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> a company like AWS offering TimescaleDB purely as a DBaaS offering (not allowed). That restriction makes the license not Open Source. Open Source licenses MU
by SAI_Peregrinus 6y ago
> a company like AWS offering TimescaleDB purely as a DBaaS offering (not allowed).
That restriction makes the license not Open Source. Open Source licenses MUST allow anyone to run the software, for any reason, by definition. Even "as-a-Service". It's a perfectly fine restriction to have, but it shouldn't be called an Open Source license.
- cevian 6y agoAnd we never call it Open Source! (Timescale engineer here)
- DetroitThrow 6y agoFor what it's worth, TSL is a great source-available/restrictive-for-clouds license in my opinion, and I'm glad Timescale went the direction of moving from a more restrictive license to a more permissive license rather than the other way around. While AGPL is a value-add for many, TSL isn't as ambiguous in some regards and provides a lot of nice "we won't sue you for this" clauses for users. Clear communication regarding its FOSS status will only help!
- foerbert 6y agoThe whole issue arose from the claim that the Timescale license was designed to be less restrictive then the AGPL. That's why Open Source came up in the first place - pointing out that one of the basic reasons for the Timescale license to exist in the first place is to restrict one of the major reasons Open Source licenses exist.
- cevian 6y agoThat only makes sense if you agree with the open source foundation definition of restrictive. I don't. I think the ability to freely link to whatever other software is much more important to most people than the ability to run a *aaS. We never made any claims about open source only our opinion about what restrictive means to us.
- foerbert 6y agoThat's fine. I wasn't taking a position. I was explaining why people were using Open Source as a comparison. There were also no claims about whatever definition of restrictive you were using. It was just a short statement that the Timescale license was designed to be less restrictive than the AGPL. You can't really be that surprised when somebody comes along and starts judging it by Open Source standards after that, can you?
- cevian 6y agoThat's fair but I was more replying to the OP that said "but it shouldn't be called an Open Source license". The point is we don't call our license Open Source. Comparisons to Open Source and discussions of the pros and cons of both approaches are, of course, fair.
- keonix 6y agoAGPL license clearly gives you the ability to freely link with whatever software you want. The only requirement is to share it with your customers. Following your logic it could be said that MIT licensed software could not be freely used because it requires preservation of original copyright notice
- DetroitThrow 6y ago>That only makes sense if you agree with the open source foundation definition of restrictive. I think Timescale employees should remember to preface "This is our belief on the definition of restrictive" when describing the license as more open than open source licenses, given much of the community might disagree (sometimes vehemently) about that take.