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(Timescale founder) We actually designed the Timescale License to be _less_ restrictive than AGPL. It contains no virality. It just prevents public clouds from

(Timescale founder) We actually designed the Timescale License to be _less_ restrictive than AGPL. It contains no virality. It just prevents public clouds from offering TimescaleDB-aaS.

jchw 5y ago
I prefer AGPL despite that, mainly because I don’t believe a license that discriminates on use cases in such a direct manner could be compatible with either GPL or DFSG. It’s hard to directly compare virality vs use-case discrimination as far as restrictiveness goes. However, I don’t believe there is a good argument that such licenses can be considered open source.
- akulkarni 5y ago
  That is fair, and we do not claim that Timescale License is open source. (Our Apache 2 core codebase however is open source.)
PeterisP 5y ago
The freedom to run the software for any purpose is #1 on the list of software freedoms that would be called open source. No ifs, no buts, no checking whether you qualify - software is free if and only if you can run it for any purpose, everything else comes only after that basic freedom. Various viral conditions only affect the licensing of developer changes (while still not restricting the developers right to make and use these changes), but violations of this condition impose restrictions also on non-developer users on non-modified code. Timescale license does not provide that, so obviously it's more restrictive than even the most viral of open source licences. To be specific, the sentence "the customer is prohibited, either contractually or technically, from defining, redefining, or modifying the database schema or other structural aspects of database objects," spits in the face of all the ideals of open source. I can respect your decision to choose such a license, there are understandable practical arguments for that, but I can't respect you calling that open source - if you consider that users should be restricted with what they can do with their data schemas, if you include an explicit anti-user-freedom clause, legally mandating software developers to be hostile to their own users - then at least have the guts to openly say that you are against open source (because of all the valid reasons you have, I'm not denying that, you don't have a duty to be pro-open-source), instead of misleadingly labeling your license as such.
- akulkarni 5y ago
  I appreciate this debate, but where do we label the Timescale License as open source? Incidentally, that clause exists as a clear line for value added products and services. Some companies have a restriction that says, "You can't compete with us." That approach struck us as arbitrarily blurry. We took a clear approach that says DML (inserting, querying data) is permitted, but not DDL (creating tables). Again, this is to clearly restrict TimescaleDB-aaS providers and not other companies building true value added products / services on top (e.g., IoT platforms, SaaS companies).
  - PeterisP 5y ago
    I apologize, I was sloppy at skimming the licence, it actually does clearly and properly delineate the open source and source-available, describing them appropriately.
- mfreed 5y ago
  Hi PeterisP, just to avoid any confusion: The sentence you quote is actually meant to -technically- establish a basis for what it means for somebody to run/offer TimescaleDB as part of a value added service (very much allowed) versus a company like AWS offering TimescaleDB purely as a DBaaS offering (not allowed). There are many, many thousands of companies that use or embed TimescaleDB as part of their service or product offerings, serving huge numbers of customers. We're extremely supportive of their ability to do so. We have no "enterprise features" that are excluded or held back only to paid users. What we aren't supportive of is AWS running "TimescaleDB-as-a-Service" as part of AWS RDS. Because we know they do that! The clause you are quoting helps define some of the legal nuances how we get there, ideally in ways that an engineer would understand. In particular, what it means to be a value added service/product versus just "TimescaleDB-as-a-Service". The alternative legal formulations of this can be found in, e.g. - Confluent Community License ("Licensee is not granted the right to, and Licensee shall not, exercise the License for an Excluded Purpose. For purposes of this Agreement, “Excluded Purpose” means making available any software-as-a-service, platform-as-a-service, infrastructure-as-a-service or other similar online service that competes with Confluent products or services that provide the Software.") - Polyform "Shield" License ("Any purpose is a permitted purpose, except for providing any product that competes with the software or any product the licensor or any of its affiliates provides using the software.") https://polyformproject.org/licenses/shield/1.0.0/ https://polyformproject.org/licenses/shield/1.0.0/ These are all getting to similar places, but just putting more emphasis of the legal definition of "competition", which we thought would frustrate engineers with its vagueness.
gibba999 5y ago
And ergo, I'd never use TimescaleDB. It's not less restrictive in any objective sense; it has different restrictions. It's apparently less restrictive to you, but it's much more restrictive to me. Why not toss in an AGPL license option? You wouldn't be discounted off-the-bat by folks like me. I build open source. Timescale is not open source. Timescale won't mix with GPL code. I use plenty of GPL code. GPL/AGPL are known quantities. Your license requires legal review. As a footnote, I do pay for hosted versions of most of the databases I use.
- akulkarni 5y ago
  We do offer an Apache 2 only binary of TimescaleDB which includes our open source core (and excludes the Timescale Licensed features). In fact, many companies (Azure, Digital Ocean, Ali Baba, etc) offer this Apache 2 version to their customers.
  - rattray 5y ago
    Oh cool! I see this is addressed in your FAQ: > TimescaleDB is a relational database for time-series, with some features licensed under the Apache 2.0 License but many of the features you know and love are licensed via the Timescale License (including continuous aggregates, compression, data retention policies, actions, multi-node, and more). The "Apache 2.0" version of TimescaleDB offered by Microsoft, Digital Ocean, and others includes only the features in the Apache license. The Timescale License prohibits cloud providers from offering the "community version" of TimescaleDB-as-a-service. But I don't find any links to download the Apache 2.0 version, there or elsewhere… By the way, I really hope you guys are able to strike a deal with the cloud providers for them to re-sell Timescale Licenses, so people can get all the great features and pay you without having to add a new vendor relationship!
    - akulkarni 5y ago
      Thank you :-) Re: Apache 2.0 only version, it is on our Github readme (but yes, probably could be made more prominent): Apache-2 licensed binaries can be built by passing -DAPACHE_ONLY=1 to bootstrap. https://github.com/timescale/timescaledb https://github.com/timescale/timescaledb
josephcsible 5y ago
If the Timescale License is less restrictive than AGPL, then why not dual-license your product under the Timescale License and AGPL? Wouldn't that give everyone the best of both worlds?
pritambaral 5y ago
> _less_ restrictive than AGPL. It contains no virality. Heads up: calling out the virality of copyleft licenses as a "restriction" is a common tactic used by the anti-FOSS brigade — this includes the likes of Microsoft under Steve Ballmer that famously called the GPL "a cancer". So it seems like you're re-using old FUD tactics, even if you don't intend to. Putting that aside, what you claim also happens to be an established point of argument that has been already heavily debated upon in the FLOSS community, specifically by the permissive licenses' side; and they actually have some truth to the claim. Your claim, instead, is nowhere near as strong as theirs. Permissive licenses take away virality, sure, but add little-to-no restrictions of their own. Your license, OTOH: 1. Doesn't take away nearly as much virality — Derivative Works of code under the TSL are still subject to the TSL; and 2. Adds its own set of restrictions — quite a few of them, actually. ---- If your argument was that you "designed the Timescale License to be less restrictive than AGPL _specifically on the question of virality_", you'd be right. Because the TSL also adds a bunch of restrictions, your original claim does not quite stand up.
- akulkarni 5y ago
  Thank you, I appreciate this thoughtful comment. And to those who keep downvoting my comments simply because they don't agree with them - I always welcome thoughtful discussions. :-)

(Timescale founder) We actually designed the Timescale License to be _less_ restrictive than AGPL. It contains no virality. It just prevents public clouds from offering TimescaleDB-aaS.

jchw 5y ago

I prefer AGPL despite that, mainly because I don’t believe a license that discriminates on use cases in such a direct manner could be compatible with either GPL or DFSG. It’s hard to directly compare virality vs use-case discrimination as far as restrictiveness goes. However, I don’t believe there is a good argument that such licenses can be considered open source.

akulkarni 5y ago
That is fair, and we do not claim that Timescale License is open source. (Our Apache 2 core codebase however is open source.)

PeterisP 5y ago

The freedom to run the software for any purpose is #1 on the list of software freedoms that would be called open source. No ifs, no buts, no checking whether you qualify - software is free if and only if you can run it for any purpose, everything else comes only after that basic freedom. Various viral conditions only affect the licensing of developer changes (while still not restricting the developers right to make and use these changes), but violations of this condition impose restrictions also on non-developer users on non-modified code. Timescale license does not provide that, so obviously it's more restrictive than even the most viral of open source licences. To be specific, the sentence "the customer is prohibited, either contractually or technically, from defining, redefining, or modifying the database schema or other structural aspects of database objects," spits in the face of all the ideals of open source. I can respect your decision to choose such a license, there are understandable practical arguments for that, but I can't respect you calling that open source - if you consider that users should be restricted with what they can do with their data schemas, if you include an explicit anti-user-freedom clause, legally mandating software developers to be hostile to their own users - then at least have the guts to openly say that you are against open source (because of all the valid reasons you have, I'm not denying that, you don't have a duty to be pro-open-source), instead of misleadingly labeling your license as such.

akulkarni 5y ago
I appreciate this debate, but where do we label the Timescale License as open source? Incidentally, that clause exists as a clear line for value added products and services. Some companies have a restriction that says, "You can't compete with us." That approach struck us as arbitrarily blurry. We took a clear approach that says DML (inserting, querying data) is permitted, but not DDL (creating tables). Again, this is to clearly restrict TimescaleDB-aaS providers and not other companies building true value added products / services on top (e.g., IoT platforms, SaaS companies).
- PeterisP 5y ago
  I apologize, I was sloppy at skimming the licence, it actually does clearly and properly delineate the open source and source-available, describing them appropriately.
mfreed 5y ago
Hi PeterisP, just to avoid any confusion: The sentence you quote is actually meant to -technically- establish a basis for what it means for somebody to run/offer TimescaleDB as part of a value added service (very much allowed) versus a company like AWS offering TimescaleDB purely as a DBaaS offering (not allowed). There are many, many thousands of companies that use or embed TimescaleDB as part of their service or product offerings, serving huge numbers of customers. We're extremely supportive of their ability to do so. We have no "enterprise features" that are excluded or held back only to paid users. What we aren't supportive of is AWS running "TimescaleDB-as-a-Service" as part of AWS RDS. Because we know they do that! The clause you are quoting helps define some of the legal nuances how we get there, ideally in ways that an engineer would understand. In particular, what it means to be a value added service/product versus just "TimescaleDB-as-a-Service". The alternative legal formulations of this can be found in, e.g. - Confluent Community License ("Licensee is not granted the right to, and Licensee shall not, exercise the License for an Excluded Purpose. For purposes of this Agreement, “Excluded Purpose” means making available any software-as-a-service, platform-as-a-service, infrastructure-as-a-service or other similar online service that competes with Confluent products or services that provide the Software.") - Polyform "Shield" License ("Any purpose is a permitted purpose, except for providing any product that competes with the software or any product the licensor or any of its affiliates provides using the software.") https://polyformproject.org/licenses/shield/1.0.0/ https://polyformproject.org/licenses/shield/1.0.0/ These are all getting to similar places, but just putting more emphasis of the legal definition of "competition", which we thought would frustrate engineers with its vagueness.

gibba999 5y ago

And ergo, I'd never use TimescaleDB. It's not less restrictive in any objective sense; it has different restrictions. It's apparently less restrictive to you, but it's much more restrictive to me. Why not toss in an AGPL license option? You wouldn't be discounted off-the-bat by folks like me. I build open source. Timescale is not open source. Timescale won't mix with GPL code. I use plenty of GPL code. GPL/AGPL are known quantities. Your license requires legal review. As a footnote, I do pay for hosted versions of most of the databases I use.

akulkarni 5y ago
We do offer an Apache 2 only binary of TimescaleDB which includes our open source core (and excludes the Timescale Licensed features). In fact, many companies (Azure, Digital Ocean, Ali Baba, etc) offer this Apache 2 version to their customers.
- rattray 5y ago
  Oh cool! I see this is addressed in your FAQ: > TimescaleDB is a relational database for time-series, with some features licensed under the Apache 2.0 License but many of the features you know and love are licensed via the Timescale License (including continuous aggregates, compression, data retention policies, actions, multi-node, and more). The "Apache 2.0" version of TimescaleDB offered by Microsoft, Digital Ocean, and others includes only the features in the Apache license. The Timescale License prohibits cloud providers from offering the "community version" of TimescaleDB-as-a-service. But I don't find any links to download the Apache 2.0 version, there or elsewhere… By the way, I really hope you guys are able to strike a deal with the cloud providers for them to re-sell Timescale Licenses, so people can get all the great features and pay you without having to add a new vendor relationship!
  - akulkarni 5y ago
    Thank you :-) Re: Apache 2.0 only version, it is on our Github readme (but yes, probably could be made more prominent): Apache-2 licensed binaries can be built by passing -DAPACHE_ONLY=1 to bootstrap. https://github.com/timescale/timescaledb https://github.com/timescale/timescaledb

josephcsible 5y ago

If the Timescale License is less restrictive than AGPL, then why not dual-license your product under the Timescale License and AGPL? Wouldn't that give everyone the best of both worlds?

pritambaral 5y ago

> _less_ restrictive than AGPL. It contains no virality. Heads up: calling out the virality of copyleft licenses as a "restriction" is a common tactic used by the anti-FOSS brigade — this includes the likes of Microsoft under Steve Ballmer that famously called the GPL "a cancer". So it seems like you're re-using old FUD tactics, even if you don't intend to. Putting that aside, what you claim also happens to be an established point of argument that has been already heavily debated upon in the FLOSS community, specifically by the permissive licenses' side; and they actually have some truth to the claim. Your claim, instead, is nowhere near as strong as theirs. Permissive licenses take away virality, sure, but add little-to-no restrictions of their own. Your license, OTOH: 1. Doesn't take away nearly as much virality — Derivative Works of code under the TSL are still subject to the TSL; and 2. Adds its own set of restrictions — quite a few of them, actually. ---- If your argument was that you "designed the Timescale License to be less restrictive than AGPL _specifically on the question of virality_", you'd be right. Because the TSL also adds a bunch of restrictions, your original claim does not quite stand up.

akulkarni 5y ago
Thank you, I appreciate this thoughtful comment. And to those who keep downvoting my comments simply because they don't agree with them - I always welcome thoughtful discussions. :-)