31 ms·

Redis adopts dual source-available licensing

• reconditerose 3y ago
  Redis Inc. is moving the https://github.com/redis/redis/ https://github.com/redis/redis/ project away from the three part BSD license to a dual license using two non-OSI approved license. This comes after previous comment from them saying that "... the Redis core license, which is and will always be licensed under the 3-Clause- BSD". (https://redis.com/blog/redis-labs-modules-license-changes/ https://redis.com/blog/redis-labs-modules-license-changes/)
  • rsstack 3y ago
    Thanks to MBA CEOs taking over companies that adopted (not even developed) Open Source projects...
    • reconditerose 3y ago
      Yeah, https://redis.com/press/redis-ceo-succession/ https://redis.com/press/redis-ceo-succession/, seems to be the case here. It took them a little over a year to decide open-source isn't profitable and move away.
• pauldix 3y ago
  Revenue through hosting continues to be the big driver for all of these projects, which is what is motivating the license changes. The trend indicates that only open source libraries work for companies that own projects. If it's a program (e.g. server software like a database) then it's either source available or under a foundation. It's tough and I don't know what the answer is here. I'd love to see a model that causes the pendulum to swing back the other way with open source permissive licenses for complex programs, but I don't see a viable way yet. Maybe trademark enforcement and open source code only with licensed builds? Either way, I'm sure we'll continue to see the rise and fall (or license change) of popular open source software for years to come. There's too much benefit for developers and companies to start out open source. And there's too much pressure later on to change it. At the very least, I'll give Redis credit for giving far more value to the world than they've captured. By an absolutely massive margin. It'll be interesting to see how long a fork takes to land and if it'll be successful. And it'll be interesting to look at Redis (the company)'s revenue growth curve in 5 years.
  • _msw_ 3y ago
    Personally, I don't find foundations to be a magic solution for this problem. There are many examples where a single company has decided to basically "fork" their way out of foundation housing and the community is left with the same outcome.
  • justinclift 3y ago
    > open source permissive licenses for complex programs Like the AGPL3? https://spdx.org/licenses/AGPL-3.0-or-later.html https://spdx.org/licenses/AGPL-3.0-or-later.html
    • pauldix 3y ago
      Copyleft isn't permissive. It's a viral license that sets restrictions on derivative works, forks and contribution.
      • dartos 3y ago
        Permissive meaning “freedom” (the eff definition) in this case.
      • Brian_K_White 3y ago
        And thank deity for it! Holy cow am I so glad for every line of that viral leftist restrictive code!
      • Andrex 3y ago
        The more GPL code there is in the world, the better off everyone (consumers and business owners both) are.
      • Brian_K_White 3y ago
        What virus ever gave you the option of "oh in that case, no thanks, I'll do it some other way" ?
  • klabb3 3y ago
    > Revenue through hosting continues to be the big driver for all of these projects, which is what is motivating the license changes. Yeah, isn’t this just massive cloud providers eating the lunch of Redis etc? I don’t know enough about the licensing but I highly empathize with these small-mid sized companies building foundational tech that is commoditized and upcharged by an oligopolistic cloud behemoths. Surprised it's taken this long. Question: what other alternatives than license changes are there, assuming we want a healthy ecosystem of both businesses and open source?
• mindcrime 3y ago
  Just in case anybody needs it, here's a fork from the last commit before the license change. https://github.com/mindcrime-forks/redis https://github.com/mindcrime-forks/redis
  • mdaniel 3y ago
    what a perfect org name for capturing these rug pulls, second to "github.com/lol-our-incredible-open-source-journey" or "gitlab.com/but-aws-gonna-steal-our-shit"
    • mindcrime 3y ago
      Honestly, I created it just to keep things organized. I fork a lot of projects for different reasons, but mostly just to keep a copy around for when "weird shit happens". Eventually I had some many forked projects in my "mindcrime" org that they got in the way, so creating a "mindcrime-forks" and moving all the forks there seemed like an obvious choice. I also did a "mindcrime-templates" for template pom.xml files, and silly little "starter projects" of various sorts that I can clone down and and have something set up the way I like it, with minimal scaffolding, and then start morphing it into whatever I need.
• wmf 3y ago
  The use of the word "permissive" here to describe super-strong copyleft licenses is uh, interesting. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permissive_software_license https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permissive_software_license
  • justinclift 3y ago
    That doesn't seem accurate? Did you misread the first paragraph of that wikipedia entry, where it defines the term as pretty much opposite that, or am I misunderstanding what you're meaning?
    • wmf 3y ago
      Redis is using the wrong definition of permissive.
• hintymad 3y ago
  What does dual license mean here? Does that mean that Redis is subject to one of the two licenses, or to both of them?
  • wmf 3y ago
    You can choose either license.
    • _msw_ 3y ago
      That's not strictly accurate. SSPLv1 is only a choice for the source code. One can elect to use RSALv2 for both binaries and source code.
• RicoElectrico 3y ago
  So far, the most viable route of FOSS monetization seems to be "open core". Android, SQLite, GitLab, VSCode, Docker to name a few.
  • wmf 3y ago
    Open core companies, including Redis, are the ones switching to fake open source licenses.
    • RicoElectrico 3y ago
      Indeed Redis was open core before the switch, sorry that I didn't check. And being open core was not enough for them, SMH. Maybe such is the destiny of foundational open source server software... If it's "cloudable" no profitable business will come out of it.
      • reconditerose 3y ago
        Redis was open before the trademark was acquired from antirez by Garantia Data, who then re-branded themselves as RedisLabs, and then as Redis. This was definitely not a predestined outcome, there are plenty of other foundational open source server software that transitioned to a software foundation. While I worked on the redis core team (https://redis.com/blog/new-governance-for-redis/ https://redis.com/blog/new-governance-for-redis/), I advocated to move it to a foundation.
        • wmf 3y ago
          Foundations don't pay the bills either; see Linkerd.
          • singpolyma3 3y ago
            Yes, but the point is that the project started as, and gained success as, a not-paying-the-bills endeavour. The fact that RedisLabs desires to get enough to pay a bunch of staff is not actually a requirement for redis to exist and thrive, they just happen to own the trademark.
• xarope 3y ago
  This on the heels of microsoft's garnet announcement (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39752504 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39752504)... Would be a shame to see this be the death knell of redis. Or in the spirit of YC, is there yarcdis (yet-another-redis-clone-dis) awaiting in the wings?
  • dartos 3y ago
    Memcached?
  • miraculixx 3y ago
    Great to see we have alternatives. I think Redis management doesn't understand how people choose software these days.
    • pjmlp 3y ago
      That is why enterprise shops than get all the cool toys, because many devs aren't willing to pay for their tools, and then they wonder when their toys aren't available any longer as the creators got enough CV coverage to get a proper job, doing proprietary software for big corps.
      • yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
        > That is why enterprise shops than get all the cool toys ...what enterprise shops are you working in? Everywhere I've worked the paid software sucked, often in direct proportion to its cost.
        • pjmlp 3y ago
          Stuff like Clion, Visual Studio, Unity Pro, Photoshop, Outsystems, Qt, macOS/Windows vs Linux Desktop, ....
          • yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
            Having recently left a job that let me run Ubuntu and started a job that forces me to use Windows, that is an excellent example of the proprietary/paid option being awful in comparison to the FOSS option. The rest I've not used so can't say with any confidence.
• stefantalpalaru 3y ago
  [dead]
• west0n 3y ago
  This incident reflects the increasing profit pressure on Redis Inc. Furthermore, Redis' competitive edge in performance is declining, especially with the emergence of alternatives like Dragonfly and Garnet (disscussed here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39752504 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39752504).
  • VeejayRampay 3y ago
    Garnet was released a few days ago, how exactly is it making Redis lose its edge in performance? maybe we wait for a few months before making wild statements like this, software is not about chasing the latest hype
• 8xeh 3y ago
  First they break lolwut (https://github.com/redis/redis/issues/12074 https://github.com/redis/redis/issues/12074) and now this. See: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38841284 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38841284
  • reconditerose 3y ago
    Don't worry, if there is a fork that is the first thing I will contribute to. I build one that prints out various fractals, but never contributed it.
• whateveracct 3y ago
  the trend of milking revenue from a few sources with license changes is cringe.
  • theshrike79 3y ago
    The "few sources" here being tiny mom & pop shops like AWS and GCP. I think they can manage.
    • kunagi7 3y ago
      Seems like AWS did contribute to Redis and has implemented quite a few features [1] and have been partners for quite a while [2]. This could not have any effect for AWS but for other cloud providers instead. [1] https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/opensource/how-to-become-a-redis-maintainer-one-contribution-at-a-time/ https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/opensource/how-to-become-a-redi... [2] https://redis.com/press/strategic-collaboration-agreement-with-aws/ https://redis.com/press/strategic-collaboration-agreement-wi...
• margorczynski 3y ago
  People always said that the model for making money off open source is support - some company uses e.g. Postgres and they require specialists to help them out and put out fires in their on-prem setup. But in the age of the "Cloud" companies will simply use the managed offering provided by Amazon/MS/Google/etc. basically destroying any financial opportunities for the maintainers and other people around the project. Also nobody wants to work their ass off on some OSS just to see AWS raking in milions off it without contributing back anything.
  • _msw_ 3y ago
    Disclosure: I work for Amazon, but I don't work directly on Redis related cloud services. I am close to the Open Source Program Office, and I care a lot about the people who do the hard work required to collaborate on open source projects. Madelyn Olson did the hard work for years to earn the trust of other Redis core developers to become a core maintainer, all while employed by AWS to do that work. She and other AWS developers have contributed a lot to the core Redis engine. Some may say that they too worked their asses off for the Redis community. You can read more about some of those contributions here: https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/opensource/behind-the-scenes-on-aws-contributions-to-open-source-databases/ https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/opensource/behind-the-scenes-on...
    • klabb3 3y ago
      I think most people are aware of the occasional contributions from the behemoths. Sometimes, entire projects. But charity is not a sustainable business model. When you provide a service offering the marginal returns go to the provider. In the B2B world, that’s a golden deal for these companies. Normally, you’d have a rev share or something like it. So it’s very understandable there’s a shift in the industry. It’s probably for the better for everyone.
      • _msw_ 3y ago
        "Occasional contributions" don't earn an invitation to become a Redis core maintainer. Please stop diminishing the tireless work of FOSS maintainers.
• ksec 3y ago
  May be its time for people to look at memcached again. It is still actively maintained and last release was two days ago.
  • stephenr 3y ago
    Unfortunately memcached is missing some features that make Redis very powerful for uses beyond a simple KV cache (for that simple cache usage neither are as important, granted): 1. Replication When using Redis for things like Session storage, a Job Queue, etc it's important that all hosts (web/app servers) see the same data, which means you either need them to all rely on one single server (which introduces a SPOF) or you need to be able to replicate the data, so that when the primary instance has an issue, a hot spare takes up the load with an existing dataset already in place. 2. Lua This is slightly less important, but it provides a lot of power: systems like Qless (https://github.com/seomoz/qless https://github.com/seomoz/qless) use Lua to run a job queue that executes within Redis, so you get atomic writes for free, and you aren't tied to a specific application language to get a usable queue with consistent features/results.
  • miraculixx 3y ago
    Microsoft Garnet, licensed under MIT. Uses the same protocol meaning Redis client licenses still work.
• ftyhbhyjnjk 3y ago
  This is a good decision. Companies like amazon have a habit to rip everyone else.
• yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
  > 24. Will Redis accept community contributions under the new license? > Redis remains a proponent of the open source philosophy and maintains a large number of open source projects. For those who wish to contribute, we remain open to accepting future contributions – as we have done with our source available modules over the past five years.Going forward, acceptance of the contributor license agreement (CLA) by the contributor is necessary in order for us to consider the contribution. So they don't mind changing the license on their code, but they wouldn't want to have to be subject to the same terms from anyone else...
• justinclift 3y ago
  Kind of a dupe of this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39772562 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39772562
• miraculixx 3y ago
  Their Q&A essentially says you can no longer build anything that is commercial using Redis, except as a partner. That's exactly the opposite of what the SSPL License says. "this definition would include hosting or embedding Redis as part of a solution that is sold competitively" Sure this limits the condition to competing offerings. However in reality that's a huge stop sign. It essentially means "we'll get you" because whatever service/product you offer that somehow includes or so much as touches Redis they can always argue that you are effectively competing. That is they can always make the case that this would have been business to them if only.
  • theshrike79 3y ago
    > "this definition would include hosting or embedding Redis as part of a solution that is sold competitively" I interpret this as "You can't sell Redis as a Service". You can make any number of applications that use Redis and host the instances yourself, you just can't package Redis and sell/rent a miraculixx-branded version of it.
• c0l0 3y ago
  I contributed a few LOC to Redis in the past (before "Redis Labs" had taken over), but never signed a CLA or assigned Copyright (that's not even possible in my country of origin). I realize that under the permissive license that I published my contributions under, they can very well do what they are doing. That they are doing it, is disappointing nonetheless. I guess there are more people like me out there, with vastly more important contributions, who feel about the same. I, for one, will not contribute to the project under this new license any more. What a shame.
• lawik 3y ago
  So the technical founders of both Redis and Hashicorp managed to step down before their respective businesses take on a shitstorm by steering away from FOSS. Unless I have my timelines wrong. I wonder if they knew that was coming and disagreed. Or knew it was coming and didn't want to take the hit to their reputation. Agree or not with the move, there is a reputation hit. Or was it them leaving that enabled the change to be pushed through? This is entirely speculation and just something I noticed with Hashi and now see repeat with Redis.
  • stephenr 3y ago
    > knew that was coming and disagreed. Or knew it was coming and didn't want to take the hit to their reputation Or had enough sway to prevent it happening before they left? > just something I noticed with Hashi and now see repeat with Redis The similarity wasn't lost on me either.
  • softwaredoug 3y ago
    More likely they just had been running a project/company for a while and wanted to move onto new and more interesting things. And/or just cash out.
• mort96 3y ago
  Alternative title: Redis is no longer open source but rather source available.
  • nailer 3y ago
    Not sure why this is downvoted, it’s accurate.
  • efilife 3y ago
    Aren't those two interchangeable?
    • bawolff 3y ago
      No
    • darby_eight 3y ago
      They are. The change is that the source is no longer (as?) free.
    • speedgoose 3y ago
      No really. Many proprietary software are source available but far from being open source. Even Microsoft Windows is source available if you are an important customer: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/sharedsource/default.aspx https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/sharedsource/default.aspx A bit more public and open to anyone is Unreal Engine's source code: https://dev.epicgames.com/documentation/en-us/unreal-engine/downloading-unreal-engine-source-code https://dev.epicgames.com/documentation/en-us/unreal-engine/...
      • nicce 3y ago
        That Windows page seems to be from 2015. Wonder if that still applies.
        • my123 3y ago
          Yes, it does still apply
• jpfr 3y ago
  And this is why it is a bad idea for open source contributors to transfer their copyright. If hundreds of commits are baked into a software - under an open source license but without the full copyright transferred to a central legal entity - then it becomes impossible to change the license post-hoc.
  • wizzwizz4 3y ago
    This is true for copyleft licenses, but not for permissive licenses. And you can still get a copy of the old version under the old license from someone who downloaded it before the license change.
  • _msw_ 3y ago
    That may be true if a codebase is licensed under the GPL and has a diverse copyright ownership. But the 3 clause BSD is not that. 3 clause BSD gives everyone permission to use it in new works that are made available using license terms of one’s own choosing, so long as the obligations of those 3 clauses continue to be met.
    • jpfr 3y ago
      > 3 clause BSD gives everyone permission to use it in new works that are made available using license terms of one’s own choosing, so long as the obligations of those 3 clauses continue to be met. But what I get from this is: The project switched away from 3 clause BSD to something that is less permissive.
      • _msw_ 3y ago
        The 3 clause BSD gives all the permissions that are needed for someone to add restrictions via their own license terms. Licenses like the GPL come with an obligation that one not add restrictions when passing the software on to others.
        • jaypatelani 3y ago
          So how did RedHat add restrictions on gpl code base of CentOS?
• jillesvangurp 3y ago
  I'm assuming people are forking this as we speak. Kind of sad to see companies cut themselves off from their own developer communities. I understand why they do it. I just don't agree it works long term. Most Redis users have never paid the company behind it even a single cent. Me included. So, I can appreciate them doing this in order to make some money. Except it won't change my behavior; I'll just use the fork. Just like the vast majority of other Redis users, external Redis contributors, all of the cloud providers currently offering Redis commercially, and by the time this runs it course probably a fair bit of current Redis employees. Given the large amount of commercial users and cloud providers offering Redis, I don't think it will take long for them to get organized even. They pretty much have to given that they have lots of users paying them for this. There are some precedents with Terraform, Elasticsearch, Red Hat, and a few other big players now dealing with a lot of their target users and potential customers depending on open source forks. As a business strategy alienating future users like that seems misguided. When Oracle took ownership of Sun's open source projects (including such things as mysql, hudson, openoffice, etc.), they quickly lost control of most of that. Oracle's attempts to convince the world to use their closed source offerings never amounted to much. Even with Java, they more or less gave in and openjdk is where the action is these days. Except for a few banks, very few people use the Oracle JDK. There's no need, Oracle has long ago stopped pretending there's any advantage to that. All the development happens on OpenJDK. There are half a dozen different companies offering certified builds. Anecdotically, I consult on Elasticsearch and Opensearch. Most of my recent clients default to Opensearch. It's just the way it is. They all go for the free and open source option. The point here is that this can only end in one way: the creation of a Redis fork that will be used by the vast majority of current Redis users.
  • pjmlp 3y ago
    I see it ending in another way, long term FOSS will be considered a phase in the industry, never to be repeated again, as the industry settles back on trial and demo versions, without full features available on the free tier/source code.
    • stephenr 3y ago
      That might make sense if the tools in question were created by corporations who used OSS as a pseudo demo. Redis the project/tool existed long before Redis the company owned it. Vagrant existed before HashiCorp owned it. Significantly: both companies dropped permissive licensing after the creator of their (original) products stepped away, and both are venture capital backed companies. So we could just as easily say "I see that long term people will preemptively fork projects the moment they are owned by a VC backed company"
• deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
• pizza234 3y ago
  Interestingly, there is some nuance. One of the two licenses seems to be copyleft, but it's just not currently approved. EDIT: Ironically, the SSPL seems to be more open than the copyleft counterpart (AGPL) - the difference is that it enforces releasing the whole service source. Any discussion assuming that the new dual licensing model is hurting the users' freed is actually unfounded. --- About SSPL (https://redis.com/legal/licenses https://redis.com/legal/licenses): SSPL is a source-available license created by MongoDB, who set out to craft a license that embodied the ideals of open source, allowing free and unrestricted use, modification, and redistribution, with the simple requirement that if you provide the product as a service to others, you must also publicly release any modifications as well as the source code of your management layers under SSPL. SSPL is based on GPLv3, and is considered a copyleft license. This means that if you use the source code and create derivative works, those derivative works must also be licensed under SSPL and released publicly. For more information, MongoDB has a good FAQ. Note that SSPL has not been approved by the OSI, and we do not refer to it as an Open Source license.
  • Macha 3y ago
    > but it's just not currently approved: This makes it sound like it's just a matter of resources or time to just get it approved, which is misleading. Field of use restrictions go against most definitions of open source or free software, and it was on track to be rejected by OSI until they withdrew from the process. https://opensource.org/blog/the-sspl-is-not-an-open-source-license https://opensource.org/blog/the-sspl-is-not-an-open-source-l... Similarly, Debian also rejected classifying it as open.
    • pizza234 3y ago
      Right, thanks for the correction. For reference, the v2 withdrawal thread is here: http://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-review_lists.opensource.org/2019-March/003989.html http://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-review_lists.o.... With the current expectations, no license will solve the problem of making software open and prevent companies from "stealing" it. The "stealing" point is not necessarily my opinion; just pointing that there's always noise about it.
• imranhou 3y ago
  Is this going the way of elastic and aimed at service providers like AWS using it without paying for it?
  • ilaksh 3y ago
    They have something called MemoryDB. I wonder if that is basically an integration of Redis Cluster into AWS.
    • Gasp0de 3y ago
      Yes it is, as well as ElastiCache
    • ZiiS 3y ago
      https://aws.amazon.com/elasticache/ https://aws.amazon.com/elasticache/
• lionkor 3y ago
  Will have to find an alternative that can work with sentry to eat 150 GB of RAM for no reason /s
  • figmert 3y ago
    I don't know which part of your comment you're saying sarcastically, but I presume you're referencing the fact that Redis uses up a lot of memory. This is because Redis is a caching database, and pulls the data into memory for it to be faster. This is by design.
    • cthalupa 3y ago
      I believe the sarcasm is around Sentry and implying that it's redis usage is poorly optimized. I'm not familiar with Sentry, but it looks like the self hosted version makes use of redis as part of it's underlying stack.
  • the_mitsuhiko 3y ago
    I recognize our (Sentry’s) over-use of redis. Also doesn’t make us particularly happy. Can’t promise that this will get significantly better but the desire is there at the very least.
  • stees 3y ago
    KeyDB? :)
  • Comma2976 3y ago
    Just run a few instances of any JVM application
• kristopolous 3y ago
  I never went to law school. Can someone explain this?
  • Raed667 3y ago
    aws and every other cloud provider is selling hosted redis and making money. redis the company, wants a part of that pie.
    • deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
  • hathym 3y ago
    [flagged]
• Ekaros 3y ago
  So it seems making money by developing open source products is hard. I wonder how many more we will see this and next year? And is the open source model actually broken outside hobbyist and large enough projects with enough players like Linux...
  • rwmj 3y ago
    Or it works just fine. I imagine that Redis would be OK if it was just a small company with a few consulting developers. Expecting to build a huge business around it with y-o-y increasing shareholder returns only works for a very very few companies.
• rwmj 3y ago
  It seems that the new license (SSPL) is probably not open source because of (at least) field of use restrictions: https://opensource.stackexchange.com/questions/7522/sspl-and-the-open-source-definition https://opensource.stackexchange.com/questions/7522/sspl-and... https://opensource.org/blog/the-sspl-is-not-an-open-source-license https://opensource.org/blog/the-sspl-is-not-an-open-source-l...
  • dzogchen 3y ago
    Probably? It is a non-free license plain and simple.
    • rwmj 3y ago
      Yes you're right, this is the opinion from Fedora's legal counsel: https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/devel@lists.fedoraproject.org/message/WE5MOQDOEKBVE5D2MKTEQKXAFHWPYW37/ https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/devel@lists.fe...
      • Takennickname 3y ago
        Is that similar to Red Hats legal counsel?
        • warp 3y ago
          Yes, Richard Fontana is Red Hat's open source lawyer.
        • rwmj 3y ago
          Richard Fontana is also Red Hat's legal counsel yes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Fontana https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Fontana
      • Macha 3y ago
        Debian too: https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=915537#15 https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=915537#15
• nicce 3y ago
  At the same time Microsoft releases Garnet: https://github.com/microsoft/garnet https://github.com/microsoft/garnet Good timing.
  • wg0 3y ago
    Why would they write such a critical piece of software in C# or Java for that matter what requires a whole runtime + VM installed.
    • highwaylights 3y ago
      ??? The JVM and the .NET clr are just runtime JIT engines. It’s not like they ship with a full O/S and a hypervisor.
      • SSLy 3y ago
        VM is an overloaded term, it both means virtual computers that run some OS kernels, and runtime that runs some usually* user-space code. * compare with eBPF
      • wg0 3y ago
        It is not about the hypervisor but a solution that pitches itself as a memory cache relies on GC is the main thing I am pointing out. Rust would have been a better choice.
    • fabian2k 3y ago
      Why not? And .NET can bundle the runtime, even in a single binary if you prefer that.
      • _wolfie_ 3y ago
        > Why not? The bootstrapping path does not exist. There is (afaik) no way to go from C compiler to working dotnet environment. You are supposed to just download binary blobs from m$soft.
• wg0 3y ago
  Another wonderful piece of open source software swallowed by corporate warlords. Now expecting an OpenRedis fork soon from AWS?
  • mirekrusin 3y ago
    It's the other way around. Mega corps are cut off from leeching on open work. It's the only sustainable way to have business model around open work. With pure open source licensing you have asymmetry - where a) you guys implement it b) we sell it, thanks - problem. You cannot run sustainable business around it. As far as I understand it they want to preserve "open sourceness" for self hosted projects - ie. if you run redis in your docker/vm/k8s, you're fine. But if mega corp clouds are offering managed service, they need to give back a cut from premium they're charging end users.
    • Abroszka 3y ago
      > As far as I understand it they want to preserve "open sourceness" for self hosted projects - ie. if you run redis in your docker/vm/k8s, you're fine. But if mega corp clouds are offering managed service, they need to give back a cut from premium they're charging end users. I like it and I think this is how open source should work to thrive.
      • cthalupa 3y ago
        The world would be a very different place if, say, the people that wrote apache httpd felt this way. I don't know what it would look like, so I won't weigh in on whether or not it would be a good or a bad thing. But it would assuredly be different.
        • afiori 3y ago
          If a webserver were to use this license it would still allow most enterprises to use it as a web server (IIUC) except if you are offering an open proxy service. All websites and even value-add proxies likely would not be impacted
• stavros 3y ago
  Can someone please explain why this is bad to me or my company, who don't offer a paid, hosted Redis installation? As far as I can see, this license means that Redis the company gets some exclusivity on who can run a hosted version of their product, and everybody else gets it for gratis, with source we can change libre.
  • bawolff 3y ago
    Its no longer open source, if being open source isn't one of your requirements then it probably doesn't directly effect you. It might indirectly effect you as some free labour from the open source community might dry up. E.g. your linux distro might no longer package it and you might have to rely on packages maintained by redis which might not be as well integrated into your distro (although lots of users probably don't care about that)
    • ForHackernews 3y ago
      "open source" has always been a marketing term. It doesn't mean anything because it's never meant anything. The GNU people fought the good fight on free/libre software, but they lost because companies are greedy and devs are lazy at their day jobs.
      • bawolff 3y ago
        The people who coined the term (OSI) gave a definition when they coined the term. That definition is almost universally accepted in the software world. Redis no longer meets that definition. Just because something is a marketing term doesn't mean its meaningless. You can't sell non free range eggs as "free range" simply because its a marketing term. Etc
        • jen20 3y ago
          The term “free range” is almost meaningless when buying eggs - even the opening paragraph of Wikipedia explains this: “Free-range eggs are eggs produced from birds that may be permitted outdoors. The term "free-range" may be used differently depending on the country and the relevant laws, and is not regulated in many areas.” Bad choice of example!
• keyle 3y ago
  Doesn't that change need to be tied to a release number? "Starting on March 20th, 2024" doesn't seem right to me.
  • wodenokoto 3y ago
    That sentence immediately continues with "... Redis follows a dual-licensing model with all Redis project code contributions under version 7.4 and subsequent releases governed by the Redis Software Grant and Contributor License Agreement." So it is tied to version 7.4
  • sakjur 3y ago
    (IANAL) Every commit is a derivative, I don’t think the numbered releases have any impact on that. Say you fork Redis now, from the commit that changed the license, that’s a different ”version” of the software compared to the commit just before that is practically the same but using the BSD-3 license.
• randomdev3 3y ago
  I didn't know Redis Inc. has over 500 employees. It's hard to support that with a basically free product and some own cloud services..
  • epolanski 3y ago
    And you could be safe assuming at least 10% is sales.
• erlend_sh 3y ago
  The ‘Redis Source Available License 2.0 (RSALv2) Agreement’ is a relatively succinct and human-readable license. Still, I really wish these non-compete licenses would come with a few examples of use cases that are definitively non-infringing, to remedy any uncertainty. Between this non-compete clause of their license: > You may not make the functionality of the Software or a Modified version available to third parties as a service or distribute the Software or a Modified version in a manner that makes the functionality of the Software available to third parties. ..and this clarification in their FAQ: > A “competitive offering” is a product that is sold to third parties, including through paid support arrangements, that is derived from the Redis’ code-base and significantly overlaps the capabilities of a Redis commercial product. For example, this definition would include hosting or embedding Redis as part of a solution that is sold competitively against our commercial versions of Redis (either Redis Enterprise Software or Redis Cloud). It’s pretty clear that any SaaS product simply using Redis as a dependency for a completely different product (e.g. Discourse) is in the clear. But it would be nice if they could spell that out as an unaffected use case.
  • slhck 3y ago
    I agree it would be good to clarify this. I have a product that does some background job processing using Sidekiq and Redis, and it seems that this would not constitute "making the software available", in particular where it says: Making the functionality of the Software or Modified version available to third parties includes (...) offering a product or service, the value of which entirely or primarily derives from the value of the Software or Modified version (...). Since the value is not _primarily_ derived from using Redis, I guess it's fine. I am sure the majority of projects using Redis in some way do not derive their main value from Redis.
• dark-star 3y ago
  Classical "bait-and-switch". Bait users and developers with a fully-open and freely-licensed project, wait for it to gain enough market share, then switch the license to a more restrictive one... In a few days, a clone called "Libredis" or "Freedis" will probably appear that the community and developers will move to. So yeah, it might be annnoying buit in the long term it won't matter much anymore (same as the company)
  • Dylan16807 3y ago
    Is it really bait and switch if almost zero users are affected by the change? (except philosophically)
    • RyEgswuCsn 3y ago
      It's salami bait and switch.
    • repeekad 3y ago
      It’s bait and switch to community developers who contributed free labor to a for profit company for what is now either a fork or a more restrictive license
      • cqqxo4zV46cp 3y ago
        This shows a fundamental misunderstanding of how open source licenses work. I am completely sick of this take. It’s intellectually dishonest, or extremely ignorant.
        • repeekad 3y ago
          Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by stupidity Reading the other comments the switch does make more sense, if you want to freeload off of the work redis has done for the project then you’ll have to join whatever community remains on the forked version, and anyone who cares about this kind of stuff should probably understand what’s permissible in the previous license, which clearly includes it being switched out like this
• renegat0x0 3y ago
  Redis.io no longer mentions open source. They have still not changed meta description on their page. It still says it is open source ^^ view-source:https://redis.io/ https://redis.io/
• jeswin 3y ago
  More Open Source projects should adopt SSPL, or experiment with LLama 2 style limitations on the size of companies which may use the work for free (for example, Open Source but not if you're a multi-billion cloud megacorp). When individual developers contribute back, they weren't doing it to enable AWS to freeload. AWS of course is the single biggest reason why projects are flocking to more restrictive licenses. The right thing to do for AWS would have been to respect the work of the original authors (/company) and throw their weight behind an offering supported by the original developers. Instead, AWS builds a competing product when they see an OSS product succeeding. Third party vendors stand no chance after that due to the tighter integration and marketing muscle. Not to mention, Amazon and AWS give so little back to Open Source despite being a big (the biggest?) beneficiary. Google, Microsoft and even Oracle do more for Open Source than Amazon.
  • deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  • jeltz 3y ago
    I am fine with SSPL and AGPL as long as there is no CLA which makes me sign me rights over to someone else. I have never contributed to a project with a CLA and unless an employer pays me for it I do not think I ever will.
    • elric 3y ago
      I certainly won't sign CLAs to entities like IBM (Eclipse/RHEL) or Oracle. But I did willingly sign a CLA for the Apache Software Foundation. I didn't enjoy doing it, but at least they're a force for good.
      • deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      • aragilar 3y ago
        But Apache I believe specifically is bound to offer code under the Apache licence?
• CrLf 3y ago
  It's about time we stopped calling projects that require copyright assignments "open-source", because they aren't. Regardless of license.
  • jeltz 3y ago
    Agreed, and this is why I never have contributed to a project with a CLA.
    • lars_francke 3y ago
      Not even to e.g. something from the Apache Foundation? Or Eclipse? Or CNCF?
      • jeltz 3y ago
        Yup! I might make an exception at some point but so far I haven't. I believe that all contributors should be equals and not some have more rights than others. Also I need to research and trust the entity which I sign the CLA with.
      • jen20 3y ago
        There are two organizations I would consider assigning copyright to for free work: the FSF and the ASF, which are both organizations with noble goals. Certainly not the CNCF.
  • kelnos 3y ago
    All GNU projects require assigning copyright to the FSF[0]. It feels a little absurd to call a GNU project "not open source". But I would certainly trust the FSF not to change licensing terms (aside from moving to newer versions of the GPL/LGPL) to something unsavory, while the same can't be said of any old random project out there. I think that trust (or lack thereof) is the real issue. Ultimately, though, it's better to just not have to trust; I don't sign over my copyright to projects either, unless it's part of a job and the stuff that I write would otherwise be owned by my employer anyway. [0] https://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-assign.en.html https://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-assign.en.html
• littlestymaar 3y ago
  The blog post for the announcement: https://redis.com/blog/redis-adopts-dual-source-available-licensing/ https://redis.com/blog/redis-adopts-dual-source-available-li...
• Xenoamorphous 3y ago
  What's the actual impact of this for those of us who are using Redis in production (not cloud).
  • throwaway38375 3y ago
    Same, I am interested to know. I only install Redis on Ubuntu VMs. I don't pay for hosted Redis (since it's always been rock solid for me). Will these changes stop me from running `sudo apt install redis`?
    • jeltz 3y ago
      Most likely, yes. Debian dropped MongoDB after their license change and Ubtuntu seems to have done the same. The last version with MongoDB is focal. https://packages.ubuntu.com/search?keywords=mongodb https://packages.ubuntu.com/search?keywords=mongodb
      • aragilar 3y ago
        I think more accurately, yes, but when is more the question instead of will it happen. I would expect current LTS to keep the open source releases for now (assuming security releases for older versions are still released as open source, if not you may find it dropped earlier!), but it won't appear in any new releases (LTS or otherwise).
  • jeltz 3y ago
    That your distribution is likely to drop Redis so you will have to install it from another repository.
• zokier 3y ago
  Has these moves to non-FOSS ever ended up working well in the long term? I think for Elastic and Mongo both it hasn't been the stellar successes they'd hoped for, those are the two major cases on top of my head. Or the big FOSS exodus of Sun projects post-Oracle acquisition. There will be almost certainly some OpenRedis project, but this move might just kill the wider community interest.
  • WatchDog 3y ago
    Dunno about long term, but docker made a bunch of money by switching up the docker-desktop licensing. It's a bit different though, since it was already on a proprietary license, and they just changed the terms.
    • aragilar 3y ago
      Isn't that just the standard Oracle playbook: increase prices and push people to alternatives? k8s has long dropped docker as a base technology, it really is the dockerhub default that makes docker relevant.
    • c0wb0yc0d3r 3y ago
      That was more because they put a gun to people's head though wasn't it? Docker on windows is pretty painful without docker desktop. You can certainly get it running without docker desktop, but the polish isn't there. As far as I know there is no way to install docker on windows manually and get integration with 3rd party tools. The closest I've come is using podman desktop. I think it has a way to go before it can be considered a drop in replacement
  • bit_flipper 3y ago
    By which metrics are you evaluating those companies' license changes? Both are significantly more profitable than before they changed licenses, MongoDB especially. I'm not sure there's a causal relationship, but it doesn't seem to have significantly harmed them.
• depr 3y ago
  Can they do this? Open source contributions to their codebase were under a different license. They don't have the copyright for those contributions without a CLA (I can't find one). So how can they relicense those contributions?
  • weinzierl 3y ago
    Sure. Only the new contributions are under the new license the older contributions are not affected at all. The follow-up question would be what allows them to still use the old contributions together with the new proprietary ones and the answer is: the permissive license of the old contributions. If the old contributors have not wanted that, they should not have contributed to a project under a permissive license.
    • kelnos 3y ago
      To be clear (for the GP and others): the consequence of the parent's second paragraph is that if the old license were something like the GPL, this wouldn't be allowed, unless all copyright holders consented to the change. (The GPL specifically does not allow "adding restrictions", which the new licenses do.) But since the old license is BSD/MIT (I think?), it's fine. BSD/MIT code is still licensed as such, but can be commingled with code under the new licenses without issues. BSD/MIT's terms can still be complied with under the new licenses.
  • rcxdude 3y ago
    It was BSD before, which allows relicensing by anyone (though they do need to preserve the original notice).
    • okanat 3y ago
      BSD doesn't allow relicensing. I don't think any license that does either. However, BSD allows the licensees to incorporate the source however they want as long as they keep the notice visible.It doesn't transfer the ownership so re-licensing isn't possible. So basically Redis becomes a licensee of the third party contributors and BSD happens to be quite permissive that Redis can relicense their own parts while keep using other people's creations under BSD without limitations.
• supz_k 3y ago
  Slightly off-topic: Until last week, we used Redis for Laravel queues and cache in our blogging platform. We decided to get rid of Redis and use the database. The reason was that we are planning to allow self-hosting of our software so removing a dependency is a huge win to reduce complexity (didn't know about the license change then). There are a lot of arguments against using a relational DB for queues, but from our testing, it just worked! So, we just went with it in production. Surprisingly, there are no noticeable performance issues so far. We initially used Redis because, well, Laravel recommends it. But, what I learned is that Redis is not a requirement until you absolutely need it.
  • crizzlenizzle 3y ago
    Almost three years ago, but the last time we used database as engine for Laravel’s queue subsystem it exploded due to some database table locks under high load. We switched to redis and things just worked well.
  • jrochkind1 3y ago
    if you have very high volume, there can be some tricks to using an rdbms as a queue system. For Rails use, 37Signals recently released the open source solid queue package, meant for use with either msyql or postgres. It makes some odd choices, like separating things into different tables depending on state. And it also makes careful use of the not-necessarily-super-well-known (but standard, and in both mysql and postgres) `FOR UPDATE SKIP LOCKED` clause. These choices were to get good performance at high volumes, which they think they have done and tested. So it can be done! Probably. And indeed solid queue is MIT-licensed, there are not barriers to looking at the choices they made and copying them in whatever language/platform you want. But it's not necessarily trivial. At non-huge volumes though it's probably not an issue. https://github.com/rails/solid_queue https://github.com/rails/solid_queue
• petee 3y ago
  The link should be updated to either the announcement on their blog, or at minumum a specific commit https://redis.com/blog/redis-adopts-dual-source-available-licensing/ https://redis.com/blog/redis-adopts-dual-source-available-li...
• lifesaverluke 3y ago
  April Fools' Day coming up?
• fermigier 3y ago
  Potential alternatives: - https://github.com/dragonflydb/dragonfly https://github.com/dragonflydb/dragonfly (BSL-licensed, aka not OSS). - https://github.com/Snapchat/KeyDB https://github.com/Snapchat/KeyDB (BSD-licensed) Anyone using one of these?
  • fmajid 3y ago
    I've tried KeyDB a few years ago, performance was significantly better than Redis. Didn;t test the spill-to-disk feature for data sets larger than RAM. Not sure if it's kept up with Redis on advanced features like HyperLogLog.
• NathanFlurry 3y ago
  Check out DragonflyDB (BSL): https://www.dragonflydb.io/ https://www.dragonflydb.io/ BSL is not OSI-approved, but it’s a much more reasonable AWS-resistant license. It’s the same license CockroachDB uses, for example. KeyDB (BSL, acquired by Snapchat) is also an option: https://keydb.dev/ https://keydb.dev/ BSL is a much better license, but it’s a gamble on how long KeyDB will be supported. I don’t want to mess around with such a core part of my architecture.
  • OPoncz 3y ago
    We @Dragonfly had BSL right from start. I think it makes most sense for todays infrastructure echsystem.
• SuperSandro2000 3y ago
  Capitalism does capitalism things...
• deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
• externedguy 3y ago
  Perfect, yet another reason to use BEAM languages
• codedokode 3y ago
  I don't understand what's wrong with AGPL-style licenses. If I wrote something that can be used in a cloud I would also prefer AGPL to prevent cloud companies from selling software and taking all the profit while contributing nothing.
  • dspillett 3y ago
    > I don't understand what's wrong with AGPL-style licenses. Nothing IMO. But many commercial entities won't touch software covered by them, so if wide adoption is one of your desires this could be a significant consideration. You can argue as much as you like about where lines are and how using <component> won't mean they have to open source their entire business, but you'll get nowhere, and the blanket ban will remain. If they really want what your component does they'll do it in-house (and maybe release that under a more permissive licence) or use an alternative if one already exists. Dual licensing (AGPL with commercial options) usually won't help either: they don't actually want a commercial option because they don't want to pay for things the way they want others to pay their services. Dual licensing can also be an issue for other contributors, it becomes more important to have a CLA⁰ so you can do that at all (legally) and a CLA might put off a lot of potential contributors. This would not be an issue for me¹², and from your question I assume it wouldn't be for you either, but for some people/projects it could be more important, possibly a blocker. -- [0] Unless your project is “open source, not open contribution” which is a perfectly valid choice and one I'd likely go for, but again this is not suitable for all people/projects. [1] “We can't/won't use your stuff under its current licence”. Me: “OK, thanks for letting me know.” [2] “If you don't do X³ we'll have to go elsewhere”. Me: “OK. Enjoy your trip. Hope it works out for you.” [3] where X could be a license change or anything else
  • aragilar 3y ago
    AGPL and SSPL are quite different (around how it works with other licenses and software), and those differences are what makes AGPL still FOSS, and SSPL not.
• devaiops9001 3y ago
  Drop-in replacements for Redis exist. There are two that use TiKV as a backend. Microsoft recently released a drop-in replacement for Redis.
• oytis 3y ago
  I remember in the olden days of open source, when there was a debate whether it is viable, the point of the free software party was that you are not going to make money selling the software itself, but rather using the software or providing support for it. Later at some point as open source matured, some people decided it was still possible to make an open source business. I think by now it is more or less clear it is not the case - the companies that _use_ open source to support their non-software core business are the ones that take most of the pie. There is as little reason for outrage as for surprise in my opinion.
• tinco 3y ago
  OSI lost touch with their mission. This SSPL license is clearly an open source license in the full spirit and original intent of open source. It is more aggressively copyleft than AGPL is. Their reasoning[0] for not considering it open source is that due to the requirement that all interfacing software (my words) must also be open source it restricts the possible fields the software can be used in. Reread that sentence! that's exactly the intent of the original GPL license, and follows directly from the philosophy of its progenitor. If the original GPL was proposed today, then following this reasoning the OSI would not have approved it. Imagine today the Nginx project would switch its license from MIT to GPLv2. Just regular old GPLv2. Would the OSI also complain that previous contributors thought they were contributing towards the "greater good" and now their software is embedded in a proprietary product, just because nginx plugins now have to be open source as well? The OSI shouldn't be chasing some vague "greater good". They should be protecting the spirit of open source. Which includes copyleft licenses like GPL, AGPL and SSPL. [0] https://opensource.org/blog/the-sspl-is-not-an-open-source-license https://opensource.org/blog/the-sspl-is-not-an-open-source-l...
  • redwood 3y ago
    I think you have it right. Unfortunately much of the "OSI is OS" commentariat misunderstands the SSPL which aims to confer freedoms to use with no obligation from there (and even deliver as a public service where the machinery that does so is also made open source and hence free for others to use). If the OSI calls the AGPL open source, surely the SSPL is as well. A lot of people seem to lose the forest through the trees on "free as in freedom" vs "free as in beer" to the extent that copyleft offers a sustainable road to free as in freedom for the community... Unfortunately zealots have shot themselves in the foot without realizing they're doing the strip mining hyperscalers' bidding.
  • weinzierl 3y ago
    If the SSPL is more aggressive than the AGPL why don't companies just adopt the AGPL. This is an honest question. I'm familiar with the AGPL but not with the SSPL and wondered before, why the AGPL is used so rarely.
    • 3y ago
• tejasbaldev 3y ago
  If anyone is still debating about fairness, philosophical view point, business viability of OSS projects, competition from cloud providers - please click on the link below and check it for yourself. Link - https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonElastiCache/latest/red-ug/json-forget.html https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonElastiCache/latest/red-ug/... Context : Redis Inc (fka RedisLabs) started creating ''Redis Modules'' later known as Redis Stack to start differentiating with cloud provider's managed Redis. The idea was to keep Redis Core BSD licensed (one of the most liberal licensing model) but at the same time build a layer on top of this BSD layer to keep differentiating the service. One of these modules was Redis JSON which allowed you to use Redis as a JSON store. One cloud provider copied the whole codebase (even though it was protected by all the licensing clauses) and it doesn't stop there. JSON.FORGET was a cool command created by one of the exes at Redis & the ''cloud provider'' ended up copying that command as well! If you're still debating whether a company should continue with a liberal licensing like BSD only to allow cloud providers or other service providers to blatantly plagiarise the codebase, think again.
  • lmz 3y ago
    If there was a license violation they should sue. Otherwise, writing a compatible reimplementation of something should not be something "open" fans are against.
    • sofixa 3y ago
      I think OP's point is that AWS have the resources to reimplement all the differentiation you can try to add with an open core model like Redis tried, which makes the whole attempt at open core useless. Therefore the choice is either to try to partner with AWS like Grafana Labs managed to do (only ones I'm aware of), move to a license with restrictions on them reselling your code, or accept defeat.
      • lmz 3y ago
        Well even if they moved to a restricted license it would not stop reimplementations of the same protocol (I assume the extra non-open-core bits were already under a more restrictive license). I think that was just a poor example.
• opeon 3y ago
  Explanation from Redis themselves https://redis.com/blog/redis-adopts-dual-source-available-licensing/ https://redis.com/blog/redis-adopts-dual-source-available-li...
  • hobabaObama 3y ago
    > Explanation from Redis themselves https://redis.com/blog/redis-adopts-dual-source-available-li https://redis.com/blog/redis-adopts-dual-source-available-li... I am sorry, isnt this the post itself? Or am I missing something?
    • Macha 3y ago
      Mods merged comments from another thread that pointed somewhere else.
• captn3m0 3y ago
  For those worried about EOL, Redis 7.4 will be the first release under the new license, leaving 7.2 as the last release with the old one. Redis supports 2 additional releases at a given time: latest major.(minor-1), (major-1).(last-minor). This roughly means that 6.2 will go out of support once 8.0 is released, and 7.2 will go out of support once 7.6, or 8.0 is released. Looking at prior releases, my guess would be to expect a 8.0 release around Mar-May 2025. So if you're relying on Redis under the 3BSD license, plan accordingly. Note that Ubuntu packages redis under the `universe` repo, which means security upgrades are only available to Ubuntu Pro customers. So Ubuntu 20.04 will stop redis upgrades on Apr 2024, except for Ubuntu Pro users under ESM. Debian 11/12 track Redis 6.0/7.0, so they are responsible for backporting the patches from 7.2. Unsure how this will happen once 7.2 stops receiving security updates, and they only go to the 7.4 branch. Also note that you might be impacted indirectly (even if your usage of redis fits with the new license), because your distro will likely drop redis from its official repos in the next release, so should account for that in the next distro upgrade cycle. (I maintain https://endoflife.date/redis https://endoflife.date/redis, happy to merge PRs if someone has clarity on how this might impact EOL/Support)
• frontalier 3y ago
  Redis is still 'free as in beer', unless you are operating a bar and want to profit off of the free beer someone else produced, then it's not 'open source', but somehow you can still get the source as it remains 'source available'. Did I get it right?
• mythz 3y ago
  Good, most value in OSS is being syphoned off by the mega corp cloud vendors which contribute nothing back to the maintainers of the OSS products they're charging rent for. That's not a sustainable relationship for a healthy OSS product, mega cloud corps rake in most of the profits whilst the organizations maintaining them have to handle the burden of increasing customer support issues and developer wages. The SSPL aka "Free for all, except cloud corps" License should be more common place.
• deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
• byyll 3y ago
  Great change. Should have been like that from the start but would have probably impacted their growth. Any company can still use Redis for their needs, only leeches like AWS can't.
• theanonymousone 3y ago
  Why isn't Affero GPL used in such cases? Isn't it designed exactly for such scenarios? Wikipedia link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Affero_General_Public_License https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Affero_General_Public_Lice...
• shantnutiwari 3y ago
  As usual, the comment section is full of entitled people whining about “muh open source”. Like others have said, OSI definition of open source is very outdated and needs to be updated.
• xenago 3y ago
  Most people must know that redis inc didn't create redis right?? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redis_(company)?useskin=vector https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redis_(company)?useskin=vector It's funny and hypocritical that a corporation, which used the very terms of the license they now seem to hate in order to come into existence in the first place, is closing that exact path out.
• PeterZaitsev 3y ago
  Do not kid yourself SSPL is intentionally designed so even someone who wants to provide DBaaS version and honestly contribute to the project can't really use it, because most likely I can't SSPL all components which are required Imagine I'm independent provider looking to compete with MongoDB Atlas and ready to Open Source everything I need. But oh wait - I have S3 as my Control plane, EBS, AIM etc - none of which I have option to Open Source.
  • redwood 3y ago
    As I said in another comment, I believe this is a fundamental misunderstanding of the intent, but hearing you and others saying it shows that the authors will need to consider further revisions.
• whaaatttttttzzz 3y ago
  Does this mean that Redis will no longer be shipped in Linux distros?
• bionhoward 3y ago
  IMHO this is gonna kill Redis Labs just like Hashicorp is getting owned and seeking a buyout, and not stop anyone from ripping off Redis Labs, because the folks who truly suffer from this are the small startups who just want to use Redis cache without legal bullshit, whereas for AWS to fork Redis is doable and they could even turn it around and make their fork permissively licensed which suddenly makes Redis Labs into the worse choice in terms of license. It’s a hard choice to make, but imho either keep your code proprietary or stick with “Apache OR MIT” … all this stuff about switching licenses partway down the line is really lame and just seems destined to backfire. Open Source is about user ownership of software. If we try to get around that with legal trickery to make a buck, then it’s not going to hurt the big corpo teams, but rather the users. Big corpo teams are users too, they don’t want to deal with this legal mess either. Like it or not, Redis has always been a permissive open source project which is why it has been a success. Changing that is changing the equation in that regard going forward and portends bad outcomes for everyone involved.
  • deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  • PeterZaitsev 3y ago
    I think this pretty much kills the idea of Corporation being a good stuart of Open Source Software user needs over long term... We need to better recognize the difference between "Foundation" owned software like PostgreSQL vs Corporation Owner like Open Source. When you focus in "Maximizing shareholder value" the goal of keeping your user freedoms will inevitably be put aside. It would be much better choice for Redis community if Antirez would seporate his employment from Project ownership and leave it in hands of some non profit. Something like Apache Redis would be much better for community and it also would allow Redis Labs to build proprietary extensions and cloud business around it.
    • Dylan16807 3y ago
      > the goal of keeping your user freedoms will inevitably be put aside That depends on who you consider the user. If it's the person buying managed redis, then this license change doesn't affect any user freedoms. I don't know, it feels like this way of doing things doesn't work well, but pure open source also doesn't work well when you want to pay salaries to a bunch of devs.
• thtmnisamnstr 3y ago
  I work at Earthly. We build a pretty popular open source build tool. I've worked for several companies that build OSS before Earthly as well. At Earthly, a few years ago, the founder and CEO had these same concerns about big cloud providers and switched to a source available license. There was backlash, and after around a year, we switched back to open source. We've discussed things like this a lot, and believe an open source license is best for our product, our users, and our business. The way that we differ from Hashicorp, Redis, and others that have switched to source available licenses is that the service we offer and generate revenue from isn't just a hosted version of our OSS. It's several services that natively integrate with our OSS but are not open source. This seems like one of the only ways a company that maintains popular OSS can survive without switching licenses: build great OSS that users love, build non-OSS services that integrate with and augment your OSS (and/or open up new use cases), and charge for those services. If the service a company sells is just a hosted version of their OSS, even if it has a bunch of non-OSS bells and whistles added on, that company is at risk of a cloud provider eating their lunch unless they switch to a non-OSS license.
• mirekrusin 3y ago
  Am I the only developer, working for corporation that is using other mega corp's cloud, using redis personally and at work - who sees this as good news? This change means that cloud providers will have to share premium they're charging customers for offering redis as cloud service. Developers still have access to source code, you can use it personally and for commercial products, you can use it on your cloud VMs, dockers, k8s etc. as before. The only affected parties are competing cloud providers - they'll have to share their premium. What's wrong with that? Sounds like solid way to build sustainable business around open code. Also putting together all this other stuff into single package (JSON, vector, probabilistic and time-series) sounds great!
  • acdha 3y ago
    > Sounds like solid way to build sustainable business around open code. Yeah, that’s basically my question: how else do they make money? I’d bet that there’s at least one order of magnitude more people who use any of the major cloud providers’ hosted Redis service than who pay for a support contract, and probably at least two orders more than contribute anything substantial to the open source project. At some point you need recurring revenue or development is going to slow dramatically.
  • Ferret7446 3y ago
    Because once you have strings attached, you need to constantly be aware of it. Sure, this only targets cloud providers, but what if a company wants to host a redis instance for its subsidiaries? Or you expose direct Redis access to certain partners? Or insert any other perfect innocent scenario. Suddenly you need to hire a lawyer.
    • mirekrusin 3y ago
      Every license has strings attached, including Public Domain [0] (that's why SQLite is not open-contribution). ps. yes, I am aware of license vs copyright distinction and relation they create. [0] https://www.sqlite.org/copyright.html https://www.sqlite.org/copyright.html
• NelsonMinar 3y ago
  Possibly relevant: Redis Contributer Copyright Assignment. This dates at least to 2022. https://redis.com/legal/redis-software-grant-and-contributor-license-agreement/ https://redis.com/legal/redis-software-grant-and-contributor... I get why Redis would want every contributor to sign this agreement. What I don't understand is why any open source contributor would agree to sign it. Maybe because someone is more interested in getting their contribution integrated than having any say over future licensing of their work?
• gregors 3y ago
  The problem is that the idea was "we'll build this nice thing and other people who use it en masse will also be nice and give us some money for support or just because" The reality is large places will take as much as they can and never give anything unless forced into such a deal. Open source tech is probably tainted in this regard. How many other projects have gone this route for basically the same reason? I hope this means large tech will actually contribute some money to Redis. I've used Redis for many years and hope they can make some money after giving so much away for so long.
• luffyzoro 3y ago
  Note to all OSS contributors/Owners: Open source is about building something together for everyone's advantage. We throw our skills into the pot, be it coding, documentation, or spreading the word. The coolest part? When someone takes the software and does something incredible with it, something we never thought of! That's the power of open source – it goes way beyond what any one person can achieve. Here's the thing: contributing to open source isn't about getting something back directly for your work. It's about building something awesome for the greater good. You put your stuff out there, and someone else might end up building a million-dollar company on it. That's not exploitation, that's someone being really good at using the tool we built together. YOU SHOULD NEVER EXPECT THE BENEFIT FROM THE CONTRIBUTIONS YOU DO TO A OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE BUT INSTEAD EXPECT THE BENEFIT FROM THE SOFTWARE YOU ARE CONTRIBUTING TO. If you need specific control over how your code is used, open source might not be the best fit. There are permissive licenses that let people modify your work as long as they follow your rules. The bottom line: open source is about sharing and building something bigger than ourselves. Let's celebrate the ways our contributions empower others, not hold grudges because someone else figured out a killer way to use our work.
• garfieldnate 3y ago
  There have been several really good episodes of Oxide and Friends discussing the danger to open source posed by license proliferation, the danger of copyright assignment, the danger of conflating downloads or FOSS project popularity with income and a viable business model, and appropriate stewardship of a shared project. This is an area that sort of bleeds over between engineering and politics, and as politics go I think this is an a very important topic for developers to understand well and engage with. * Open Source Inside Baseball: https://oxide.computer/podcasts/oxide-and-friends/1086076 https://oxide.computer/podcasts/oxide-and-friends/1086076 * Open Source and Capitalism: https://oxide.computer/podcasts/oxide-and-friends/1564203 https://oxide.computer/podcasts/oxide-and-friends/1564203 * Open Source Anti-Patterns: https://oxide.computer/podcasts/oxide-and-friends/1482742 https://oxide.computer/podcasts/oxide-and-friends/1482742
• donatj 3y ago
  Redis frankly just isn't that complicated. I've personally built a little really bad version with only a fraction of the command a couple years ago for fun. Amazon can absolutely build a fully API compatible service and have that up in no time. It's just silly to try to do this.
  • rijx 3y ago
    Experienced developers know it’s the small subtleties, the API, the bugfixes, the docs and (community) support that makes software valuable. The tech itself is usually not mindblowing.
• dingi 3y ago
  Or else, companies can use freaking AGPL from the start.
• deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
• jrochkind1 3y ago
  I use cloud-hosted redis. Presumably the price will be going up. i work for non-profit endeavors with limited budgets. I don't necessarily need redis specifically; infrastructure ecosystems just developed around it because it was both very high-quality and open source. I could probably do most or all of what I do with redis with an rdbms. Or in some cases memcached. I anticipate switching away from redis.
• jrochkind1 3y ago
  > Despite efforts to support a community-led governance model… They don't say so explicitly, but it looks like the community-led open source governance model is gone too? Not already discussed on this thread I think. In 2020 when antirez stepped down, Redis the company explained: > "As Salvatore steps back from maintaining Redis, the project’s scale can no longer be managed as a BDFL-style project," explained Gottlieb and Agra. "We see this as an opportunity for Redis to adopt a new model that, hopefully, will promote more teamwork and structure and let us scale up its development and maintenance processes." > As the Redis Open Source Governance page explains, the project aims "to be as welcoming and inclusive as possible" and toward that end has adopted a Code of Conduct, as many other open source projects have already done. —https://redis.io/docs/about/governance/ https://redis.io/docs/about/governance/ It looks like the "Redis Open Source Governance page" used to be at https://redis.io/docs/about/governance/ https://redis.io/docs/about/governance/ ? Currently 404. Last scraped by archive.org in October. https://web.archive.org/web/20231030181609/https://redis.io/docs/about/governance/ https://web.archive.org/web/20231030181609/https://redis.io/... It explained there is a "core team". Not all of whom worked for Redis the company, although largely controlled by Redis the company. So I guess it wasn't exactly community-controlled before, but it's notable there is no longer an "open source governance" model. antirez's good-bye blog post says: > I leave Redis in the hands of the Redis community… I’ll just leave Yossi and Oran the task of understanding how to interface with the rest of the Redis developers to find a sustainable development model… I believe I’m not just leaving Redis in the hands of a community of expert programmers, but also in the hands of people who care about the legacy of the community spirit of Redis. —http://antirez.com/news/133 http://antirez.com/news/133
• cmmn-sns 3y ago
  Maybe this is naive, but some of those bloody license discussions on this thread have hit a nerve. For my own use in my company or project as an individual - Can I have full access to the source, clone it and modify it? YES - Can I do a pull request to improve it? YES - Am I allowed to download, use and have it for free in my company even if my project is commercial and is making money from using Redis? YES - Can I create a product that uses Redis as a technology for free in my startup? YES - Can I get support if I need it? YES from github as before or as a paid service from the Redis company - Is there a lot of people to maintain and do bug fixes? YES and they are paid a salary to do so - Is it a me-and-my-cousin project that will be practically abandoned tomorrow? No. Go check a specific fork's multithreading bugs in github issues. It's scary as fk - Can I git clone / make / make install it like before? YES - Is there new features added or planned to be added? I guess this is a YES - Are the people behind the project paid well enough to maintain and support it? I hope so, certainly it's not best effort after working hours and putting the kids to sleep - Can I resell Redis as a service taking the source code and running it on my cloud without a paid license? NO (boo hoo hoo) Personally I don't care if the definition is open source or SSPL or whatever as long as the project is open code, viable, well maintained and improved. Some complaints here sound like this is a religious thing, and I dislike religious freaks. I am able to use this software for FREE in my company like I used to. I have access to the source code and I can modify it as I want. I can have my commercial web service that extensively uses Redis as a cache for FREE as long as I don't sell Redis itself as a service to hosting customers. Where's the real problem? Where's the problem with Mongo / Elastic / Redis and the likes who try to fight against abusive tactics of AWS? If I must add a redis repo and then do apt update and apt install redis... Do I care? Sure, it's an extra step but c'mon. It's 2024, not the 90s. The world has changed. AWS has been "screwing open source projects for more than a decade" (tm) Why are we scared to face the harsh reality? Same with Mongo in 2018 and Elastic when they changed their licenses. Same thing, again and again. Nags and complaints from people that, 95% of them, have maybe contributed a typo change in the docs - if so. But they have an opinion about things that are given to them for free and still are free and open. What makes you so entitled? Have you ever said THANK YOU to any of the open source folks? Have you monetarily supported any of them, ever? Antirez has 21k followers and 9 sponsors who donate on Github. NINE! Not 10, not 50, not 1000 sponsors... it's 9 - a carpenter that lost a finger at work can still count them... You want good open source? Make sure the projects are sustainable, viable and their creators receive love and positive criticism to continue writing code for free for the greater good. It's only AWS who cares about the license change, no-one else is really affected in reality. If you're not employed by AWS and you have an issue with Elastic, Mongo, Redis et al changing their license, then you are a convenient fool (sorry). You are not paying good service to the community and the open source movement in it's CORE. OSI execs are happy getting millions from bigcorps in exchange to bending their ethics and views in decision making. Mongo's discussions with OSI in 2018 is a prime example of that. AWS is your enemy, not licenses that try to fight against this bully.