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This is one way to see it. The other side of the coin is that this move is totally in their rights, morally and legally. It is our obligation as developers to

This is one way to see it. The other side of the coin is that this move is totally in their rights, morally and legally. It is our obligation as developers to communicate to companies if we want these license changes to happen or not. If you don't like it, don't contribute and invest your time into projects that are not licensed in way that matches your needs and wants.

anonzzzies 3y ago
> This is one way to see it. The other side of the coin is that this move is totally in their rights, morally and legally. Morally I would say it depends on contributors. If there haven't been any then sure, but if I contributed a feck-load of code to some project and they slap on a commercial license, I guess I feel somewhat shafted.
- weinzierl 3y ago
  "license, I guess I feel somewhat shafted." You shouldn't. If you contribute to a project under a permissive license that is what you sign up for. I contributed to projects under permissive licenses myself, there is nothing wrong with it. Being indignant about companies exercising the rights you explicitly granted them is unwarranted though.
  - anonzzzies 3y ago
    You can always fork in that case, I guess.
    - weinzierl 3y ago
      You can, and that is ok. It would not help you if you feel shafted, because then the next company comes around and takes your contributions, uses them as intended without giving back and you'd still feel the same. I think you should not feel shafted, but if you do there is a simple and obvious solution.
lol768 3y ago
> It is our obligation as developers to communicate to companies if we want these license changes to happen or not. If you don't like it, don't contribute and invest your time into projects that are licensed in way that matches your needs and wants. The best thing you can do is to fork the project at the commit prior to the license change, and maintain it from that point onwards (and/or contribute to other forks with the same goal).
- happymellon 3y ago
  > The best thing you can do is to fork the project at the commit prior to the license change, and maintain it from that point onwards And use an appropriate license. Don't use BSD if you don't want people taking your stuff and closing it up.
jsiepkes 3y ago
> The other side of the coin is that this move is totally in their rights, morally and legally. Legally, sure. That's pretty binary. But if you claim they have the moral right to do so you need to elaborate on that. Since they had a "social contract" with the community (people who submitted PR's, advocated for Redis, etc.) which a single side has now altered. I don't see how one can do that an claim to be in their moral rights to do so. We've altered the deal, pray we don't alter it any further...
- exe34 3y ago
  They haven't taken anything away from the community though. You can still fork it and maintain it going forward. It's the same as if the entire redis team died in a bus crash. What they did do is decide that in the future, their work won't be as easily taken advantage of.
- weinzierl 3y ago
  If you think that your "social contract" has been violated that that is because you are mistaken about the contract you entered into. This would only be immoral if you were misled or forced, and I'd argue that neither is the case here. All the contributors gave their explicit permission to use their contribution in the way Redis does. All contributors had plenty of freedom to spend their energy in projects under a license that specifically prevents what happened with Redis. It is not that they wouldn't have other options.
- happymellon 3y ago
  > which a single side has now altered. No they haven't. "The community" submitted under a BSD licence, they literally gave anyone permission to take their code and relicence it under an alternative. It's not like the BSD version of their code has disappeared. You can still use older versions of Redis that have their changes under BSD. It sounds like submitters should have gone with GPL or AGPL if they wanted it to remain open source, available with the original licence for commercial use, etc.

anonzzzies 3y ago

> This is one way to see it. The other side of the coin is that this move is totally in their rights, morally and legally. Morally I would say it depends on contributors. If there haven't been any then sure, but if I contributed a feck-load of code to some project and they slap on a commercial license, I guess I feel somewhat shafted.

weinzierl 3y ago
"license, I guess I feel somewhat shafted." You shouldn't. If you contribute to a project under a permissive license that is what you sign up for. I contributed to projects under permissive licenses myself, there is nothing wrong with it. Being indignant about companies exercising the rights you explicitly granted them is unwarranted though.
- anonzzzies 3y ago
  You can always fork in that case, I guess.
  - weinzierl 3y ago
    You can, and that is ok. It would not help you if you feel shafted, because then the next company comes around and takes your contributions, uses them as intended without giving back and you'd still feel the same. I think you should not feel shafted, but if you do there is a simple and obvious solution.

lol768 3y ago

> It is our obligation as developers to communicate to companies if we want these license changes to happen or not. If you don't like it, don't contribute and invest your time into projects that are licensed in way that matches your needs and wants. The best thing you can do is to fork the project at the commit prior to the license change, and maintain it from that point onwards (and/or contribute to other forks with the same goal).

happymellon 3y ago
> The best thing you can do is to fork the project at the commit prior to the license change, and maintain it from that point onwards And use an appropriate license. Don't use BSD if you don't want people taking your stuff and closing it up.

jsiepkes 3y ago

> The other side of the coin is that this move is totally in their rights, morally and legally. Legally, sure. That's pretty binary. But if you claim they have the moral right to do so you need to elaborate on that. Since they had a "social contract" with the community (people who submitted PR's, advocated for Redis, etc.) which a single side has now altered. I don't see how one can do that an claim to be in their moral rights to do so. We've altered the deal, pray we don't alter it any further...

exe34 3y ago
They haven't taken anything away from the community though. You can still fork it and maintain it going forward. It's the same as if the entire redis team died in a bus crash. What they did do is decide that in the future, their work won't be as easily taken advantage of.
weinzierl 3y ago
If you think that your "social contract" has been violated that that is because you are mistaken about the contract you entered into. This would only be immoral if you were misled or forced, and I'd argue that neither is the case here. All the contributors gave their explicit permission to use their contribution in the way Redis does. All contributors had plenty of freedom to spend their energy in projects under a license that specifically prevents what happened with Redis. It is not that they wouldn't have other options.
happymellon 3y ago
> which a single side has now altered. No they haven't. "The community" submitted under a BSD licence, they literally gave anyone permission to take their code and relicence it under an alternative. It's not like the BSD version of their code has disappeared. You can still use older versions of Redis that have their changes under BSD. It sounds like submitters should have gone with GPL or AGPL if they wanted it to remain open source, available with the original licence for commercial use, etc.