that far less confusion and hand wringing would have gone on with this if the company were named something else, like sbaL sideR.
- kemitchell 8y ago
  Rule 1 of open source licensing journalism: The title must be misleading. Otherwise, who would read this stuff?
dcbadacd 8y ago
I think it's still open-source, it's just not free (as in freedom) software. I'm annoyed how suddenly redis, even when source is available, is put into the same bin as say MSSQL, with rest of the "proprietary software".
- gdwatson 8y ago

CharlesW 8y ago

> “When we came out with this new license, there were many different views,” he acknowledged. “Some people condemned that. But after the initial noise calmed down — and especially after some other companies came out with a similar concept — the community now understands that the original concept of open source has to be fixed because it isn’t suitable anymore to the modern era where cloud companies use their monopoly power to adopt any successful open source project without contributing anything to it.” So, is it true that HN now understands and is cool with Redis Labs "fixing" the concept of open source? From reading previous threads on HN this seems like a mischaracterization, but it's quite possible I missed the relevant thread(s).

spectre256 8y ago
I think it's fair to say that people are acknowledging the problem: it's possible for a large company to use the rights offered to them by an open source license to create products that effectively end the financial viability of smaller companies that lead core development of the project. There's definitely not yet agreement on the solution, and Redis Labs alone is not going to solve it. Roughly I think different people believe several things such as: 1.) The purity of open source (no restrictions on use) trump the needs of a company that does core development to profit, and so nothing should change. 2.) Its ok for companies doing core OSS development to "build a moat" that protects their revenue stream, but it shouldn't be done at the license level. Instead companies should look somewhere else like their expertise/reputation, building products on top of their open source code, etc 3.) Adjusting licenses is a reasonable way to allow interesting code to be available for use by anyone (under a not-quite pure open source license), and we are figuring out the best way to do that
- CharlesW 8y ago
  I appreciate you taking the time to explain, Julian.
- jhall1468 8y ago
  > I think it's fair to say that people are acknowledging the problem: it's possible for a large company to use the rights offered to them by an open source license to create products that effectively end the financial viability of smaller companies that lead core development of the project. That's been true since the MIT and Apache license came into existence. Your third item just reeks of justification. "not-quite pure open source license" is nonsense. This is not an open source license, at its core. The goal here is to prevent use. So I don't think the third is a valid option when we're discussing "fixing" open source. It's a valid option for protecting a companies revenue stream, but in doing so that company is no longer an "open source company" by definition.

omeid2 8y ago

"The community now understands that the original concept of open source has to be fixed." The open source issue is fixed, it is called AGPL. However, the issue that Redis along many other suffering from is called brutal competition, it is not even just tech or open source tech, Amazon is eating everyone's lunch. I don't have any idea how this problem can be solved. But, I know that restricting building API compatible software is not a solution, not a good one at least. Letting anyone build API compatible software is a natural order of things that enables innovation and helps consumers avoid lock-in, specially with stagnated software, this is a big deal and something that we shouldn't give up, so on that topic, fark Oracle.

djsumdog 8y ago
If Redis had some big product people used, and their Redis server was just a middleware component, it could be a great side business where they sell support, but not the primary business. All the other big players like Google/Facebook will open source those middle pieces to help people who will make apps that will most likely have to interact with their platforms. They'll never release the source to actual end products. Are there any examples where the middle-tier stuff is successful on its own as a business model? I guess you could say Redhat or Canonical, but even then they're developing a lot of commercial stuff around the core open source operating systems/distros .. things like Landscape. Also they got in early, years ago, and might be able to build a better foundation than more recent companies.
- omeid2 8y ago
  Even with closed source software, Amazon will eat your lunch, even if you're Microsoft: AWS WorkMail is Exchange compatible. It is a hard problem.
  - bpicolo 8y ago
    > even if you're Microsoft: AWS WorkMail is Exchange compatible That may be the case, but WorkMail is definitely not eating MSFT's lunch. Microsoft continues to be incredibly successful in enterprise

kodablah 8y ago

> the community now understands that the original concept of open source has to be fixed because it isn’t suitable anymore to the modern era where cloud companies use their monopoly power to adopt any successful open source project without contributing anything to it. Assuming "community" means general open source devs/users, this doesn't speak for everyone. The (admittedly small) stuff I make open source is given to rich and poor, startup and big cloud company alike. I don't feel "taken advantage of" when my code is taken, used in secret, and nothing is given back. I'm glad I could help. Lots of the best open source software are just byproducts of the primary method of making money instead of its sole driver. All approaches/opinions are ok, but not everyone has this vindictive attitude towards how what you give away is used.

tcd 8y ago
> I don't feel "taken advantage of" when my code is taken, used in secret, and nothing is given back. I'm glad I could help. If you make a new technology and an entity bigger than you comes along and makes profit, gives you no credit and contributes nothing in return, you are not going to be "glad to help", you're going to want something in return. These companies do not contribute so they're required to adopt the new rules as a consequence. It's not fair Amazon profits off work others do entirely for free. They should be required by law to contribute a % of profits to the open source community, based on software they've used. Similar to artists being paid a % of streams of their music. You use that NPM package? They have a donate button? You should be required to donate if you're a giant like Amazon/Microsoft/Google etc.
- kodablah 8y ago
  > you are not going to be "glad to help", you're going to want something in return That's not true and the very point of my comment. To each his own, but no need to assume it of others.
- xj9 8y ago
  > You use that NPM package? They have a donate button? You should be required to donate if you're a giant like Amazon/Microsoft/Google etc. a license with these terms wouldn't conform to any definition of open source or free software. if you want that, go for it, but if you've licensed something with any libre license you are already consenting to allow anyone use your software for profit as long as they meet the license terms. you may or may not agree with this state of affairs, but adding these types of restrictions/requirements also means that you aren't doing open source or free software anymore.

Sir_Cmpwn 8y ago

Dammit TechCrunch... neither this nor the previous license were/are "open source". My comment from another thread: >As an outspoken critic of the original change, I applaud this move. I still wish it were open source, but this solves a lot of the confusing nomenclature I took offense with. Kudos. That being said, this is some serious bullshit: >But after the initial noise calmed down — and especially after some other companies came out with a similar concept — the community now understands that the original concept of open source has to be fixed

deleted 8y ago
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zokier 8y ago
The only place TechCrunch refers to it as open source is the title. The article body even explains that it isn't open source > By definition, an open-source license can’t have limitations. This new license does, so it’s technically not an open-source license.
- Sir_Cmpwn 8y ago
  This language is still awful. The title is inexcusable and this "technically" qualifier is implying that open source is some flimsy title to be bandied about with software that is not.

Proven 8y ago

Nothing changed for me. I will use Redis if I have to thanks to my circumstances, otherwise I will avoid to use or contribute to restrictively licensed ("fake free") software. Redis has a business problem and they are trying to solve it. Fine. If need be just make it proprietary and move on, but don't waste our time on trying to persuade me that Open Source always means free. Today they're targeting Amazon, tomorrow it may be the rest of us. If it's not BSD, MIT or Apache-licensed, it's likely restrictive so treat it as proprietary (nothing wrong with that, just don't waste my time by selling me your fake Open Source fairy tales).

tanilama 8y ago

What are Redis's alternatives? Might be a good idea to have one, had their VC backers pushed them too far into monetization, leading to even more drastic licensing changes.

djur 8y ago
It doesn't look like Redis requires a copyright assignment from its contributors. The bulk of the files have a copyright statement for Salvatore Sanfilippo (antirez), but other contributors have copyrights in there as well (including Redis Labs). Redis Labs employs antirez and bought the trademark from him, but it doesn't appear that he transferred copyright to them. Even if he had, I don't think Redis Labs would be able to unilaterally relicense Redis. What Redis Labs owns (and is distributing under this new proprietary license) is a set of modules that they developed for use with Redis. They aren't officially part of Redis.
- WorldMaker 8y ago
  Yeah, it's a very ugly and confusing case of "trademark overload" where "Redis™ Labs" is not directly the owner of "redis" the server application but is directly the owner of "Redis™ Modules" add-ons for the server application. Redis™ is not exactly "redis", one of these things is not like the other.

johncolanduoni 8y ago

I don't really see how cloud providers are using their "monopoly power to adopt any successful open source project without contributing anything to it". The fact that e.g. AWS is a (near) monopoly, or even just massive has little to do with it. They provide VMs, those VMs can run software, and if you want they'll manage the VMs with the given software for you if you'd rather not worry about it. Rackspace does the same thing, and they're a million miles away from a monopoly. I don't see how these measures are practical either. Redis is much easier to do a cleanroom implementation of than MongoDB, so I doubt this kind of thing will produce any other kind of response from Amazon.

skrebbel 8y ago
It's not about VMs, it's about "Amazon so-and-so is a fully managed cloud database that speaks the XYZ protocol", which is code for "we forked a popular open source product and we're not going to contribute our changes back".
- johncolanduoni 8y ago
  I don’t believe that DocumentDB actually runs any MongoDB code. On the other extreme, there aren’t any apparent Amazon-only features in their services that are simply hosted versions like they do with Redis (via Elasticache). If that was the issue these companies could have just gone with the AGPL. The problem isn’t that they’re maintaining internal forks with changes they won’t contribute back, it’s that they’re either (a) running unmodified versions or (b) cleanrooming the whole shebang. I don’t see how to make the first impossible without effectively using a proprietary license, and banning the second would hurt open source much more than it would help it

detaro 8y ago

Redislabs' announcement: https://redislabs.com/blog/redis-labs-modules-license-changes/ https://redislabs.com/blog/redis-labs-modules-license-change...

jarym 8y ago

I’m beginning to think the coolness of open sourcing stuff is wearing off a bit. If it is core tech to a business then why bother? Lots of cool projects don’t really get that many contributors. No point getting a community hooked on your software if you have to give it away and hope they’ll one day buy some services so you get paid. All in all I foresee it becoming easier that source is kept closed for all things non-core to a business.

kemitchell 8y ago
F/OSS' counterculture days are over. They are the culture. Consider: https://opensource.org/sponsors https://opensource.org/sponsors

avar 8y ago

I wish Redis and its ecosystem was 100% open source, but I also wish for a pony. I applaud Redis Labs for not being one of the companies (such as MongoDB) that appears to be intentionally trying to muddy the waters by blurring the distinction between open source and proprietary software.

kemitchell 8y ago
> intentionally trying to muddy the waters by blurring the distinction between open source and proprietary software Consider this quote from RMS, in Copyleft: Pragmatic Idealism: > I make my code available for use in free software, and not for use in proprietary software, in order to encourage other people who write software to make it free as well. I figure that since proprietary software developers use copyright to stop us from sharing, we cooperators can use copyright to give other cooperators an advantage of their own: they can use our code. https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/pragmatic.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/pragmatic.en.html

hannob 8y ago

Hey Techcrunch, I fixed this headline for you: "Redis Labs Changes Its Non-Open-Source License Again"

eberkund 8y ago

Given the choice between close source software and open source software which is restricted legally I will still gladly take the latter.

antirez 8y ago

Please make sure to read the official Redis Labs story about the license change because this TC article is just terrible. https://redislabs.com/blog/redis-labs-modules-license-changes/ https://redislabs.com/blog/redis-labs-modules-license-change...

brazzledazzle 8y ago
TC isn’t exactly known for their journalistic prowess.

flurdy 8y ago

Think we need a standardised AGPL-like license that includes API as well as code. (Cue Oracle v Google ) There may be several in existence already? To prevent AWS and its ilk duplicating features of other's products but not really run (or pretending to not...) their software underneath. I also hoped Morsi's tweaks to AGPL, the Lesser Affero GPLv3, would have become more popular. [1] http://mo.morsi.org/blog/2009/08/13/lesser_affero_gplv3/ http://mo.morsi.org/blog/2009/08/13/lesser_affero_gplv3/

Dayshine 8y ago
Wow, that license (LAGPL?) is exactly what I wish people would use in reaction to commercial abuse of their LGPL/GPL licenses. Seeing people move from LGPL to AGPL is very concerning as someone who is working for a charity.
- detaro 8y ago
  I'm curious about examples of things that moved from LGPL to AGPL, given that LGPL is more for libraries, and AGPL seems way more common in software that can standalone?
kemitchell 8y ago
I'd love more feedback on this license: https://github.com/kemitchell/api-copyleft-license/blob/master/license.md https://github.com/kemitchell/api-copyleft-license/blob/mast... It's written in everyday English. We've already had some great feedback from interested hackers.
- flurdy 8y ago
  This looks very good to me. I do not speak legalese but it seems to me to cover the API clauses I was looking for. I may be using this license for some projects going forward. :)
  - kemitchell 8y ago
    I am about to release a version 1.0.0. I'd strongly suggest you watch releases on GitHub. I'd also appreciate a note on GitHub about any projects using the license. Eventually, I'd like to add a list to the repo.

irq-1 8y ago

Community edition (open) and Enterprise edition (closed) has been a strategy for years, but now AWS/GCP/Azure are building the enterprise part themselves using the community software. Changing the enterprise/closed license won't stop the cloud providers. Changing the open source license will: imagine a 4-part BSD that adds a license fee for organizations with over a billion in revenue. That goes to the heart of the problem and still lets everyone else use the software like it's a 3-part BSD.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

luord 8y ago

So they've essentially admitted that redis labs is now open core. Good for them, I remember how adamantly they tried to deny it during the "commons clause" debacle.