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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

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.
  - mooreds 3y ago
    Disclosure: I work for a company with a free downloadable software package, paid plans, and write a lot of open source around it. I wrote about this conundrum a few years ago: https://www.mooreds.com/wordpress/archives/3438 https://www.mooreds.com/wordpress/archives/3438 OSS is a great way to build a community, increase adoption, and get attention. It isn't perfect at that, but it beats alternatives, for devtools at least. But then you need to make money (especially if you've taken VC). That's when the problems start. It's hard to make money on OSS unless you are using it as a complement to something you can sell. Especially in the age of hyperscalers. And, as other posts indicate, switching from OSS midstream burns any goodwill you had when you started, and opens you up to forks. It's not unique to OSS, though. Even devtools that cost money or are free but not OSS run into issues making money. Devs are a hard audience to sell to, in my experience. I know I am stingy.
    - chii 3y ago
      > Devs are a hard audience to sell to no, devs aren't hard to sell to. It's business owners that are hard to sell to. If you are running a business, every cost needs to be controlled for you to be profitable. Adopting open source is a form of cost control. The problem of OSS is that the value proposition is that it is free-as-in-beer (as well as all of the benefits of OSS). So if/when the software becomes not free-as-in-beer, the company will have to reconsider, or change, or eat the cost if the cost is lower than the value generation of the software.
      - ensignavenger 3y ago
        The value of open source is that I don't have to waste my time negotiating contracts to license the software, I can make improvemwnts and customizations to it, I don't have to accept changes from upstream that are detrimental to my business, and no one can take it away from me. Open Source may also be less expensive, but I am paying with some combination of time and efort and support contracts or other service and sponsorships.
  - PeterZaitsev 3y ago
marklar423 3y ago
Over the years I've come to agree with this POV, and distilled it down to this: If your goal is profit, don't open source your core product. We've seen this time and time again where a company releases their core software under a permissive license, and then bigger competitors come along and resell a solution redistributing their software. If the company's central goal is profit, this is an existential threat. However if your company goal is to ensure the software exists (as a non-profit steward), this is a resounding success! This doesn't apply to software that's secondary to your core product, e.g. a useful tool you've developed but don't make money directly selling to others.
- Dylan16807 3y ago
  > However if your company goal is to ensure the software exists (as a non-profit steward), this is a resounding success! That depends on whether those big competitors are contributing code back. If they are, then great, the code continues to exist as high quality open source, even if you're playing a smaller role. If they aren't, then the good version isn't open source. Your goal is failing even when you ignore profit. And at that point maybe an "open source except for those guys" license gets you closer to your goal in practice.
  - pjmlp 3y ago
    Contributing code back alone doesn't help, if there isn't any sustainable source of income, those devs aren't going to pay supermarket and the landlord with the pull requests from big corp.
    - Dylan16807 3y ago
      If your goal is just to make the software exist, then being put out of business isn't a problem. Which is how I read the hypothetical.
      - pjmlp 3y ago
        It is piramid, before the software gets to exist, living must be possible.
mirekrusin 3y ago
Open Source has a) you guys implement it b) we sell it, thanks problem. This license change addresses this very problem so cloud mega corps can't leech. For me it sounds like better AGPL. I don't give a shit about philosophical nuances and OSI-approved list – at the end of the day this is much less restrictive license than AGPL - I have source code, I can run it locally, I can run it on my projects, I can run it on my commercial projects, I can run it where I work, I can use it on bare metal, VM, Docker, k8s and from Azure the same way. The fact that Microsoft will have to share cut of the premium they're already charging is irrelevant to me – if anything I applaud for finding sustainable business model around it.
- miraculixx 3y ago
  Wait, no. You can't run it for anything commercial unless you pay up. That's their whole spiel.
  - mirekrusin 3y ago
    Of course you can. You can't if your offer directly competes with redislabs - ie. you are cloud provider and you're selling redis as a service. You have to share your profit margin with them through licensing in this case.
    - chii 3y ago
      > directly competes with redislabs not having read the license (and not a lawyer), i dont know how far or direct it must be for it to be considered directly compete. Surely it's a very blurred area, which would then be rife with risk for anyone to adopt redis from now on.
      - mirekrusin 3y ago
        It's explained in FAQ section. Reselling redis-as-a-service or not is clear cut to me. I'm not so much interested in philosophical explorations of theoretical "what if I resell redis but without this and that command?" cases either.
ternaryoperator 3y ago
> Open Source is about user ownership of software. No, OSS developers retain authorship (with the exception of public domain). Only the authors can change the license and terms. Users get a license to do various things with the software/code, but they do not get ownership.
- alexvoda 3y ago
  Authors can only change the license if they are the sole authors or if they impose a CLA requiring others to grant re-licensing to the original authors. A copyleft project with no CLA, levels the playing field so that everyone has the same rights. Eg.: Linux kernel
michaelcampbell 3y ago
> Open Source is about user ownership of software. If we try to get around that with legal trickery to make a buck, See: Enshittification. Totally agreeing with you, but this feels like just another data point to Cory's thesis.

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.
- mooreds 3y ago
  Disclosure: I work for a company with a free downloadable software package, paid plans, and write a lot of open source around it. I wrote about this conundrum a few years ago: https://www.mooreds.com/wordpress/archives/3438 https://www.mooreds.com/wordpress/archives/3438 OSS is a great way to build a community, increase adoption, and get attention. It isn't perfect at that, but it beats alternatives, for devtools at least. But then you need to make money (especially if you've taken VC). That's when the problems start. It's hard to make money on OSS unless you are using it as a complement to something you can sell. Especially in the age of hyperscalers. And, as other posts indicate, switching from OSS midstream burns any goodwill you had when you started, and opens you up to forks. It's not unique to OSS, though. Even devtools that cost money or are free but not OSS run into issues making money. Devs are a hard audience to sell to, in my experience. I know I am stingy.
  - chii 3y ago
    > Devs are a hard audience to sell to no, devs aren't hard to sell to. It's business owners that are hard to sell to. If you are running a business, every cost needs to be controlled for you to be profitable. Adopting open source is a form of cost control. The problem of OSS is that the value proposition is that it is free-as-in-beer (as well as all of the benefits of OSS). So if/when the software becomes not free-as-in-beer, the company will have to reconsider, or change, or eat the cost if the cost is lower than the value generation of the software.
    - ensignavenger 3y ago
      The value of open source is that I don't have to waste my time negotiating contracts to license the software, I can make improvemwnts and customizations to it, I don't have to accept changes from upstream that are detrimental to my business, and no one can take it away from me. Open Source may also be less expensive, but I am paying with some combination of time and efort and support contracts or other service and sponsorships.
- PeterZaitsev 3y ago

marklar423 3y ago

Over the years I've come to agree with this POV, and distilled it down to this: If your goal is profit, don't open source your core product. We've seen this time and time again where a company releases their core software under a permissive license, and then bigger competitors come along and resell a solution redistributing their software. If the company's central goal is profit, this is an existential threat. However if your company goal is to ensure the software exists (as a non-profit steward), this is a resounding success! This doesn't apply to software that's secondary to your core product, e.g. a useful tool you've developed but don't make money directly selling to others.

Dylan16807 3y ago
> However if your company goal is to ensure the software exists (as a non-profit steward), this is a resounding success! That depends on whether those big competitors are contributing code back. If they are, then great, the code continues to exist as high quality open source, even if you're playing a smaller role. If they aren't, then the good version isn't open source. Your goal is failing even when you ignore profit. And at that point maybe an "open source except for those guys" license gets you closer to your goal in practice.
- pjmlp 3y ago
  Contributing code back alone doesn't help, if there isn't any sustainable source of income, those devs aren't going to pay supermarket and the landlord with the pull requests from big corp.
  - Dylan16807 3y ago
    If your goal is just to make the software exist, then being put out of business isn't a problem. Which is how I read the hypothetical.
    - pjmlp 3y ago
      It is piramid, before the software gets to exist, living must be possible.

mirekrusin 3y ago

Open Source has a) you guys implement it b) we sell it, thanks problem. This license change addresses this very problem so cloud mega corps can't leech. For me it sounds like better AGPL. I don't give a shit about philosophical nuances and OSI-approved list – at the end of the day this is much less restrictive license than AGPL - I have source code, I can run it locally, I can run it on my projects, I can run it on my commercial projects, I can run it where I work, I can use it on bare metal, VM, Docker, k8s and from Azure the same way. The fact that Microsoft will have to share cut of the premium they're already charging is irrelevant to me – if anything I applaud for finding sustainable business model around it.

miraculixx 3y ago
Wait, no. You can't run it for anything commercial unless you pay up. That's their whole spiel.
- mirekrusin 3y ago
  Of course you can. You can't if your offer directly competes with redislabs - ie. you are cloud provider and you're selling redis as a service. You have to share your profit margin with them through licensing in this case.
  - chii 3y ago
    > directly competes with redislabs not having read the license (and not a lawyer), i dont know how far or direct it must be for it to be considered directly compete. Surely it's a very blurred area, which would then be rife with risk for anyone to adopt redis from now on.
    - mirekrusin 3y ago
      It's explained in FAQ section. Reselling redis-as-a-service or not is clear cut to me. I'm not so much interested in philosophical explorations of theoretical "what if I resell redis but without this and that command?" cases either.

ternaryoperator 3y ago

> Open Source is about user ownership of software. No, OSS developers retain authorship (with the exception of public domain). Only the authors can change the license and terms. Users get a license to do various things with the software/code, but they do not get ownership.

alexvoda 3y ago
Authors can only change the license if they are the sole authors or if they impose a CLA requiring others to grant re-licensing to the original authors. A copyleft project with no CLA, levels the playing field so that everyone has the same rights. Eg.: Linux kernel

michaelcampbell 3y ago

> Open Source is about user ownership of software. If we try to get around that with legal trickery to make a buck, See: Enshittification. Totally agreeing with you, but this feels like just another data point to Cory's thesis.