24 ms·

The race to replace Redis

759 points by chmaynard 3y ago

mooreds 3y ago
I'd be more interested in the race to build a business model that works with open source and venture funding, myself. A grand unified theory of software goods funding, if you will.
- leetrout 3y ago
  Yep. Been wondering where this is headed with the recent YC batch posts claiming they are gonna be all opensource and make money on cloud offering
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- crabmusket 3y ago
  Why specifically venture funding?
  - SteveNuts 3y ago
    Because of the expected revenue and growth that comes with it.
  - 1over137 3y ago
    Because this is HN, lots of VC fanboys here.
  - mooreds 3y ago
    My thesis is that when you don't have the pressure of VC funding (gotta hit the revenue numbers you promise to investors sooner or later), alignment between the business and the OSS community isn't as tough to find.
    - crabmusket 3y ago
      I'd agree with that. Your message sounded to me like you thought VC funding was desirable for software projects. I wonder why we can't just fund software like a regular business- why look for venture returns?
      - mooreds 3y ago
        That works great! I think the best money to get to run a business comes from customers. Bootstrapping is great. However, just like fewer homes would be owned if you didn't have mortgages, less software companies would exist without VC. It's basically a subsidy from the rich, endowments and pensions, to the rest of us (consumers because we get stuff for free, developers because it increases the demand and thus salaries for us). I think VC is a net benefit to the world in terms of software delivered and companies built. I think OSS is a net benefit to the world because of the explosion of possible ideas and the leverage it lets developers have as they build on it. I would love to see these two huge innovations in building software work together well. Haven't seen it yet, hence my original comment.
- throwaway13337 3y ago
  This is indeed interesting. The historically 'good' open source companies like Sun got bought but the ones that weren't like Oracle. The selling support model alone does not seem evolutionarily fit for the market. Now we have these VC-backed 'open source' companies that have a playbook wherein they appear open source at first. But when you dig deeper, you find that the heart of the thing is a closed binary. The investors are going to want to be paid back somehow. And the business model of VC means that one of two things happens: 1. The company finds a way to 100x the return. Which, if you're a customer, might be a scary prospect. 2. The company makes an amount somewhat lower and, while it would be a good business for a non-VC company, they're considered a zombie by their investors. So, they are killed leaving you as a customer in a bad position. I therefore trust non-VC backed companies substantially more to keep alignment with their customers long-term. A workable model could be for instead companies that have legally-enforceable promise not to enshitify their closed sourced product. So that the product will always be aligned with the paying customer. The customer cannot be made the product at a future date.
  - arp242 3y ago
    Sun was mainly a hardware business; you bought their workstations and servers. And oh, they also had this unix-y thing that came with that. Later software did become a bit more important with Java and MySQL and all of that, but it was still primarily hardware company. I think it's pointless to even compare it to the Redis company; just about everything is different.
    - mooreds 3y ago
      For sure. It's the difference between commoditizing your complement[0] and trying to build a business on something anyone can run for free. 0: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/06/12/strategy-letter-v/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/06/12/strategy-letter-v/
- candiddevmike 3y ago
  I think something like https://bigtimelicense.com/ https://bigtimelicense.com/ is a good start.
  - ceejayoz 3y ago
    Their definition of "fair, reasonable, and nondiscriminatory terms" seems... incredibly vague, and with a big chicken-and-egg problem for the first license. > If the licensor advertises license terms and a pricing structure for generally available commercial licenses, the licensor proposes license terms and a price as advertised, and a customer not affiliated with the licensor has bought a commercial license for the software on substantially equivalent terms in the past year, the proposal is fair, reasonable, and nondiscriminatory.
    - kemitchell 3y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reasonable_and_non-discriminatory_licensing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reasonable_and_non-discriminat...
      - ceejayoz 3y ago
        Which says "While there are no legal precedents to spell out specifically what the actual terms mean..."
- deleted 3y ago
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- kemitchell 3y ago
  I wonder if software really deserves its own economics. If you haven't read Hal Varian's Information Rules, I highly recommend it. Check the publication date, then read it anyway, then reflect on the publication date when you're done. I found it very worthwhile.
  - jhoechtl 3y ago
    Yes, this is a great read. After that many years it still influences me. However it is not that kind of book you read before going to bed. It requires intense studies to take something out of it.
  - zoilism 3y ago
    Thanks for the recommendation, I downloaded it & started reading and yes it's a treasure trove.
- llm_trw 3y ago
  You go homeless so Bezos can make his yacht a foot longer. I find it amazing how much money is being spent to ensure open source code doesn't end up in the hands of users and how many people are blaming the ones trying to increase user freedom.
  - jhoechtl 3y ago
    Good to read that on HN. A fair share of HN Readers and supporters belong to that crowd ...
- coldtea 3y ago
  Maybe we instead need a model where FOSS is not about profits for anybody, and is just a passion of love, from a large community of amateurs doing it for the technology and fun. Projects could still be funded by community users, but "venture funding"? That's how projects turn to shit.
  - School-Cotton 3y ago
    In such a world most of the open source software you’re used to wouldn’t exist (or would be much less complete) and you’d be forced to work with and use proprietary systems most of the time.
    - coldtea 3y ago
      >In such a world most of the open source software you’re used to wouldn’t exist As part of that world, I also want livable wages and work-life balance for developers, so they can work on their passion FOSS off-call. And for students and programming enthusiasts to be more passionate about FOSS. Like in the 90s before the corporates took over FOSS. If some FOSS still wouldn't exist then, I'm fine with that.
  - jacooper 3y ago
    That's works for small stuff like self hosted images, but will never work for anything actually reliable.
    - prepend 3y ago
      Doesn’t it work for the Linux kernel? And https? And lots of other stuff?
      - t888 3y ago
        No. A lot of that work is sponsored.
        sethherr 3y ago
- mixmastamyk 3y ago
  FLOSS-5: freedom to contribute 5% of profit if powering a cloud service.
- harpratap 3y ago
  This is very good use case of micro-transactions. If AWS makes $100 off Redis, they should be pay back X% to Redis project, from which the money is distributed to contributors based on how important their contributions were. Also Redis project is also supposed to pay back to the software components and 3rd party libraries it uses, so C project gets a fair share of the pie contributed back to them as well.
- tsimionescu 3y ago
  Such a business model exists and it's extremely well proven, and it powers the majority of major open source software: build a proprietary product or service, and open source any component that is more of a cost than it is a unique selling point of your system. Do you need a faster compiler, or a better OS, or some cluster operator just to get your widget factory working? Don't build those in house, instead find others with the same problems and create an open source project together to work on them. But don't try to sell open source software. It's essentially impossible to do that, it has been tried time and time again and success is rare, and huge success is basically unheard of (RedHat being probably the one single exception).
  - mooreds 3y ago
    > Such a business model exists and it's extremely well proven, and it powers the majority of major open source software: build a proprietary product or service, and open source any component that is more of a cost than it is a unique selling point of your system. Sure, it is the commoditize your complement strategy [0]. But that doesn't help get complex open source products to market, it only helps with tooling. Maybe you are right and there's no way to directly pair the freedoms of OSS with the capitalism of VC backed startup. 0: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/06/12/strategy-letter-v/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/06/12/strategy-letter-v/
- bawolff 3y ago
  Just because people want to make money off something doesn't neccesarily mean they deserve to.
tison 3y ago
For the first time, I know our (Apache Kvrocks, an alternative to Redis on Flash) committer Binbin Wang committed nearly 25% of the commits to the newer Redis version. You can find his contributor for both at: * https://github.com/apache/kvrocks/graphs/contributors https://github.com/apache/kvrocks/graphs/contributors * https://github.com/redis/redis/graphs/contributors https://github.com/redis/redis/graphs/contributors
- tison 3y ago
  And here is an interesting conversation when Binbin came to the Kvrocks community: https://github.com/apache/kvrocks/pull/1581#issuecomment-1632391700 https://github.com/apache/kvrocks/pull/1581#issuecomment-163... * Me: @enjoy-binbin Out of curiosity, do you have a fuzzer to test out Kvrocks? Your recent great fixes seem like a combo rather than random findings :D * Binbin: They were actually random findings.I may be sensitive to this, doing code review and found them (also based on my familiarity with redis)
  - masklinn 3y ago
    Yeah some folks are built different. I’ve a colleague who once every few weeks opens random files and notices weird patterns, I’ve no idea how his mind works but boy does it work.
  - ryanjshaw 3y ago
    Why does the fix work like that - only checking for this one scenario when you decrement by type max? [1] In Solidity, where it's a serious security risk, before the language performed overflow checks itself, library authors would perform the arithmetic operation and then e.g. check if the result is larger than the original value in the case of a positive subtrahend [2]. [1] https://github.com/apache/kvrocks/pull/1581/commits/dc5140dd0c7ffdbb028fad238154622a60853b23 https://github.com/apache/kvrocks/pull/1581/commits/dc5140dd... [2] https://github.com/KingdomStudiosIO/contracts/blob/51873b574236822c31d5825351f2492af303fc2d/contracts/libraries/SignedSafeMath.sol#L67 https://github.com/KingdomStudiosIO/contracts/blob/51873b574...
esafak 3y ago
There's also DragonflyDB
- hipadev23 3y ago
  Yeah but if you’re going to the trouble of switching, probably pick something that actually outperforms Redis/Redis Cluster. Which basically leaves you with Garnet. Redict is a pointless endeavor. Just stick with Redis 7.2 before the licensing change. Maybe change the binary name if it makes folks feel better.
  - lll-o-lll 3y ago
    Isn’t this exactly what Redict is? Plus a license change to prevent what happened to Redis from happening again.
- dralley 3y ago
  DragonflyDB doesn't have a better licensing situation.
- wallmountedtv 3y ago
  Dragonfly isn't open source nor free software. Rather a pointless switch if you ask me.
  - worldsoup 3y ago
    it is free and source available...it's BSL which is slightly more permissive than SSPL that Redis adopted
redwood 3y ago
[flagged]
ralusek 3y ago
Am I insane or can't a company just fork it from before the license change? I mean, what even needs to change in it? I assume 95% of people were just using it for the features it's had since the beginning anyway.
- tredre3 3y ago
  > Am I insane or can't a company just fork it from before the license change? The article mentions half a dozen such forks. So not insane, maybe just a bit lazy ;).
- deleted 3y ago
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- MenhirMike 3y ago
  The question - just like always in cases like this - is which forks will get long-term support. So just like with Terraform, it's probably a good option to stay on the last open source Redis version and wait to see how things shake out, assuming that there are no critical security vulnerabilities in that version of Redis. Alternatively, be prepared to jump around between a few forks if one turns into a dead end. Or move to something else altogether, but that's a much bigger undertaking.
west0n 3y ago
Neal Gompa opened a discussion on the Fedora development list, noting the license change and the need to remove Redis from Fedora. Gompa also raised the issue on openSUSE's Factory discussion list. After Docker was phased out, various distributions have adopted the compatible Podman as a replacement for Docker. It seems that a similar story is unfolding with Redis.
- jacooper 3y ago
  Docker was only phased out in red hat distros because they don't like it and want to push Podman. Others still have docker packaged in their repos.
  - dralley 3y ago
    A bit reductionist. IIRC the main reason Docker was phased out because Red Hat wanted to push rootless, daemonless containers, which required CGroups v2, which Docker didn't want to support for the longest time. Since both versions of CGroups can't be enabled simultaneously, and no distro wanted to go without Docker (or at least Docker-like) functionality, CGroups v2 was left in permanent stasis, and so Red Hat started Podman to break the deadlock. There were a laundry list of other technical disagreements (mostly around security) but that was the primary one. And then once Red Hat distros switched over to CGroups v2, which Podman enabled them to do, it meant that Docker wouldn't really work all that well anymore until they eventually switched to CGroups v2 also (which they eventually did a few years later). So that's why it got removed from the repos, at least originally.
  - tick_tock_tick 3y ago
    It's not in Debian and their wiki straight up directs you to podman with a nice big scary warning about dockers root issue. https://wiki.debian.org/Docker https://wiki.debian.org/Docker Docker is dyeing on linux podman will be the only one that remains.
    - aragilar 3y ago
      It's in Debian: https://packages.debian.org/sid/docker.io https://packages.debian.org/sid/docker.io
dtjohnnymonkey 3y ago
I always wanted to try Pelikan Cache, but it’s hard to take a risk when there is Redis. Maybe now it’s more palatable.
s-ta 3y ago
From HN a few days ago: https://github.com/microsoft/Garnet https://github.com/microsoft/Garnet A Microsoft Research, open source, performant, almost RESP compatible alternative (according to them)
- deleted 3y ago
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- Yasuraka 3y ago
  There is also Valkey, a fork from just before the change backed by AWS, Google, Oracle who are paying a few former core devs https://github.com/valkey-io/valkey https://github.com/valkey-io/valkey And not to forget Redict, also a fork, that is maintained by drew devault https://codeberg.org/redict/redict https://codeberg.org/redict/redict
  - deleted 3y ago
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hfucvyv 3y ago
[dead]
FrustratedMonky 3y ago
Engineers have to eat too. Nothing wrong with charging for support. I love passion projects as much as anyone, but there is a reason they are hobbies, and people need to keep a day job. Eventually it does get tiring to do support for free. Edit: Ok. I was talking OSS generally. I guess Redis is being bad actor if they are taking OSS work and running away with it to get the money, and not compensating the contributors. That is very wrong. I don't know history on Redis and assumed it was the contributors that founded the company.
- aurareturn 3y ago
  I agree. People here always seem to react badly to companies that provide something for free and now want to make a bit of money. It’s weird because they themselves work in tech and have to earn a living to put food on the table. Having no way of making money isn’t sustainable.
  - smt88 3y ago
    The problem here is that this isn't putting food on the table for the people who actually built the software. It's a company surprising everyone by pocketing the money from other people's hard, unpaid work.
    - freeAgent 3y ago
      The license change is only for future versions, though. The work already put in remains open source.
- blackoil 3y ago
  I think the main issue is bait and switch. You start with a license, get lots of external contributors who are working for free, get ecosystem built around it for free and then change because you want to be paid.
  - FrustratedMonky 3y ago
    I agree. I'm not sure how nefarious this Redis move was. I guess I was assuming any move from 'free', to 'paid', will be met with some outcry regardless of how seamless they can pull it off. Or in other words, it is always a messy transition?
nerdponx 3y ago
Isn't this the reason why AGPL has started to get more popular? Everyone has to play by the very strict rules except the copyright holder, who can do whatever they want, but the community still benefits from the core software being open source. The BSD license in particular seems like a particularly bad way to run a business.
- jhoechtl 3y ago
  Absolutely! And the haters of that license either do not understand it or have their user-hostile intentions. Or plan to make money with other people's love and free-time.
- verdverm 3y ago
  I see more of a shift to open core. Many large orgs just say no to viral licenses, and in choosing AGPL, you put blockers to adoption. Open core releases some of the project under permissive license, and keeps some private or under a permissions license. We are all still trying to figure out how we can have sustainable open source where people can be paid to work on it full time
  - wmf 3y ago
    The shift to open core was ten years ago. Open core failed and is being replaced with pseudo open source.
    - verdverm 3y ago
      Open core only became a word people said 10 years ago, it's on the rise as a business model from what I can tell. Do you have suggestions for alternative funding/support models? What is open core being replaced by from your perspective?
      - wmf 3y ago
        Open core is being replaced by "selling exceptions" to AGPL/SSPL/BUSL/FSL. See MongoDB, Elastic, Hashicorp, Redis, etc. Personally I prefer the Adam Jacob trademark business model but it's not that proven and it can't be retrofitted.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
jsmeaton 3y ago
I’m usually pretty ambivalent when a company decides to move to a license like BUSL. Sure it’s not “free” - but practically it only affects the likes of AWS from freeloading while making extraordinary profits. Especially true when a given company started the project. I understand why some hold strong feelings on the principles of OSS. My perspective is we’ll have fewer nice things if we allow the likes of AWS to cannibalise successful services. But I feel no such sympathy for Redis nee Labs. It was never their project. They took over stewardship and then effectively stole the project for themselves. They’re not even the dominant contributor to the core product.
- anonthrow 3y ago
  I agree with your points min general but want to share my experience and maybe some counterpoint. Being a customer of the redis labs' hosted solution, we noticed several issues: - RLs solution is way more cost effective than AWS's - RLs solution is not even close to elasticache in its ability to scale - when issues occur the organization internally moves incredibly slowly so simple issues can turn into prolonged outages Moving to this licensing model will make it possible for them to better invest in these things. That said, given the quality of their offering and lack of investment in the actual redis platform, why would anyone continue to use redis after the license change? The cloud providers can fork off their own version and never look back! I think they're shooting themselves in the foot here.
  - pm90 3y ago
    > RLs solution is way more cost effective than AWS's Its not cost effective if the service causes extended outages as you mentioned later.
- YeBanKo 3y ago
  Seems similar to what Elastic did few years ago [1]. I kinda understand their motivation. It's not theirs originally, but they had antirez working on it for 5 years as their employee. They are making some contributions [2], I wish GH had a way to see such an insight by company affiliation. On the other hand, AWS and likes can easily fork pre-license-change version and spin it into its own product. However, I am fairly certain that AWS Elasticache is already such a thing – their own fork that diverged enough from the upstream and they are not eager to share. So I view it as every major cloud provider with redis offering has its own fork. Except that Redis Labs also owns the original name. But it can go on as a stand alone project, like MariDB was spawn off after MySQL acquisition by Oracle. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25776657 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25776657 [2] https://github.com/redis/redis/graphs/contributors?from=2019-11-09&to=2024-03-28&type=c https://github.com/redis/redis/graphs/contributors?from=2019...
hardwaresofton 3y ago
Somehow no one has mentioned KeyDB so: https://github.com/Snapchat/KeyDB https://github.com/Snapchat/KeyDB [EDIT] whoops, didn't read the article, went immediately to comments for recommendations since that's what HN is good at IMO.
- manacit 3y ago
  It's mentioned in the first paragraph of the article, and "KeyDB" is featured 14 more times throughout the rest of it.
- Signez 3y ago
  Well, it's talked about lenghtly in the article.
- secondcoming 3y ago
  KeyDB is flaky garbage
  - hardwaresofton 3y ago
    Whoaaaa I’d love some details on this reaction, do you have any stories or anecdotes to share? I have to say I’ve never hit its limits so I’ve never lost trust in it
    - secondcoming 3y ago
      https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=secondcoming#39865664 https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=secondcoming#3986566...
  - pimsn3000 3y ago
    Please explain
    - secondcoming 3y ago
      We got hit by [0] and so had to pin to an older version (we didn't raise the issue). Also, just look at the amount of open bugs and their age [1] They also recommend using swap for some reason, however if your memory usage reaches the point where swap is being used the performance is so bad that the machine may as well be dead. It's been nothing but trouble, which is a shame because the changes they've done to redis have crossed my mind too. We'll probably move to Scylla. [0] https://github.com/Snapchat/KeyDB/issues/465 https://github.com/Snapchat/KeyDB/issues/465 [1] https://github.com/Snapchat/KeyDB/issues https://github.com/Snapchat/KeyDB/issues
brody_hamer 3y ago
It wasn’t clear to me until I read their blog, that redis will remain free to use in their “community edition”, which will continue to be supported and maintained (and improved!) So we as developers don’t have to scramble to replace redis in our SAAS apps and web based software. This is more about preventing AWS from eating their lunch by providing redis-as-a-service, without paying any sort of compensation to the redis developers. Redis’ blog post: https://redis.com/blog/redis-adopts-dual-source-available-licensing/ https://redis.com/blog/redis-adopts-dual-source-available-li...
- dkuntz2 3y ago
  Well, except for the fact that "redis" the organization didn't create redis and isn't even the main developer of redis. The origin of Redis the company is literally as a hosting provider for the open source redis that they didn't create.
  - objektif 3y ago
    This is what I am confused about so what right do they have to enforce AWS from selling Redis when they do not own it?
    - mythz 3y ago
      The licensing change only applies to their future versions which they own all contributions of which AWS won't be allowed to leech off anymore.
      - happymellon 3y ago
        > AWS won't be allowed to leech off anymore. Doesn't AWS employ Madelyn Olson? I mean, AWS have paid for Redis development. Not exactly a leech.
        mythz 3y ago
        Yep still the biggest leachers. Token hires and flowery PR campaigns doesn't entitle them to most of the profits of other vendors products or absolve them of their predatory behavior. But they wont be able to leech Redis's future contributions. Knowing AWS they'll most likely create a fork to continue raking in most of the profits in the short-term.
gymbeaux 3y ago
AWS also forked ElasticSearch into their “OpenSearch” DBaaS. It caused some issues at my last job because OpenSearch limited us to a particular version of the NEST .NET library that was missing some newer functionality. Real bummer and feels like a step in the wrong direction given all we’ve accomplished in tech over the last 20 years.
- BoorishBears 3y ago
  OpenSearch infuriates me to no end. It lacks so many improvements and advancements since the ancient version it was forked at, but because AWS already has an org's payments details, teams often refuse to look at Elasticsearch. Even basic things like autocompleting queries have been WIP for half a decade now: https://github.com/opendistro-for-elasticsearch/sample-code/issues/86 https://github.com/opendistro-for-elasticsearch/sample-code/... https://github.com/opensearch-project/OpenSearch-Dashboards/issues/1176 https://github.com/opensearch-project/OpenSearch-Dashboards/... The superiority AWS was slinging when they "bravely" took the mantle looks terrible in retrospect
  - busterarm 3y ago
    Teams should refuse to look at Elasticsearch. It's license is SSPL and they ship free and non-free features in the same binary. It's a ticking time bomb to run it in your company. Also you can just keep your data in postgres and use paradedb and stop having to deal with dramatically more expensive infrastructure and the JVM.
    - BoorishBears 3y ago
      Ah yes, battle-tested Elasticsearch is a ticking time bomb for not wanting to get their lunch eaten by Jeff Bezos. Just use this pre-V1 public beta software I stumbled upon instead.
      - wokwokwok 3y ago
        The reality is that open search will be (if it is not already) more widely deployed and “battle tested” with bugs that production use raise resolved in it. The narrative that opensearch is some kind of unsafe abandonware is clearly nonsense when you read the commit log: https://github.com/opensearch-project/OpenSearch/commits/main/ https://github.com/opensearch-project/OpenSearch/commits/mai... All I can say is, sure, if you want elastic use elastic. …but opensearch is fine. I use it and have no problem with it.
klabb3 3y ago
Why don’t we try to fix the “cannot be used for bezos yacht”-licenses instead of shunning the numerous companies of especially databases who want to do good in a meaningful way? Source available is good, better than proprietary which is what we get with aws, but still not enough. People are legitimately afraid of rug pulls, like sneaking in essential features into paid offerings. I think a lot of the skepticism comes from those unknowns. Afaik the non-discriminatory use is the only ideological hard line. I guess people can debate that forever, like with GPL and copyleft and such. But my edgy take is that most people don’t really care about deep ideology yet want something that promotes a healthy hacker- and small-business friendly open source ecosystem. Ideally, a simple, well-understood license that restricts “re-selling your product” and not much more, that you can slap on a project without a legal team, just like with the MIT license.
- wmf 3y ago
  A bunch of people are working on this from different angles. It's in a chaotic phase right now but it will probably consolidate later.
- llm_trw 3y ago
  The best idea I've come up with is a license which only grants the rights to a natural person to use the software otherwise it is identical to the MIT, GPL or AGPL, whatever your cup of tea is. If you're a corporation then you need to buy a license.
  - akoboldfrying 3y ago
    This could be an interesting idea, but how would this constrain incorporating the licensed software in a larger piece of software? Either as a library, or a component like a Docker image? Would it be "viral" in the sense that, if I want to publish software that internally uses a Docker container running software with such a license, my own software can be used only by natural persons?
    - llm_trw 3y ago
      Yes, you will have to publish under a license with the same clauses. Not because you are distributing it, but because only natural persons can run the software.
rokkitmensch 3y ago
I so very much wish that Datomic had been licensed this way.
- School-Cotton 3y ago
  Why?
  - rokkitmensch 3y ago
    Because in the absence of source access, your query planner is "call one of Rich Hickeys goons".
PHGamer 3y ago
Do we need to "FIX" opensource? I am being serious here. It seems like people aren't getting it. Open Source is about openess and the ability to modify. Yes, people can lose money to cloud provider hosting but why does an Open Source project need to make a lot of money? I say alot because its not like they can't still make money. They can still consult, they can still offer support or hosting but because theyre not making millions they want a "new" license. Its stupid. you solve the itch then your done unless your doing maintance. people making open source software like paid software, constantly adding new features and changing things to justify their existance. You dont need millions in devs if your just solving a core problem.
- Semaphor 3y ago
  Are there even any non-VC-backed companies with those issues? Whenever this drama and forking happens, it seems to be venture capital.
- deleted 3y ago
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fractalb 3y ago
I feel copyleft licenses look more favourable at this point of time. What’s the value of more free/business friendly licenses if you can’t guarantee that the same license will apply for all the future releases? Looks more like a bait and switch policy.
- paulryanrogers 3y ago
  The future is never guaranteed. Much less if you have no paid contract with the people building and maintaining the floor underneath your feet.
  - fractalb 3y ago
    AWS, GCP have assurance that they won't need to pay for their Linux infrastructure. What is it if it wasn't for copyleft licenses(GPL)?
    - endisneigh 3y ago
      What assurance is that?
- crabmusket 3y ago
  Am I right in understanding that the relicensing was possible because of the CLA, not just because of the BSD license? Would a permissively licensed project that didn't use a CLA be vulnerable in the same way?
  - fractalb 3y ago
    GPL mandates that all derived software must carry the same license. No need for CLA, as I understand it.
    - fractalb 3y ago
      I misunderstood your comment. Yes, CLA's make it possible to change the license. I guess CLA's won't work for GPL'd software.
ayakang31415 3y ago
There is an easy solution not just for this, but for other potential masses: Just go with MIT license and make money with support
- sa-code 3y ago
  How does this stop you from "getting Jeff'd", i.e. when AWS takes your own source code and competes with you?
  - lolinder 3y ago
    "Getting Jeff'd" is only an existential crisis if your goal is to own the majority of the pie. Postgres's contributors come from a bunch of different companies who all manage to make enough money off of Postgres to pay them [0]. That is the only financial metric that really matters for funding a FOSS project. The problem with these companies is that they actually were trying to make large returns for shareholders rather than simply earn enough to keep paying the developers. [0] https://www.postgresql.org/community/contributors/ https://www.postgresql.org/community/contributors/
- IshKebab 3y ago
  You're vastly overestimating how much companies want to pay for support.
  - renegade-otter 3y ago
    And if they do pay for support - it will be to Jeff Bezos and not some raggy startup of five. Support is usually for big corporate clients, and the Cover Your Ass principle works in full force there. "No one ever got fired for choosing IBM".
    - blitzar 3y ago
      They wont get totally cut out though - Jeff Bezos will send the bugs they find while servicing their $10mil a year service contract to the raggy startup of five to fix over a weekend between their 3 jobs while sustaining themselves on the most expensive food they can afford - a bowl of discount ramen.
kazinator 3y ago
Why don't the distros just take the last free version and fork from there.
- kqr 3y ago
  Isn't that what redict is?
  - kazinator 3y ago
    I see that it is. So then I don't see what the hoopla is about at all. The software is all there. Some dickheads forked a proprietary version. They got the name, which will be their consolation prize in their voyage to irrelevance; nice knowing you. Meanwhile, what everyone uses marches on.
    - palata 3y ago
      I believe that the hoopla is about the CLA. It feels immoral for an open source project to accept contributions but require a CLA, and later change the license for all those contributions that were never compensated.
      - kazinator 3y ago
        If a GPL-ed project requires copyright transfers and then spins a proprietary version, it makes sense for people to be upset. But Redis was BSD or BSD-like, no? Proprietary forks can happen with or without CLA, so it is moot. I would say rather the opposite. If a developer contributes to a BSD (or similar) licensed program (under that same license of course), then at that point they are letting anyone anywhere do whatever they want with the code, as long as copyright notices are preserved. Then, if someone forks a proprietary version of the program (in a way that complies with that developer's license for those files) and that developer gets upset and tries to revoke the copyright license, that developer is the bad actor, not the forkster. In the context of BSD-like permissive licenses, requirments for CLA, I think, would only be a form of legal safeguard against such situations, where people change their mind.
kqr 3y ago
I liked Andrew Kelleys perspective on this: let's treat Redict as a rename of the Redis project, and the project now called "Redis" a weird commercial fork of Redict. https://andrewkelley.me/post/redis-renamed-to-redict.html https://andrewkelley.me/post/redis-renamed-to-redict.html
- Kwpolska 3y ago
  This article lists the other contenders for the title of new Redis, and I think Redict is going to be the least successful thanks to its founder, niche hosting site, and the hostile AGPL licence.
  - c0l0 3y ago
    It's not AGPL, but LGPL-3.0-only. Neither of these licenses is "hostile". And ftr, in my eyes, a project being created/initiated by ddevault is an asset, certainly not a liability.
    - rmbyrro 3y ago
      You are correct. The issue is that any [X]GPL license has bad reputation in business environments. They see it as a big legal risk that will require constant legal supervision over the technical usage of GPL-licensed code.
      - palata 3y ago
        And they should learn. LGPL is really not that hard to use. If more open source projects adopted it, then business environments would have to adapt.
      - c0l0 3y ago
        ¯\_(")_/¯ I pity the fool(s).
      - rakoo 3y ago
        Poor little things that do not want to share anything want to work as little as possible. If only we could collectively diminish our commons to make life easier for companies.
punnerud 3y ago
Interesting that around 40% of the commits to Reddit is from Chinese companies (Tencent 24.8%, Alibaba 6.8, Huawei 5.2, Bytedance 2)
- rs_rs_rs_rs_rs 3y ago
  Why is that interesting?
  - jpgvm 3y ago
    Not so much interesting as it is normal these days. Chinese big tech is much more OSS focussed than US big tech in my experience.
  - maerF0x0 3y ago
    Because tencent consistently won Pwn2own and other CTF competitions until their government turned protectionist/isolationist and disallowed them from disclosing 0days to the world? https://cyberscoop.com/pwn2own-chinese-researchers-360-technologies-trend-micro/ https://cyberscoop.com/pwn2own-chinese-researchers-360-techn...
harryf 3y ago
To me Redis has always seemed like a Trojan Horse for developers. The first impression is its this simple key-value database, so easy to use. Oh wait... it's also a cache, nice! Let's cache all the things too! And look... all the cool kids are are using it too, so it must be cool, meanwhile the old Unix mantra of make each program do one thing well. To do a new job, build afresh rather than complicate old programs by adding new features. ( http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/taoup/html/ch01s06.html http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/taoup/html/ch01s06.html ). Fast forward 10 years and you need to download it's Enterprise Whitepaper ( https://redis.com/solutions/use-cases/caching/ https://redis.com/solutions/use-cases/caching/ ) to make the right caching decisions. Where this is coming from is having worked on a project where Redis was being used as a database and a cache, on different ports. And of course most of the dev team hadn't read the the manual because Redis "is simple and just works". And of course someone forgot to actually configure the Redis instance that was supposed to be a cache to actually _be_ a cache. And someone else thought the instance that was supposed to be a cache but wasn't was actually a database. And yet another had used TTL caching to solve all their performance issues. And pretty soon mystery bugs start showing up but sadly no one can actually REASON about what the whole thing is doing any more, but there's no time to actually clean up the mess because it's a startup struggling to stay afloat. And I remember asking "why didn't you memcached for caching?" and the response was "Dude! No one is using memcached any more". So the technical decision for Redis was based on "what's cool right now". Anyway... I feel a bigger rant brewing so I'll stop here.
- deleted 3y ago
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- cmacleod4 3y ago
  Redis is a very useful tool. You shouldn't blame the tool if people can't be bothered to use it properly!
- rnts08 3y ago
  hear hear.
- kunley 3y ago
  I think it's rather features were added to Redis out of the experience and craft, not just to "lure future users into a pit", I doubt antirez would have that in mind. But I think you described right the social behaviors of certain/common types of users.
CyanLite2 3y ago
Microsoft's Garnet has the best chance of replacing Redis, the OSS project and the hosting company. Article doesn't mention it, but supposedly Microsoft uses novel algorithms and multi threading to achieve an order of magnitude improvement in throughput. Now if they can commercialize it with Azure, it should be a credible alternative to Redis Enterprise hosting.
- ddorian43 3y ago
  Probably not, because it's new and incompatible with many Redis use cases (lua scripts, etc).
  - alternatex 3y ago
    Most Redis users don't really do scripting though. If Microsoft manages to replace Redis for most use cases they will succeed.
- rmbyrro 3y ago
  Article does mention it
- bcye 3y ago
  Let's replace a project that failed because of a CLA with another project that requires a CLA
  - BartjeD 3y ago
    Garnet is MIT licensed. See: https://github.com/microsoft/garnet https://github.com/microsoft/garnet
    - bcye 3y ago
      And requires a CLA, see the same link
      - dindresto 3y ago
lukaszwojtow 3y ago
All this outcry about license switch coming from "community" feels funny. After all, if there is the "community" then they can take the last open-source version and keep developing it themselves, right? But most "communities" are about "take, take, take", not "work, work, work". They often upset only because someone declared they aren't going to work for free any more.
- jychang 3y ago
  That's a dumb take. That completely ignores opportunity cost of such actions. You can't just spin up a fork like that; there's barriers to entry, network effects, etc which prevent that from being a simple solution.
  - endisneigh 3y ago
    You really can just spin up a fork
- pjmlp 3y ago
  Yeah, it is incredible how the whole free software movement turned into a bunch of entitled folks that want to be paid for their work, while refusing to put down any penny for the folks that make their tooling possible in first place. At the same time big corps use it as carte blanche to basically pirate software in a legal way, while following the letter of the licence. Going back to the open core/demo versions (aka Shareware/Public Domain/Trials) is the only sustainable way to make a living.
  - chii 3y ago
    > Going back to the open core/demo versions aka, just sell software, rather than make it open source. What is being balked at is the idea that you can use open-source as a foot-in-the-door marketing and growth hack, which you then reap after some level of popularity/network effect is reached. Some call it bait and switch. Blaming big corps for "leeching" is just self-serving. They are doing exactly what the license allows them to do - a license for which was chosen at the start to allow for it! If you expected to be paid to make this software, don't opensource it.
graycat 3y ago
Redis, Redis, again more about Redis .... From you people who know a lot about Redis, help me out here: For my Web site code (for my startup), I needed a key-value store. Soooo, it looks like I could use Redis for that. But instead, wrote a little code using two instances of a Microsoft .NET collection class. Simple code. Plenty fast. Welcome programming exercise using .NET classes. Cheap -- no ongoing charges and no chance of charges in the future. And, no concerns about what might happen from politics, business, some remote service, etc. Question: What am I missing by using my little DIY (do it yourself, roll your own) solution and avoiding Redis, work of other people, or a service from Amazon Web Services, etc.????
- rmbyrro 3y ago
  You are presuming everyone has the same needs as you had when assessing Redis, which is a bit naive, if I may share my opinion.
  - graycat 3y ago
    > You are presuming ... No, no, not at all: I admit, accept that no doubt Redis has a lot more functionality than the few pages of code I wrote. My question was: My code looks like it will do what I need done, but maybe I'm missing something, i.e., maybe Redis has some features that very likely I should have? If want to expand the question to other people, what is the chance that usually Redis is overkill, more functionality, code, complexity, considerations, ..., than needed? I don't know so am asking. Or, I had a 2 wheel drive car, but did I miss a lot not having a 4 wheel drive car that I nearly always used in only two wheel drive?
    - JackSlateur 3y ago
      If that is enough for you, then that is good You may need data persistence (keep the data live while you restart your process), cross-instance coherencies could be nice too, automatic data expiration too. But if you do not, then it is ok!
      - 3y ago
WOnderFullGOnzo 3y ago
[dead]
somat 3y ago
It reminds me of the berkely db situation, where they(sleepycat software at the time, but now I think it is owned by oracle) changed the license to try and sell it, and everyone just kept using the last bsd licensed version.
rcarmo 3y ago
I’ve started keeping tabs on forks and alternatives: https://taoofmac.com/space/protocols/redis https://taoofmac.com/space/protocols/redis
- deleted 3y ago
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vrtx0 3y ago
Whoa, very biased article (especially for LWN). Only cites media coverage; no links supporting that Amazon, MSFT, Google, etc. were in fact EEE’ing (or at best, behaving unethically) with each of these projects. It even suggests cloud providers did contribute, and uses bad data (git commits “by employer” w/o dataset) that basically contradicts their argument. I may be biased, as I saw Amazon doing exactly what this article claims “maybe they weren’t”. But statements like this seem intentionally misleading, and easily disproven: “Distributing a source-available version of MongoDB could be seen as a loss-leader strategy to reach developers that the company wagered did not care about open-source.” MongoDB is still “source-available”, and on the same GitHub repo I’ve used since 2010. The SSPL only impacts cloud-providers, and has exceptions for cloud providers who release their source code. The OSI doesn’t get to define open-source. Neither do I, but at least I was part of the community for ~20 years…
- JackSlateur 3y ago
  Bah The OSI doesn’t get to define open-source. By definition: yes, they do. The SSPL only impacts cloud-providers It impacts all people who manages mongodb for somebody else, which is a lot of hosting providers (many of which probably do not care about the licence and are too small to get caught)
whirlwin 3y ago
I see valkey getting a lot of attention recently, as it is a newly founded alternative. What is the major differences over using TiKV which has been around for many years? https://www.cncf.io/projects/tikv/ https://www.cncf.io/projects/tikv/
andy_ppp 3y ago
Can’t I just keep using the old version?
koromak 3y ago
I'm actually sympathetic to the cloud provider angle. As of right now, that is the natural trajectory. The majority of high-value customers are going to go through a cloud provider. Maybe some kind of new license is in order. Open source, but preventing cloud redistribution. I don't know, I can imagine the issues with that as well. You want AWS out, but you probably still want the small up-and-coming CI/CD tool in.
dangoodmanUT 3y ago
Why would Snap support Valkey if they have KeyDB?
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nurple 3y ago
I'm disappointed that FOSS discussions like this always devolve into profit-focused arguments. It's no wonder our "freedoms" in the software world have slowly but steadily been shifting to look exactly like our "freedoms" in the physical world: artificial scarcity apportioned by the few using their leverage over systems which put you in a steel cage if you don't play along. And here we are, arguing with each other using the terms of those who seek to enslave us to their control. The fact that these billion and trillion dollar tech companies even exist is a testament to our failure.
blackoil 3y ago
Far more involved people are in this thread, but my 2c. Forking of software isn't a big issue, but of the community is. If new software was R++ which company will close and original Redis is now in hands of the community everyone would have been OK. The community is built organically and has contributed a lot over the years. Now, it will have to be built again where the efforts would be diluted in multiple forks till they gravitate toward one. Maybe AWS, Tencent, MS will back one and we'll have to settle on a version backed by corporates.
hackerdad 3y ago
Netflix created a fully peer to peer distributed Redis compatible DB https://github.com/Netflix/dynomite https://github.com/Netflix/dynomite
marsupialtail_2 3y ago
The sincerest form of flattery is when AWS decides to come up with a big consortium to displace you with some open source. Incidentally the most effectively way to stall a project according to the CIA is to have a huge guiding committee with clearly diverging interests. Redis will win because it's focused on its users. It's competitors will lose. Like OpenSearch, like OpenCL etc.
osigurdson 3y ago
I wonder if there is a use case for an open source permissive license that also cannot be changed. Several companies have started off with MIT in infancy and then switch to something else later when successful to improve monetization. I mean, I get it, everyone wants to become billionaire, but best to be honest about it up front.
edkvmn 3y ago
As many others pointed out before, Redis Labs did not create the project, they started to provide Redis as a hosted solution just like other cloud providers, and with time gained control. Redis Labs is not the only contributors to the project, Tencent and AWS contribute as well. For Redis Labs the open source license was a distribution channel which they benefited tremendously. I'm not an AWS fanboy but they operate some hosted solution significantly better than the companies building the products, at least the core offerings, this is what happened with Elastic and MonogDB. It is Redis Labs prerogative to change the license, but they can also build a product around Redis that will drive customers to them instead of AWS, an offering that will be hard to replicate. IMHO making a business that is "reselling" server capacity that was bought from AWS and trying to make a profit, can come back and bite you.
garfieldnate 3y ago
Maybe it's good for GitHub, GitLab, etc. to be as open and liberal as possible with its definition of open source, but I think there is definitely an argument to be made that businesses making source available without actually open-sourcing it should pay to have it hosted. GitHub didn't become proactive about asking users to add licenses to repos until far into its existence, and there's plenty of code there that doesn't have an explicit license, but I think participating in the open source community should actually require that your source is open. License proliferation is already an issue, but adding non-open source to GitHub seems especially dangerous to me. The license should be highlighted in bright red with a big note saying that users are not allowed to do what they will with the source code.
PeterZaitsev 3y ago
One thing I think people underappreciate is license compatibility - the projects which bundled BSD redis very likely can't bundle SSPL redis without changing their own license, or not at all if some other components are licensed with license not compatible with SSPL This is actually the good news as it makes it all but certain there will be well maintained Open Source Redis alternative.

759 points by chmaynard 3y ago

I'd be more interested in the race to build a business model that works with open source and venture funding, myself. A grand unified theory of software goods funding, if you will.

leetrout 3y ago
Yep. Been wondering where this is headed with the recent YC batch posts claiming they are gonna be all opensource and make money on cloud offering
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
crabmusket 3y ago
Why specifically venture funding?
- SteveNuts 3y ago
  Because of the expected revenue and growth that comes with it.
- 1over137 3y ago
  Because this is HN, lots of VC fanboys here.
- mooreds 3y ago
  My thesis is that when you don't have the pressure of VC funding (gotta hit the revenue numbers you promise to investors sooner or later), alignment between the business and the OSS community isn't as tough to find.
  - crabmusket 3y ago
    I'd agree with that. Your message sounded to me like you thought VC funding was desirable for software projects. I wonder why we can't just fund software like a regular business- why look for venture returns?
    - mooreds 3y ago
      That works great! I think the best money to get to run a business comes from customers. Bootstrapping is great. However, just like fewer homes would be owned if you didn't have mortgages, less software companies would exist without VC. It's basically a subsidy from the rich, endowments and pensions, to the rest of us (consumers because we get stuff for free, developers because it increases the demand and thus salaries for us). I think VC is a net benefit to the world in terms of software delivered and companies built. I think OSS is a net benefit to the world because of the explosion of possible ideas and the leverage it lets developers have as they build on it. I would love to see these two huge innovations in building software work together well. Haven't seen it yet, hence my original comment.
throwaway13337 3y ago
This is indeed interesting. The historically 'good' open source companies like Sun got bought but the ones that weren't like Oracle. The selling support model alone does not seem evolutionarily fit for the market. Now we have these VC-backed 'open source' companies that have a playbook wherein they appear open source at first. But when you dig deeper, you find that the heart of the thing is a closed binary. The investors are going to want to be paid back somehow. And the business model of VC means that one of two things happens: 1. The company finds a way to 100x the return. Which, if you're a customer, might be a scary prospect. 2. The company makes an amount somewhat lower and, while it would be a good business for a non-VC company, they're considered a zombie by their investors. So, they are killed leaving you as a customer in a bad position. I therefore trust non-VC backed companies substantially more to keep alignment with their customers long-term. A workable model could be for instead companies that have legally-enforceable promise not to enshitify their closed sourced product. So that the product will always be aligned with the paying customer. The customer cannot be made the product at a future date.
- arp242 3y ago
  Sun was mainly a hardware business; you bought their workstations and servers. And oh, they also had this unix-y thing that came with that. Later software did become a bit more important with Java and MySQL and all of that, but it was still primarily hardware company. I think it's pointless to even compare it to the Redis company; just about everything is different.
  - mooreds 3y ago
    For sure. It's the difference between commoditizing your complement[0] and trying to build a business on something anyone can run for free. 0: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/06/12/strategy-letter-v/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/06/12/strategy-letter-v/
candiddevmike 3y ago
I think something like https://bigtimelicense.com/ https://bigtimelicense.com/ is a good start.
- ceejayoz 3y ago
  Their definition of "fair, reasonable, and nondiscriminatory terms" seems... incredibly vague, and with a big chicken-and-egg problem for the first license. > If the licensor advertises license terms and a pricing structure for generally available commercial licenses, the licensor proposes license terms and a price as advertised, and a customer not affiliated with the licensor has bought a commercial license for the software on substantially equivalent terms in the past year, the proposal is fair, reasonable, and nondiscriminatory.
  - kemitchell 3y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reasonable_and_non-discriminatory_licensing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reasonable_and_non-discriminat...
    - ceejayoz 3y ago
      Which says "While there are no legal precedents to spell out specifically what the actual terms mean..."
deleted 3y ago
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kemitchell 3y ago
I wonder if software really deserves its own economics. If you haven't read Hal Varian's Information Rules, I highly recommend it. Check the publication date, then read it anyway, then reflect on the publication date when you're done. I found it very worthwhile.
- jhoechtl 3y ago
  Yes, this is a great read. After that many years it still influences me. However it is not that kind of book you read before going to bed. It requires intense studies to take something out of it.
- zoilism 3y ago
  Thanks for the recommendation, I downloaded it & started reading and yes it's a treasure trove.
llm_trw 3y ago
You go homeless so Bezos can make his yacht a foot longer. I find it amazing how much money is being spent to ensure open source code doesn't end up in the hands of users and how many people are blaming the ones trying to increase user freedom.
- jhoechtl 3y ago
  Good to read that on HN. A fair share of HN Readers and supporters belong to that crowd ...
coldtea 3y ago
Maybe we instead need a model where FOSS is not about profits for anybody, and is just a passion of love, from a large community of amateurs doing it for the technology and fun. Projects could still be funded by community users, but "venture funding"? That's how projects turn to shit.
- School-Cotton 3y ago
  In such a world most of the open source software you’re used to wouldn’t exist (or would be much less complete) and you’d be forced to work with and use proprietary systems most of the time.
  - coldtea 3y ago
    >In such a world most of the open source software you’re used to wouldn’t exist As part of that world, I also want livable wages and work-life balance for developers, so they can work on their passion FOSS off-call. And for students and programming enthusiasts to be more passionate about FOSS. Like in the 90s before the corporates took over FOSS. If some FOSS still wouldn't exist then, I'm fine with that.
- jacooper 3y ago
  That's works for small stuff like self hosted images, but will never work for anything actually reliable.
  - prepend 3y ago
    Doesn’t it work for the Linux kernel? And https? And lots of other stuff?
    - t888 3y ago
      No. A lot of that work is sponsored.
      - sethherr 3y ago
mixmastamyk 3y ago
FLOSS-5: freedom to contribute 5% of profit if powering a cloud service.
harpratap 3y ago
This is very good use case of micro-transactions. If AWS makes $100 off Redis, they should be pay back X% to Redis project, from which the money is distributed to contributors based on how important their contributions were. Also Redis project is also supposed to pay back to the software components and 3rd party libraries it uses, so C project gets a fair share of the pie contributed back to them as well.
tsimionescu 3y ago
Such a business model exists and it's extremely well proven, and it powers the majority of major open source software: build a proprietary product or service, and open source any component that is more of a cost than it is a unique selling point of your system. Do you need a faster compiler, or a better OS, or some cluster operator just to get your widget factory working? Don't build those in house, instead find others with the same problems and create an open source project together to work on them. But don't try to sell open source software. It's essentially impossible to do that, it has been tried time and time again and success is rare, and huge success is basically unheard of (RedHat being probably the one single exception).
- mooreds 3y ago
  > Such a business model exists and it's extremely well proven, and it powers the majority of major open source software: build a proprietary product or service, and open source any component that is more of a cost than it is a unique selling point of your system. Sure, it is the commoditize your complement strategy [0]. But that doesn't help get complex open source products to market, it only helps with tooling. Maybe you are right and there's no way to directly pair the freedoms of OSS with the capitalism of VC backed startup. 0: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/06/12/strategy-letter-v/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/06/12/strategy-letter-v/
bawolff 3y ago
Just because people want to make money off something doesn't neccesarily mean they deserve to.

tison 3y ago

For the first time, I know our (Apache Kvrocks, an alternative to Redis on Flash) committer Binbin Wang committed nearly 25% of the commits to the newer Redis version. You can find his contributor for both at: * https://github.com/apache/kvrocks/graphs/contributors https://github.com/apache/kvrocks/graphs/contributors * https://github.com/redis/redis/graphs/contributors https://github.com/redis/redis/graphs/contributors

tison 3y ago
And here is an interesting conversation when Binbin came to the Kvrocks community: https://github.com/apache/kvrocks/pull/1581#issuecomment-1632391700 https://github.com/apache/kvrocks/pull/1581#issuecomment-163... * Me: @enjoy-binbin Out of curiosity, do you have a fuzzer to test out Kvrocks? Your recent great fixes seem like a combo rather than random findings :D * Binbin: They were actually random findings.I may be sensitive to this, doing code review and found them (also based on my familiarity with redis)
- masklinn 3y ago
  Yeah some folks are built different. I’ve a colleague who once every few weeks opens random files and notices weird patterns, I’ve no idea how his mind works but boy does it work.
- ryanjshaw 3y ago
  Why does the fix work like that - only checking for this one scenario when you decrement by type max? [1] In Solidity, where it's a serious security risk, before the language performed overflow checks itself, library authors would perform the arithmetic operation and then e.g. check if the result is larger than the original value in the case of a positive subtrahend [2]. [1] https://github.com/apache/kvrocks/pull/1581/commits/dc5140dd0c7ffdbb028fad238154622a60853b23 https://github.com/apache/kvrocks/pull/1581/commits/dc5140dd... [2] https://github.com/KingdomStudiosIO/contracts/blob/51873b574236822c31d5825351f2492af303fc2d/contracts/libraries/SignedSafeMath.sol#L67 https://github.com/KingdomStudiosIO/contracts/blob/51873b574...

esafak 3y ago

There's also DragonflyDB

hipadev23 3y ago
Yeah but if you’re going to the trouble of switching, probably pick something that actually outperforms Redis/Redis Cluster. Which basically leaves you with Garnet. Redict is a pointless endeavor. Just stick with Redis 7.2 before the licensing change. Maybe change the binary name if it makes folks feel better.
- lll-o-lll 3y ago
  Isn’t this exactly what Redict is? Plus a license change to prevent what happened to Redis from happening again.
dralley 3y ago
DragonflyDB doesn't have a better licensing situation.
wallmountedtv 3y ago
Dragonfly isn't open source nor free software. Rather a pointless switch if you ask me.
- worldsoup 3y ago
  it is free and source available...it's BSL which is slightly more permissive than SSPL that Redis adopted

redwood 3y ago

[flagged]

ralusek 3y ago

Am I insane or can't a company just fork it from before the license change? I mean, what even needs to change in it? I assume 95% of people were just using it for the features it's had since the beginning anyway.

tredre3 3y ago
> Am I insane or can't a company just fork it from before the license change? The article mentions half a dozen such forks. So not insane, maybe just a bit lazy ;).
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MenhirMike 3y ago
The question - just like always in cases like this - is which forks will get long-term support. So just like with Terraform, it's probably a good option to stay on the last open source Redis version and wait to see how things shake out, assuming that there are no critical security vulnerabilities in that version of Redis. Alternatively, be prepared to jump around between a few forks if one turns into a dead end. Or move to something else altogether, but that's a much bigger undertaking.

west0n 3y ago

Neal Gompa opened a discussion on the Fedora development list, noting the license change and the need to remove Redis from Fedora. Gompa also raised the issue on openSUSE's Factory discussion list. After Docker was phased out, various distributions have adopted the compatible Podman as a replacement for Docker. It seems that a similar story is unfolding with Redis.

jacooper 3y ago
Docker was only phased out in red hat distros because they don't like it and want to push Podman. Others still have docker packaged in their repos.
- dralley 3y ago
  A bit reductionist. IIRC the main reason Docker was phased out because Red Hat wanted to push rootless, daemonless containers, which required CGroups v2, which Docker didn't want to support for the longest time. Since both versions of CGroups can't be enabled simultaneously, and no distro wanted to go without Docker (or at least Docker-like) functionality, CGroups v2 was left in permanent stasis, and so Red Hat started Podman to break the deadlock. There were a laundry list of other technical disagreements (mostly around security) but that was the primary one. And then once Red Hat distros switched over to CGroups v2, which Podman enabled them to do, it meant that Docker wouldn't really work all that well anymore until they eventually switched to CGroups v2 also (which they eventually did a few years later). So that's why it got removed from the repos, at least originally.
- tick_tock_tick 3y ago
  It's not in Debian and their wiki straight up directs you to podman with a nice big scary warning about dockers root issue. https://wiki.debian.org/Docker https://wiki.debian.org/Docker Docker is dyeing on linux podman will be the only one that remains.
  - aragilar 3y ago
    It's in Debian: https://packages.debian.org/sid/docker.io https://packages.debian.org/sid/docker.io

dtjohnnymonkey 3y ago

I always wanted to try Pelikan Cache, but it’s hard to take a risk when there is Redis. Maybe now it’s more palatable.

s-ta 3y ago

From HN a few days ago: https://github.com/microsoft/Garnet https://github.com/microsoft/Garnet A Microsoft Research, open source, performant, almost RESP compatible alternative (according to them)

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Yasuraka 3y ago
There is also Valkey, a fork from just before the change backed by AWS, Google, Oracle who are paying a few former core devs https://github.com/valkey-io/valkey https://github.com/valkey-io/valkey And not to forget Redict, also a fork, that is maintained by drew devault https://codeberg.org/redict/redict https://codeberg.org/redict/redict
- deleted 3y ago
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hfucvyv 3y ago

[dead]

FrustratedMonky 3y ago

Engineers have to eat too. Nothing wrong with charging for support. I love passion projects as much as anyone, but there is a reason they are hobbies, and people need to keep a day job. Eventually it does get tiring to do support for free. Edit: Ok. I was talking OSS generally. I guess Redis is being bad actor if they are taking OSS work and running away with it to get the money, and not compensating the contributors. That is very wrong. I don't know history on Redis and assumed it was the contributors that founded the company.

aurareturn 3y ago
I agree. People here always seem to react badly to companies that provide something for free and now want to make a bit of money. It’s weird because they themselves work in tech and have to earn a living to put food on the table. Having no way of making money isn’t sustainable.
- smt88 3y ago
  The problem here is that this isn't putting food on the table for the people who actually built the software. It's a company surprising everyone by pocketing the money from other people's hard, unpaid work.
  - freeAgent 3y ago
    The license change is only for future versions, though. The work already put in remains open source.
blackoil 3y ago
I think the main issue is bait and switch. You start with a license, get lots of external contributors who are working for free, get ecosystem built around it for free and then change because you want to be paid.
- FrustratedMonky 3y ago
  I agree. I'm not sure how nefarious this Redis move was. I guess I was assuming any move from 'free', to 'paid', will be met with some outcry regardless of how seamless they can pull it off. Or in other words, it is always a messy transition?

nerdponx 3y ago

Isn't this the reason why AGPL has started to get more popular? Everyone has to play by the very strict rules except the copyright holder, who can do whatever they want, but the community still benefits from the core software being open source. The BSD license in particular seems like a particularly bad way to run a business.

jhoechtl 3y ago
Absolutely! And the haters of that license either do not understand it or have their user-hostile intentions. Or plan to make money with other people's love and free-time.
verdverm 3y ago
I see more of a shift to open core. Many large orgs just say no to viral licenses, and in choosing AGPL, you put blockers to adoption. Open core releases some of the project under permissive license, and keeps some private or under a permissions license. We are all still trying to figure out how we can have sustainable open source where people can be paid to work on it full time
- wmf 3y ago
  The shift to open core was ten years ago. Open core failed and is being replaced with pseudo open source.
  - verdverm 3y ago
    Open core only became a word people said 10 years ago, it's on the rise as a business model from what I can tell. Do you have suggestions for alternative funding/support models? What is open core being replaced by from your perspective?
    - wmf 3y ago
      Open core is being replaced by "selling exceptions" to AGPL/SSPL/BUSL/FSL. See MongoDB, Elastic, Hashicorp, Redis, etc. Personally I prefer the Adam Jacob trademark business model but it's not that proven and it can't be retrofitted.

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jsmeaton 3y ago

I’m usually pretty ambivalent when a company decides to move to a license like BUSL. Sure it’s not “free” - but practically it only affects the likes of AWS from freeloading while making extraordinary profits. Especially true when a given company started the project. I understand why some hold strong feelings on the principles of OSS. My perspective is we’ll have fewer nice things if we allow the likes of AWS to cannibalise successful services. But I feel no such sympathy for Redis nee Labs. It was never their project. They took over stewardship and then effectively stole the project for themselves. They’re not even the dominant contributor to the core product.

anonthrow 3y ago
I agree with your points min general but want to share my experience and maybe some counterpoint. Being a customer of the redis labs' hosted solution, we noticed several issues: - RLs solution is way more cost effective than AWS's - RLs solution is not even close to elasticache in its ability to scale - when issues occur the organization internally moves incredibly slowly so simple issues can turn into prolonged outages Moving to this licensing model will make it possible for them to better invest in these things. That said, given the quality of their offering and lack of investment in the actual redis platform, why would anyone continue to use redis after the license change? The cloud providers can fork off their own version and never look back! I think they're shooting themselves in the foot here.
- pm90 3y ago
  > RLs solution is way more cost effective than AWS's Its not cost effective if the service causes extended outages as you mentioned later.
YeBanKo 3y ago
Seems similar to what Elastic did few years ago [1]. I kinda understand their motivation. It's not theirs originally, but they had antirez working on it for 5 years as their employee. They are making some contributions [2], I wish GH had a way to see such an insight by company affiliation. On the other hand, AWS and likes can easily fork pre-license-change version and spin it into its own product. However, I am fairly certain that AWS Elasticache is already such a thing – their own fork that diverged enough from the upstream and they are not eager to share. So I view it as every major cloud provider with redis offering has its own fork. Except that Redis Labs also owns the original name. But it can go on as a stand alone project, like MariDB was spawn off after MySQL acquisition by Oracle. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25776657 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25776657 [2] https://github.com/redis/redis/graphs/contributors?from=2019-11-09&to=2024-03-28&type=c https://github.com/redis/redis/graphs/contributors?from=2019...

hardwaresofton 3y ago

Somehow no one has mentioned KeyDB so: https://github.com/Snapchat/KeyDB https://github.com/Snapchat/KeyDB [EDIT] whoops, didn't read the article, went immediately to comments for recommendations since that's what HN is good at IMO.

manacit 3y ago
It's mentioned in the first paragraph of the article, and "KeyDB" is featured 14 more times throughout the rest of it.
Signez 3y ago
Well, it's talked about lenghtly in the article.
secondcoming 3y ago
KeyDB is flaky garbage
- hardwaresofton 3y ago
  Whoaaaa I’d love some details on this reaction, do you have any stories or anecdotes to share? I have to say I’ve never hit its limits so I’ve never lost trust in it
  - secondcoming 3y ago
    https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=secondcoming#39865664 https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=secondcoming#3986566...
- pimsn3000 3y ago
  Please explain
  - secondcoming 3y ago
    We got hit by [0] and so had to pin to an older version (we didn't raise the issue). Also, just look at the amount of open bugs and their age [1] They also recommend using swap for some reason, however if your memory usage reaches the point where swap is being used the performance is so bad that the machine may as well be dead. It's been nothing but trouble, which is a shame because the changes they've done to redis have crossed my mind too. We'll probably move to Scylla. [0] https://github.com/Snapchat/KeyDB/issues/465 https://github.com/Snapchat/KeyDB/issues/465 [1] https://github.com/Snapchat/KeyDB/issues https://github.com/Snapchat/KeyDB/issues

brody_hamer 3y ago

It wasn’t clear to me until I read their blog, that redis will remain free to use in their “community edition”, which will continue to be supported and maintained (and improved!) So we as developers don’t have to scramble to replace redis in our SAAS apps and web based software. This is more about preventing AWS from eating their lunch by providing redis-as-a-service, without paying any sort of compensation to the redis developers. Redis’ blog post: https://redis.com/blog/redis-adopts-dual-source-available-licensing/ https://redis.com/blog/redis-adopts-dual-source-available-li...

dkuntz2 3y ago
Well, except for the fact that "redis" the organization didn't create redis and isn't even the main developer of redis. The origin of Redis the company is literally as a hosting provider for the open source redis that they didn't create.
- objektif 3y ago
  This is what I am confused about so what right do they have to enforce AWS from selling Redis when they do not own it?
  - mythz 3y ago
    The licensing change only applies to their future versions which they own all contributions of which AWS won't be allowed to leech off anymore.
    - happymellon 3y ago
      > AWS won't be allowed to leech off anymore. Doesn't AWS employ Madelyn Olson? I mean, AWS have paid for Redis development. Not exactly a leech.
      - mythz 3y ago
        Yep still the biggest leachers. Token hires and flowery PR campaigns doesn't entitle them to most of the profits of other vendors products or absolve them of their predatory behavior. But they wont be able to leech Redis's future contributions. Knowing AWS they'll most likely create a fork to continue raking in most of the profits in the short-term.

gymbeaux 3y ago

AWS also forked ElasticSearch into their “OpenSearch” DBaaS. It caused some issues at my last job because OpenSearch limited us to a particular version of the NEST .NET library that was missing some newer functionality. Real bummer and feels like a step in the wrong direction given all we’ve accomplished in tech over the last 20 years.

BoorishBears 3y ago
OpenSearch infuriates me to no end. It lacks so many improvements and advancements since the ancient version it was forked at, but because AWS already has an org's payments details, teams often refuse to look at Elasticsearch. Even basic things like autocompleting queries have been WIP for half a decade now: https://github.com/opendistro-for-elasticsearch/sample-code/issues/86 https://github.com/opendistro-for-elasticsearch/sample-code/... https://github.com/opensearch-project/OpenSearch-Dashboards/issues/1176 https://github.com/opensearch-project/OpenSearch-Dashboards/... The superiority AWS was slinging when they "bravely" took the mantle looks terrible in retrospect
- busterarm 3y ago
  Teams should refuse to look at Elasticsearch. It's license is SSPL and they ship free and non-free features in the same binary. It's a ticking time bomb to run it in your company. Also you can just keep your data in postgres and use paradedb and stop having to deal with dramatically more expensive infrastructure and the JVM.
  - BoorishBears 3y ago
    Ah yes, battle-tested Elasticsearch is a ticking time bomb for not wanting to get their lunch eaten by Jeff Bezos. Just use this pre-V1 public beta software I stumbled upon instead.
    - wokwokwok 3y ago
      The reality is that open search will be (if it is not already) more widely deployed and “battle tested” with bugs that production use raise resolved in it. The narrative that opensearch is some kind of unsafe abandonware is clearly nonsense when you read the commit log: https://github.com/opensearch-project/OpenSearch/commits/main/ https://github.com/opensearch-project/OpenSearch/commits/mai... All I can say is, sure, if you want elastic use elastic. …but opensearch is fine. I use it and have no problem with it.

klabb3 3y ago

Why don’t we try to fix the “cannot be used for bezos yacht”-licenses instead of shunning the numerous companies of especially databases who want to do good in a meaningful way? Source available is good, better than proprietary which is what we get with aws, but still not enough. People are legitimately afraid of rug pulls, like sneaking in essential features into paid offerings. I think a lot of the skepticism comes from those unknowns. Afaik the non-discriminatory use is the only ideological hard line. I guess people can debate that forever, like with GPL and copyleft and such. But my edgy take is that most people don’t really care about deep ideology yet want something that promotes a healthy hacker- and small-business friendly open source ecosystem. Ideally, a simple, well-understood license that restricts “re-selling your product” and not much more, that you can slap on a project without a legal team, just like with the MIT license.

wmf 3y ago
A bunch of people are working on this from different angles. It's in a chaotic phase right now but it will probably consolidate later.
llm_trw 3y ago
The best idea I've come up with is a license which only grants the rights to a natural person to use the software otherwise it is identical to the MIT, GPL or AGPL, whatever your cup of tea is. If you're a corporation then you need to buy a license.
- akoboldfrying 3y ago
  This could be an interesting idea, but how would this constrain incorporating the licensed software in a larger piece of software? Either as a library, or a component like a Docker image? Would it be "viral" in the sense that, if I want to publish software that internally uses a Docker container running software with such a license, my own software can be used only by natural persons?
  - llm_trw 3y ago
    Yes, you will have to publish under a license with the same clauses. Not because you are distributing it, but because only natural persons can run the software.

rokkitmensch 3y ago

I so very much wish that Datomic had been licensed this way.

School-Cotton 3y ago
Why?
- rokkitmensch 3y ago
  Because in the absence of source access, your query planner is "call one of Rich Hickeys goons".

PHGamer 3y ago

Do we need to "FIX" opensource? I am being serious here. It seems like people aren't getting it. Open Source is about openess and the ability to modify. Yes, people can lose money to cloud provider hosting but why does an Open Source project need to make a lot of money? I say alot because its not like they can't still make money. They can still consult, they can still offer support or hosting but because theyre not making millions they want a "new" license. Its stupid. you solve the itch then your done unless your doing maintance. people making open source software like paid software, constantly adding new features and changing things to justify their existance. You dont need millions in devs if your just solving a core problem.

Semaphor 3y ago
Are there even any non-VC-backed companies with those issues? Whenever this drama and forking happens, it seems to be venture capital.
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fractalb 3y ago

I feel copyleft licenses look more favourable at this point of time. What’s the value of more free/business friendly licenses if you can’t guarantee that the same license will apply for all the future releases? Looks more like a bait and switch policy.

paulryanrogers 3y ago
The future is never guaranteed. Much less if you have no paid contract with the people building and maintaining the floor underneath your feet.
- fractalb 3y ago
  AWS, GCP have assurance that they won't need to pay for their Linux infrastructure. What is it if it wasn't for copyleft licenses(GPL)?
  - endisneigh 3y ago
    What assurance is that?
crabmusket 3y ago
Am I right in understanding that the relicensing was possible because of the CLA, not just because of the BSD license? Would a permissively licensed project that didn't use a CLA be vulnerable in the same way?
- fractalb 3y ago
  GPL mandates that all derived software must carry the same license. No need for CLA, as I understand it.
  - fractalb 3y ago
    I misunderstood your comment. Yes, CLA's make it possible to change the license. I guess CLA's won't work for GPL'd software.

ayakang31415 3y ago

There is an easy solution not just for this, but for other potential masses: Just go with MIT license and make money with support

sa-code 3y ago
How does this stop you from "getting Jeff'd", i.e. when AWS takes your own source code and competes with you?
- lolinder 3y ago
  "Getting Jeff'd" is only an existential crisis if your goal is to own the majority of the pie. Postgres's contributors come from a bunch of different companies who all manage to make enough money off of Postgres to pay them [0]. That is the only financial metric that really matters for funding a FOSS project. The problem with these companies is that they actually were trying to make large returns for shareholders rather than simply earn enough to keep paying the developers. [0] https://www.postgresql.org/community/contributors/ https://www.postgresql.org/community/contributors/
IshKebab 3y ago
You're vastly overestimating how much companies want to pay for support.
- renegade-otter 3y ago
  And if they do pay for support - it will be to Jeff Bezos and not some raggy startup of five. Support is usually for big corporate clients, and the Cover Your Ass principle works in full force there. "No one ever got fired for choosing IBM".
  - blitzar 3y ago
    They wont get totally cut out though - Jeff Bezos will send the bugs they find while servicing their $10mil a year service contract to the raggy startup of five to fix over a weekend between their 3 jobs while sustaining themselves on the most expensive food they can afford - a bowl of discount ramen.

kazinator 3y ago

Why don't the distros just take the last free version and fork from there.

kqr 3y ago
Isn't that what redict is?
- kazinator 3y ago
  I see that it is. So then I don't see what the hoopla is about at all. The software is all there. Some dickheads forked a proprietary version. They got the name, which will be their consolation prize in their voyage to irrelevance; nice knowing you. Meanwhile, what everyone uses marches on.
  - palata 3y ago
    I believe that the hoopla is about the CLA. It feels immoral for an open source project to accept contributions but require a CLA, and later change the license for all those contributions that were never compensated.
    - kazinator 3y ago
      If a GPL-ed project requires copyright transfers and then spins a proprietary version, it makes sense for people to be upset. But Redis was BSD or BSD-like, no? Proprietary forks can happen with or without CLA, so it is moot. I would say rather the opposite. If a developer contributes to a BSD (or similar) licensed program (under that same license of course), then at that point they are letting anyone anywhere do whatever they want with the code, as long as copyright notices are preserved. Then, if someone forks a proprietary version of the program (in a way that complies with that developer's license for those files) and that developer gets upset and tries to revoke the copyright license, that developer is the bad actor, not the forkster. In the context of BSD-like permissive licenses, requirments for CLA, I think, would only be a form of legal safeguard against such situations, where people change their mind.

kqr 3y ago

I liked Andrew Kelleys perspective on this: let's treat Redict as a rename of the Redis project, and the project now called "Redis" a weird commercial fork of Redict. https://andrewkelley.me/post/redis-renamed-to-redict.html https://andrewkelley.me/post/redis-renamed-to-redict.html

Kwpolska 3y ago
This article lists the other contenders for the title of new Redis, and I think Redict is going to be the least successful thanks to its founder, niche hosting site, and the hostile AGPL licence.
- c0l0 3y ago
  It's not AGPL, but LGPL-3.0-only. Neither of these licenses is "hostile". And ftr, in my eyes, a project being created/initiated by ddevault is an asset, certainly not a liability.
  - rmbyrro 3y ago
    You are correct. The issue is that any [X]GPL license has bad reputation in business environments. They see it as a big legal risk that will require constant legal supervision over the technical usage of GPL-licensed code.
    - palata 3y ago
      And they should learn. LGPL is really not that hard to use. If more open source projects adopted it, then business environments would have to adapt.
    - c0l0 3y ago
      ¯\_(")_/¯ I pity the fool(s).
    - rakoo 3y ago
      Poor little things that do not want to share anything want to work as little as possible. If only we could collectively diminish our commons to make life easier for companies.

punnerud 3y ago

Interesting that around 40% of the commits to Reddit is from Chinese companies (Tencent 24.8%, Alibaba 6.8, Huawei 5.2, Bytedance 2)

rs_rs_rs_rs_rs 3y ago
Why is that interesting?
- jpgvm 3y ago
  Not so much interesting as it is normal these days. Chinese big tech is much more OSS focussed than US big tech in my experience.
- maerF0x0 3y ago
  Because tencent consistently won Pwn2own and other CTF competitions until their government turned protectionist/isolationist and disallowed them from disclosing 0days to the world? https://cyberscoop.com/pwn2own-chinese-researchers-360-technologies-trend-micro/ https://cyberscoop.com/pwn2own-chinese-researchers-360-techn...

harryf 3y ago

To me Redis has always seemed like a Trojan Horse for developers. The first impression is its this simple key-value database, so easy to use. Oh wait... it's also a cache, nice! Let's cache all the things too! And look... all the cool kids are are using it too, so it must be cool, meanwhile the old Unix mantra of make each program do one thing well. To do a new job, build afresh rather than complicate old programs by adding new features. ( http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/taoup/html/ch01s06.html http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/taoup/html/ch01s06.html ). Fast forward 10 years and you need to download it's Enterprise Whitepaper ( https://redis.com/solutions/use-cases/caching/ https://redis.com/solutions/use-cases/caching/ ) to make the right caching decisions. Where this is coming from is having worked on a project where Redis was being used as a database and a cache, on different ports. And of course most of the dev team hadn't read the the manual because Redis "is simple and just works". And of course someone forgot to actually configure the Redis instance that was supposed to be a cache to actually _be_ a cache. And someone else thought the instance that was supposed to be a cache but wasn't was actually a database. And yet another had used TTL caching to solve all their performance issues. And pretty soon mystery bugs start showing up but sadly no one can actually REASON about what the whole thing is doing any more, but there's no time to actually clean up the mess because it's a startup struggling to stay afloat. And I remember asking "why didn't you memcached for caching?" and the response was "Dude! No one is using memcached any more". So the technical decision for Redis was based on "what's cool right now". Anyway... I feel a bigger rant brewing so I'll stop here.

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cmacleod4 3y ago
Redis is a very useful tool. You shouldn't blame the tool if people can't be bothered to use it properly!
rnts08 3y ago
hear hear.
kunley 3y ago
I think it's rather features were added to Redis out of the experience and craft, not just to "lure future users into a pit", I doubt antirez would have that in mind. But I think you described right the social behaviors of certain/common types of users.

CyanLite2 3y ago

Microsoft's Garnet has the best chance of replacing Redis, the OSS project and the hosting company. Article doesn't mention it, but supposedly Microsoft uses novel algorithms and multi threading to achieve an order of magnitude improvement in throughput. Now if they can commercialize it with Azure, it should be a credible alternative to Redis Enterprise hosting.

ddorian43 3y ago
Probably not, because it's new and incompatible with many Redis use cases (lua scripts, etc).
- alternatex 3y ago
  Most Redis users don't really do scripting though. If Microsoft manages to replace Redis for most use cases they will succeed.
rmbyrro 3y ago
Article does mention it
bcye 3y ago
Let's replace a project that failed because of a CLA with another project that requires a CLA
- BartjeD 3y ago
  Garnet is MIT licensed. See: https://github.com/microsoft/garnet https://github.com/microsoft/garnet
  - bcye 3y ago
    And requires a CLA, see the same link
    - dindresto 3y ago

lukaszwojtow 3y ago

All this outcry about license switch coming from "community" feels funny. After all, if there is the "community" then they can take the last open-source version and keep developing it themselves, right? But most "communities" are about "take, take, take", not "work, work, work". They often upset only because someone declared they aren't going to work for free any more.

jychang 3y ago
That's a dumb take. That completely ignores opportunity cost of such actions. You can't just spin up a fork like that; there's barriers to entry, network effects, etc which prevent that from being a simple solution.
- endisneigh 3y ago
  You really can just spin up a fork
pjmlp 3y ago
Yeah, it is incredible how the whole free software movement turned into a bunch of entitled folks that want to be paid for their work, while refusing to put down any penny for the folks that make their tooling possible in first place. At the same time big corps use it as carte blanche to basically pirate software in a legal way, while following the letter of the licence. Going back to the open core/demo versions (aka Shareware/Public Domain/Trials) is the only sustainable way to make a living.
- chii 3y ago
  > Going back to the open core/demo versions aka, just sell software, rather than make it open source. What is being balked at is the idea that you can use open-source as a foot-in-the-door marketing and growth hack, which you then reap after some level of popularity/network effect is reached. Some call it bait and switch. Blaming big corps for "leeching" is just self-serving. They are doing exactly what the license allows them to do - a license for which was chosen at the start to allow for it! If you expected to be paid to make this software, don't opensource it.

graycat 3y ago

Redis, Redis, again more about Redis .... From you people who know a lot about Redis, help me out here: For my Web site code (for my startup), I needed a key-value store. Soooo, it looks like I could use Redis for that. But instead, wrote a little code using two instances of a Microsoft .NET collection class. Simple code. Plenty fast. Welcome programming exercise using .NET classes. Cheap -- no ongoing charges and no chance of charges in the future. And, no concerns about what might happen from politics, business, some remote service, etc. Question: What am I missing by using my little DIY (do it yourself, roll your own) solution and avoiding Redis, work of other people, or a service from Amazon Web Services, etc.????

rmbyrro 3y ago
You are presuming everyone has the same needs as you had when assessing Redis, which is a bit naive, if I may share my opinion.
- graycat 3y ago
  > You are presuming ... No, no, not at all: I admit, accept that no doubt Redis has a lot more functionality than the few pages of code I wrote. My question was: My code looks like it will do what I need done, but maybe I'm missing something, i.e., maybe Redis has some features that very likely I should have? If want to expand the question to other people, what is the chance that usually Redis is overkill, more functionality, code, complexity, considerations, ..., than needed? I don't know so am asking. Or, I had a 2 wheel drive car, but did I miss a lot not having a 4 wheel drive car that I nearly always used in only two wheel drive?
  - JackSlateur 3y ago
    If that is enough for you, then that is good You may need data persistence (keep the data live while you restart your process), cross-instance coherencies could be nice too, automatic data expiration too. But if you do not, then it is ok!
    - 3y ago

WOnderFullGOnzo 3y ago

[dead]

somat 3y ago

It reminds me of the berkely db situation, where they(sleepycat software at the time, but now I think it is owned by oracle) changed the license to try and sell it, and everyone just kept using the last bsd licensed version.

rcarmo 3y ago

I’ve started keeping tabs on forks and alternatives: https://taoofmac.com/space/protocols/redis https://taoofmac.com/space/protocols/redis

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vrtx0 3y ago

Whoa, very biased article (especially for LWN). Only cites media coverage; no links supporting that Amazon, MSFT, Google, etc. were in fact EEE’ing (or at best, behaving unethically) with each of these projects. It even suggests cloud providers did contribute, and uses bad data (git commits “by employer” w/o dataset) that basically contradicts their argument. I may be biased, as I saw Amazon doing exactly what this article claims “maybe they weren’t”. But statements like this seem intentionally misleading, and easily disproven: “Distributing a source-available version of MongoDB could be seen as a loss-leader strategy to reach developers that the company wagered did not care about open-source.” MongoDB is still “source-available”, and on the same GitHub repo I’ve used since 2010. The SSPL only impacts cloud-providers, and has exceptions for cloud providers who release their source code. The OSI doesn’t get to define open-source. Neither do I, but at least I was part of the community for ~20 years…

JackSlateur 3y ago
Bah The OSI doesn’t get to define open-source. By definition: yes, they do. The SSPL only impacts cloud-providers It impacts all people who manages mongodb for somebody else, which is a lot of hosting providers (many of which probably do not care about the licence and are too small to get caught)

whirlwin 3y ago

I see valkey getting a lot of attention recently, as it is a newly founded alternative. What is the major differences over using TiKV which has been around for many years? https://www.cncf.io/projects/tikv/ https://www.cncf.io/projects/tikv/

andy_ppp 3y ago

Can’t I just keep using the old version?

koromak 3y ago

I'm actually sympathetic to the cloud provider angle. As of right now, that is the natural trajectory. The majority of high-value customers are going to go through a cloud provider. Maybe some kind of new license is in order. Open source, but preventing cloud redistribution. I don't know, I can imagine the issues with that as well. You want AWS out, but you probably still want the small up-and-coming CI/CD tool in.

dangoodmanUT 3y ago

Why would Snap support Valkey if they have KeyDB?

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nurple 3y ago

I'm disappointed that FOSS discussions like this always devolve into profit-focused arguments. It's no wonder our "freedoms" in the software world have slowly but steadily been shifting to look exactly like our "freedoms" in the physical world: artificial scarcity apportioned by the few using their leverage over systems which put you in a steel cage if you don't play along. And here we are, arguing with each other using the terms of those who seek to enslave us to their control. The fact that these billion and trillion dollar tech companies even exist is a testament to our failure.

blackoil 3y ago

Far more involved people are in this thread, but my 2c. Forking of software isn't a big issue, but of the community is. If new software was R++ which company will close and original Redis is now in hands of the community everyone would have been OK. The community is built organically and has contributed a lot over the years. Now, it will have to be built again where the efforts would be diluted in multiple forks till they gravitate toward one. Maybe AWS, Tencent, MS will back one and we'll have to settle on a version backed by corporates.

hackerdad 3y ago

Netflix created a fully peer to peer distributed Redis compatible DB https://github.com/Netflix/dynomite https://github.com/Netflix/dynomite

marsupialtail_2 3y ago

The sincerest form of flattery is when AWS decides to come up with a big consortium to displace you with some open source. Incidentally the most effectively way to stall a project according to the CIA is to have a huge guiding committee with clearly diverging interests. Redis will win because it's focused on its users. It's competitors will lose. Like OpenSearch, like OpenCL etc.

osigurdson 3y ago

I wonder if there is a use case for an open source permissive license that also cannot be changed. Several companies have started off with MIT in infancy and then switch to something else later when successful to improve monetization. I mean, I get it, everyone wants to become billionaire, but best to be honest about it up front.

edkvmn 3y ago

As many others pointed out before, Redis Labs did not create the project, they started to provide Redis as a hosted solution just like other cloud providers, and with time gained control. Redis Labs is not the only contributors to the project, Tencent and AWS contribute as well. For Redis Labs the open source license was a distribution channel which they benefited tremendously. I'm not an AWS fanboy but they operate some hosted solution significantly better than the companies building the products, at least the core offerings, this is what happened with Elastic and MonogDB. It is Redis Labs prerogative to change the license, but they can also build a product around Redis that will drive customers to them instead of AWS, an offering that will be hard to replicate. IMHO making a business that is "reselling" server capacity that was bought from AWS and trying to make a profit, can come back and bite you.

garfieldnate 3y ago

Maybe it's good for GitHub, GitLab, etc. to be as open and liberal as possible with its definition of open source, but I think there is definitely an argument to be made that businesses making source available without actually open-sourcing it should pay to have it hosted. GitHub didn't become proactive about asking users to add licenses to repos until far into its existence, and there's plenty of code there that doesn't have an explicit license, but I think participating in the open source community should actually require that your source is open. License proliferation is already an issue, but adding non-open source to GitHub seems especially dangerous to me. The license should be highlighted in bright red with a big note saying that users are not allowed to do what they will with the source code.

PeterZaitsev 3y ago

One thing I think people underappreciate is license compatibility - the projects which bundled BSD redis very likely can't bundle SSPL redis without changing their own license, or not at all if some other components are licensed with license not compatible with SSPL This is actually the good news as it makes it all but certain there will be well maintained Open Source Redis alternative.