5 ms·

I'd replace mongo with redis in your comment. Redis truly is open core, but mongo no longer is. Now it's source available, and has been removed from the repos o

I'd replace mongo with redis in your comment. Redis truly is open core, but mongo no longer is. Now it's source available, and has been removed from the repos of many distros. Calling mongo open source now just dilutes what "open source" actually means. The organization even removed the submission of its license for approval by the OSI. It's source available, and it's up to each person to decide whether that's good or bad.

lacker 6y ago
That’s true, but Redis and MongoDB are at different points in their growth. Redis is worth around 1 billion, and they are still private. I would not be surprised if Redis usage continues to grow, which attracts more competitors, and they eventually shift to a “99% open” model more similar to MongoDB.
aaron_m04 6y ago
> Now it's source available, and has been removed from the repos of many distros. I wasn't aware the licensing is more restrictive now.
qchris 6y ago
I know that there's a formal definition of capitalized "Open Source" by the OSI, but I'm also not enchanted by that being the only definition for lower-case "open source". I think that the lower case open source is really more about a general approach to software (or intellectual property in general, really). Some people want to use terms like "libre" to refer to projects that have most of the practical characteristics of open source projects, but not an OSI-approved license, but I kind of think that the lower-case version of the term is important because it's reached a point of basically a colloquialism. There's room for a grey area, but I think that the parent's comment about how Mongo's license relates to the overwhelming majority of it's community to use it (in that, functionally, it doesn't) still pushes farther towards open source than it does proprietary with source-available.
- chrisseaton 6y ago
  People forget that the OSI and the people behind it neither own, nor invented, the term 'open source.' They want to give you the impression that they do and they did, but they don't and they didn't.
  - lowdose 6y ago
    Who did?
    - chrisseaton 6y ago
      I don't know - not sure anyone does. Christine Peterson claims to have invented the term in 1998. https://opensource.com/article/18/2/coining-term-open-source-software https://opensource.com/article/18/2/coining-term-open-source... But at least this much is not true - we can see it being used, in context, at least as far back as 1996. I think people involved in this project at the time say it was a common term back then as well, but I can't find a reference for that now. http://www.xent.com/FoRK-archive/fall96/0269.html http://www.xent.com/FoRK-archive/fall96/0269.html And they certainly don't own it - they wrote a whole article on their own website still available about how they don't own it! https://opensource.org/pressreleases/certified-open-source.php https://opensource.org/pressreleases/certified-open-source.p...
      - andrewshadura 6y ago
        The Caldera announcement you’re referring to does not use "open source" as a term. They write "open (source code) model", not "(open source) (code model)". It’s an important distinction. And yes, Christine indeed invented the term, and folks from OSI gave it the current meaning by clearly defining it.
        chrisseaton 6y ago
        I'm afraid this just isn't true. Ask other people around at the time: > I joined Caldera in November of 1995, and we certainly used "open source" broadly at that time. We were building software. I can't imagine a world where we did not use the specific phrase "open source software". And we were not alone. The term "Open Source" was used broadly by Linus Torvalds (who at the time was a student...I had dinner with Linus and his then-girlfriend Ute in Germany while he was still a student), John "Mad Dog" Hall who was a major voice in the community (he worked at COMPAQ at the time), and many, many others. https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:-i7au3S45C4J:https://hyperlogos.org/blog/drink/term-Open-Source+&cd=5&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:-i7au3...

lacker 6y ago

That’s true, but Redis and MongoDB are at different points in their growth. Redis is worth around 1 billion, and they are still private. I would not be surprised if Redis usage continues to grow, which attracts more competitors, and they eventually shift to a “99% open” model more similar to MongoDB.

aaron_m04 6y ago

> Now it's source available, and has been removed from the repos of many distros. I wasn't aware the licensing is more restrictive now.

qchris 6y ago

I know that there's a formal definition of capitalized "Open Source" by the OSI, but I'm also not enchanted by that being the only definition for lower-case "open source". I think that the lower case open source is really more about a general approach to software (or intellectual property in general, really). Some people want to use terms like "libre" to refer to projects that have most of the practical characteristics of open source projects, but not an OSI-approved license, but I kind of think that the lower-case version of the term is important because it's reached a point of basically a colloquialism. There's room for a grey area, but I think that the parent's comment about how Mongo's license relates to the overwhelming majority of it's community to use it (in that, functionally, it doesn't) still pushes farther towards open source than it does proprietary with source-available.

chrisseaton 6y ago
People forget that the OSI and the people behind it neither own, nor invented, the term 'open source.' They want to give you the impression that they do and they did, but they don't and they didn't.
- lowdose 6y ago
  Who did?
  - chrisseaton 6y ago
    I don't know - not sure anyone does. Christine Peterson claims to have invented the term in 1998. https://opensource.com/article/18/2/coining-term-open-source-software https://opensource.com/article/18/2/coining-term-open-source... But at least this much is not true - we can see it being used, in context, at least as far back as 1996. I think people involved in this project at the time say it was a common term back then as well, but I can't find a reference for that now. http://www.xent.com/FoRK-archive/fall96/0269.html http://www.xent.com/FoRK-archive/fall96/0269.html And they certainly don't own it - they wrote a whole article on their own website still available about how they don't own it! https://opensource.org/pressreleases/certified-open-source.php https://opensource.org/pressreleases/certified-open-source.p...
    - andrewshadura 6y ago
      The Caldera announcement you’re referring to does not use "open source" as a term. They write "open (source code) model", not "(open source) (code model)". It’s an important distinction. And yes, Christine indeed invented the term, and folks from OSI gave it the current meaning by clearly defining it.
      - chrisseaton 6y ago
        I'm afraid this just isn't true. Ask other people around at the time: > I joined Caldera in November of 1995, and we certainly used "open source" broadly at that time. We were building software. I can't imagine a world where we did not use the specific phrase "open source software". And we were not alone. The term "Open Source" was used broadly by Linus Torvalds (who at the time was a student...I had dinner with Linus and his then-girlfriend Ute in Germany while he was still a student), John "Mad Dog" Hall who was a major voice in the community (he worked at COMPAQ at the time), and many, many others. https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:-i7au3S45C4J:https://hyperlogos.org/blog/drink/term-Open-Source+&cd=5&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:-i7au3...