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I think it's simpler than that, just from their relicensing FAQ: https://www.lightbend.com/akka/license-faq https://www.lightbend.com/akka/license-faq > Akka r

I think it's simpler than that, just from their relicensing FAQ: https://www.lightbend.com/akka/license-faq https://www.lightbend.com/akka/license-faq > Akka requires significant investment in order to maintain its position as a preeminent distributed systems runtime. Many organizations have adopted Akka and are seeing significant benefits for their organizations. > However, in recent years an increasing number of those organizations have elected to self-support without either contributing back to the community or by investing in annual subscriptions. We have an ambitious roadmap for the future of Akka and require a way to fund and sustain that development. > We believe that larger organizations that are seeing business benefits from Akka should contribute to the ongoing health and evolution of the project. They need money to continue development, and the current model isn't generating enough revenue for them to stay in business.

jarym 4y ago
Yep, they couldn’t say: ‘we thought about relicensing but given a few people on HN would be upset about it we just decided it’s better to shut shop.’
usrusr 4y ago
The real question is wether they will actually generate more revenue with the change or perhaps less. There's always some fork on the old licence and it wouldn't be the first time that the fork eventually surpasses the original. Even amongst those who paid for support before the change, some might not be willing to commit to a future of not having a choice.
galaxyLogic 4y ago
> organizations have elected to self-support That is the conundrum of Open Source: Great open source software will be so easy to maintain that everybody can do that for themselves. Therefore the economic incentive for Open Source authors is to create software which requires maintenance. Either way, someone has to pay in the end, either for the license, or for the maintenance. There's no free lunch.
the_af 4y ago
> They need money to continue development, and the current model isn't generating enough revenue for them to stay in business. But if they had started with a proprietary license, it's likely Akka wouldn't even exist today. So they are now piggybacking on the success brought by using an open source license.

jarym 4y ago

Yep, they couldn’t say: ‘we thought about relicensing but given a few people on HN would be upset about it we just decided it’s better to shut shop.’

usrusr 4y ago

The real question is wether they will actually generate more revenue with the change or perhaps less. There's always some fork on the old licence and it wouldn't be the first time that the fork eventually surpasses the original. Even amongst those who paid for support before the change, some might not be willing to commit to a future of not having a choice.

galaxyLogic 4y ago

> organizations have elected to self-support That is the conundrum of Open Source: Great open source software will be so easy to maintain that everybody can do that for themselves. Therefore the economic incentive for Open Source authors is to create software which requires maintenance. Either way, someone has to pay in the end, either for the license, or for the maintenance. There's no free lunch.

the_af 4y ago

> They need money to continue development, and the current model isn't generating enough revenue for them to stay in business. But if they had started with a proprietary license, it's likely Akka wouldn't even exist today. So they are now piggybacking on the success brought by using an open source license.