4 ms·

SSPL Was Not Commons Clause

7 points by janvdberg 7y ago

eesmith 7y ago
I recently gave a talk at a local programmer meeting about free and open source licenses and how they affect revenue opportunities. This led me to a more in-depth look at SSPL and at the Commons Clause. My (amateur and shallow) analysis was about the same as what Kyle E. Mitchell writes (though mine was more amateurish and shallow). I concluded that Fedora was wrong in arguing that SSPL was not open source because it "is intentionally crafted to be aggressively discriminatory towards a specific class of users" This seemed to be a call out to the guideline that a FLOSS license could not, for example, prohibit its used in 'the military' or 'nuclear power facilities'. However, at the broad level, the GPL 'is intentionally crafted to be aggressively discriminatory towards' the class of users who would further restrict software freedoms. So that along isn't enough justification. Elsewhere it was clear that that class was meant to be "cloud providers". I disagreed with that too. The GPL discriminates against "operating system vendors" too, before there were any operating system vendors who decided to include GPL'ed software. This "class of user" argument against the SSPL seemed to conclude that it was impossible to be a cloud vendor without using proprietary software. I'm glad then to read "That speaks directly to MongoDB’s history. MongoDB, Inc. began as 10gen, a startup attempting to offer a fully open source cloud." as it fit into my understanding.
- kemitchell 7y ago
  I took a lot of hope from this comment, not so much because you agreed with me, but because you seem to have come to your own conclusions independently. As I hope comes through the post, I wish more folks had dug in deep, rather than engaging with the surface of Mongo's proposal. If you're interested in more writing on licensing and business models, might I self-cite a couple more for you? https://blog.licensezero.com/ https://blog.licensezero.com/ --- blog for my project, License Zero, which offers the back-office of a dual licensing operation to small and independent developers as a service https://indieopensource.com/ https://indieopensource.com/ --- nascent place for more writing, and explainers, about various business models that work for solo/indie devs
  - eesmith 7y ago
    In part of my preparation, I dug up MongoDB's old blog post on why they chose the AGPL. It came across like it was part of the pattern of dual licensing - use the least profit-friendly license to get people to pay for a commercial license. It didn't come across like they wanted to support freedom. This practice seems a bit shady, in that I get the impression that many people use AGPL for FUD purposes. (Rather like how MySQL used GPL FUD to sell commercial licenses.) But I am also reminded that there seems to be this view that big companies should be able to do whatever they want, including making money, while little "open source" companies and independent developers must remain poor - I mean, "pure". I think both perceptions contributed to the backlash. I honestly think that something like the SSPL is our best chance to have free software remain free as systems move to the cloud.
    - kemitchell 7y ago
      > I dug up MongoDB's old blog post on why they chose the AGPL. Link me to it? I think I know which one you have in mind, but I'm not quite sure.
      - eesmith 7y ago
        Thank you for asking me to double-check. I was wrong. I confused MongoDB with Redis. The earliest MongoDB AGPL post in Archive.org is https://web.archive.org/web/20090515015736/http://blog.mongodb.org/post/103832439/the-agpl https://web.archive.org/web/20090515015736/http://blog.mongo... . It clearly is concerned with software freedom and doesn't mention funding. (Though it does comment 'the goal is that you have to contribute those modifications back to the community.' But AGPL doesn't require contributions 'back to the community', only to the downstream users, yes?) The blog post I was thinking of, for Redis, is archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20180825041319/https://redislabs.com/blog/why-redis-labs-modules-are-agpl/ https://web.archive.org/web/20180825041319/https://redislabs... titled "Why Redis Labs’ Modules are AGPL". It makes the odd statement "Therefore, we wanted to make sure no one else can resell them for commercial purposes." I say 'odd' since anyone could resell them for commercial purposes under the AGPL, yes? It also has "In other words, if you modify a Redis Labs Module source code, the goal is that you have to contribute those modifications back to the community." So .. does AGPL really require contributions of modifications back to the community, as both Redis and Mongo wrote? If so, that's quite at odds with the GPL.

7 points by janvdberg 7y ago

I recently gave a talk at a local programmer meeting about free and open source licenses and how they affect revenue opportunities. This led me to a more in-depth look at SSPL and at the Commons Clause. My (amateur and shallow) analysis was about the same as what Kyle E. Mitchell writes (though mine was more amateurish and shallow). I concluded that Fedora was wrong in arguing that SSPL was not open source because it "is intentionally crafted to be aggressively discriminatory towards a specific class of users" This seemed to be a call out to the guideline that a FLOSS license could not, for example, prohibit its used in 'the military' or 'nuclear power facilities'. However, at the broad level, the GPL 'is intentionally crafted to be aggressively discriminatory towards' the class of users who would further restrict software freedoms. So that along isn't enough justification. Elsewhere it was clear that that class was meant to be "cloud providers". I disagreed with that too. The GPL discriminates against "operating system vendors" too, before there were any operating system vendors who decided to include GPL'ed software. This "class of user" argument against the SSPL seemed to conclude that it was impossible to be a cloud vendor without using proprietary software. I'm glad then to read "That speaks directly to MongoDB’s history. MongoDB, Inc. began as 10gen, a startup attempting to offer a fully open source cloud." as it fit into my understanding.

kemitchell 7y ago
I took a lot of hope from this comment, not so much because you agreed with me, but because you seem to have come to your own conclusions independently. As I hope comes through the post, I wish more folks had dug in deep, rather than engaging with the surface of Mongo's proposal. If you're interested in more writing on licensing and business models, might I self-cite a couple more for you? https://blog.licensezero.com/ https://blog.licensezero.com/ --- blog for my project, License Zero, which offers the back-office of a dual licensing operation to small and independent developers as a service https://indieopensource.com/ https://indieopensource.com/ --- nascent place for more writing, and explainers, about various business models that work for solo/indie devs
- eesmith 7y ago
  In part of my preparation, I dug up MongoDB's old blog post on why they chose the AGPL. It came across like it was part of the pattern of dual licensing - use the least profit-friendly license to get people to pay for a commercial license. It didn't come across like they wanted to support freedom. This practice seems a bit shady, in that I get the impression that many people use AGPL for FUD purposes. (Rather like how MySQL used GPL FUD to sell commercial licenses.) But I am also reminded that there seems to be this view that big companies should be able to do whatever they want, including making money, while little "open source" companies and independent developers must remain poor - I mean, "pure". I think both perceptions contributed to the backlash. I honestly think that something like the SSPL is our best chance to have free software remain free as systems move to the cloud.
  - kemitchell 7y ago
    > I dug up MongoDB's old blog post on why they chose the AGPL. Link me to it? I think I know which one you have in mind, but I'm not quite sure.
    - eesmith 7y ago
      Thank you for asking me to double-check. I was wrong. I confused MongoDB with Redis. The earliest MongoDB AGPL post in Archive.org is https://web.archive.org/web/20090515015736/http://blog.mongodb.org/post/103832439/the-agpl https://web.archive.org/web/20090515015736/http://blog.mongo... . It clearly is concerned with software freedom and doesn't mention funding. (Though it does comment 'the goal is that you have to contribute those modifications back to the community.' But AGPL doesn't require contributions 'back to the community', only to the downstream users, yes?) The blog post I was thinking of, for Redis, is archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20180825041319/https://redislabs.com/blog/why-redis-labs-modules-are-agpl/ https://web.archive.org/web/20180825041319/https://redislabs... titled "Why Redis Labs’ Modules are AGPL". It makes the odd statement "Therefore, we wanted to make sure no one else can resell them for commercial purposes." I say 'odd' since anyone could resell them for commercial purposes under the AGPL, yes? It also has "In other words, if you modify a Redis Labs Module source code, the goal is that you have to contribute those modifications back to the community." So .. does AGPL really require contributions of modifications back to the community, as both Redis and Mongo wrote? If so, that's quite at odds with the GPL.