3 ms·

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

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!
- JackSlateur 3y ago
  It is far from a marketing term : opensources products can be used without talking to legal departements. For big compagnies, this a game-changer because you can spare yourself months of "work".
  - kelnos 3y ago
    > opensources products can be used without talking to legal departements. Pretty much every company I've worked at has wanted legal signoff for use of any open source project. Granted, compliance with that directive was often spotty. But some did have a tool to scan our repositories for dependencies, and flag things that had licenses not on an approved list (which, no, was not the entirety of OSI-approved licenses).
  - jen20 3y ago
    AGPL is an “open source” license per OSI - I assure you if you use code licensed under it at many big companies, you might avoid a meeting with legal but will instead get one with HR…
  - ForHackernews 3y ago
    > For big compagnies, this a game-changer because you can spare yourself months of "work". I believe I already stipulated that companies are greedy and devs are lazy. I hope you don't consider your comment a counterargument.
piaste 3y ago
> 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) This might be me living in a bubble, but OS packages for this kind of server software really feel like a relic the past. Containers have been around for a decade and we now have tools like podman that run without privileges or daemons. I run my freakin' Raspberry Pi 4GB as a pure container host, just because it makes the system cleaner and more reliable at almost no cost. Now I'm sure some people still want to `apt install redis`, for example to squeeze every last ounce of performance out of hardware, and more power to them if that's what gives them the best results. But Debian maintainers have to do a lot of dull, unfun work to update, test, and bugfix native packages for Redis and Mongo and RabbitMQ and... is that really a good use of their precious, unpaid time? To make the UX and performance only slightly better than 'podman run redis'?

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!
JackSlateur 3y ago
It is far from a marketing term : opensources products can be used without talking to legal departements. For big compagnies, this a game-changer because you can spare yourself months of "work".
- kelnos 3y ago
  > opensources products can be used without talking to legal departements. Pretty much every company I've worked at has wanted legal signoff for use of any open source project. Granted, compliance with that directive was often spotty. But some did have a tool to scan our repositories for dependencies, and flag things that had licenses not on an approved list (which, no, was not the entirety of OSI-approved licenses).
- jen20 3y ago
  AGPL is an “open source” license per OSI - I assure you if you use code licensed under it at many big companies, you might avoid a meeting with legal but will instead get one with HR…
- ForHackernews 3y ago
  > For big compagnies, this a game-changer because you can spare yourself months of "work". I believe I already stipulated that companies are greedy and devs are lazy. I hope you don't consider your comment a counterargument.

piaste 3y ago

> 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) This might be me living in a bubble, but OS packages for this kind of server software really feel like a relic the past. Containers have been around for a decade and we now have tools like podman that run without privileges or daemons. I run my freakin' Raspberry Pi 4GB as a pure container host, just because it makes the system cleaner and more reliable at almost no cost. Now I'm sure some people still want to `apt install redis`, for example to squeeze every last ounce of performance out of hardware, and more power to them if that's what gives them the best results. But Debian maintainers have to do a lot of dull, unfun work to update, test, and bugfix native packages for Redis and Mongo and RabbitMQ and... is that really a good use of their precious, unpaid time? To make the UX and performance only slightly better than 'podman run redis'?