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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 t

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.
      - pininja 3y ago
        https://medium.com/@adamhjk/introducing-the-community-compact-431c61ab978f https://medium.com/@adamhjk/introducing-the-community-compac... for folks wondering what Adam’s buisness model is about
      - verdverm 3y ago
        OP, OpenSearch, OpenTofu all seem to indicate the jury is still out on this one. I still see many smaller projects using open core. Three I started using recently ( llama-index, langfuse, qdrant ) are in this category. There is certainly a difference between AGPL and BUSL style licenses. One of the new projects I'm using as some of their code with a BUSL style, but still open core primarily
- lukaszwojtow 3y ago
  If AGPL blocks adoption then "large orgs" can buy commercial license (assuming software is dual-licensed).
  - verdverm 3y ago
    They can, but the issue is how much effort does that require for a random dev in the org to go through to try out a project? It's not a technical blocker, it's a psychological blocker
    - lukaszwojtow 3y ago
      I get it. If there are alternatives that overall would be better (including their technical merits and how easy it is to introduce them to a commercial company) then use them. No one is forced to buy dual-license.
- sakjur 3y ago
  If you’re happy with paying a few maintainers, a support staff, and some salespeople the cash flow necessary for being a successful endeavor is a whole lot different than if you’ve raised $350 million. Maybe the problem lies more with overreaching and trying to cash out?
  - verdverm 3y ago
    For sure, there is a problem in startup culture that looks down upon lifestyle companies. Devtools and developer focused products often get caught up in this. At the same time, founders take money to build their idea into something more than they could do with a small team. An big companies are risk averse, having a small staff or being susceptible to "hit by a bus" failure is often a deal breaker
    - sakjur 3y ago
      That’s very true. Business is very much a balancing act in that sense. Sometimes raising money is the reason you succeed, but it can equally well be why you fail (especially if you’d be happy running a smaller company but take on investors that want you to be hungrier).
tsimionescu 3y ago
The whole move to new "open-core" licenses started with the most famous (infamous?) AGPL project - MongoDB. The AGPL is not what companies like this want (Mongo, Elastic, Redis etc). They don't want AWS's code: AWS is already providing that. They want AWS to pay them royalties or stop competing.
- throwaway5959 3y ago
  Then they shouldn’t have open sourced it in the first place.
  - leoedin 3y ago
    Yeah, it feels like this pattern of “ship an open source product, get popular, try to backtrack” ignores the fact that the only reason you got popular in the first place was the open source aspect. Would anyone have given mongo a look if it was a fully proprietary technology? They would have gone bust years ago.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- thayne 3y ago
  > They want AWS to pay them royalties or stop competing. But the switch from AGPL to SSPL didn't do either of those things. AWS still built DocumentDB to compete with Mongodb, and didn't use any SSPL OR AGPL code in the implementation (at least according to their FAQ[1]). And AFAIK AWS isn't paying mongo any royalties. [1]: https://aws.amazon.com/documentdb/faqs/ https://aws.amazon.com/documentdb/faqs/
  - tsimionescu 3y ago
    Well, I was using AWS more as a catch-all term for cloud. They never actually offered a managed MongoDB service, but other like IBM and Oracle did (or still do?). I'm not sure what impact this had exactly, whether those services were discontinued or if they are now paying Mongo for them - but surely they had a significant impact one way or the other.
orthoxerox 3y ago
some kind of GPL + no CLA = good. If you contribute to GPL Redis, the Redis company cannot relicense your work, because they own it as much as you do. GPL + CLA = bad. If you contribute to GPL Redis and transfer the copyright to your contributions to the Redis company, they can switch to whatever license they want. SSPL + no CLA = interesting, I would love to see the Redis company open source their hosting stack because they are accepting external contributions.
- IshKebab 3y ago
  It's too simplistic to call these "good" or "bad".
kamikazechaser 3y ago
SSPL that is now adopted by Redis >7.4.2 is a fork of AGPL and adds one more extra clause that makes it more difficult to run any competing product.

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.
    - pininja 3y ago
      https://medium.com/@adamhjk/introducing-the-community-compact-431c61ab978f https://medium.com/@adamhjk/introducing-the-community-compac... for folks wondering what Adam’s buisness model is about
    - verdverm 3y ago
      OP, OpenSearch, OpenTofu all seem to indicate the jury is still out on this one. I still see many smaller projects using open core. Three I started using recently ( llama-index, langfuse, qdrant ) are in this category. There is certainly a difference between AGPL and BUSL style licenses. One of the new projects I'm using as some of their code with a BUSL style, but still open core primarily
lukaszwojtow 3y ago
If AGPL blocks adoption then "large orgs" can buy commercial license (assuming software is dual-licensed).
- verdverm 3y ago
  They can, but the issue is how much effort does that require for a random dev in the org to go through to try out a project? It's not a technical blocker, it's a psychological blocker
  - lukaszwojtow 3y ago
    I get it. If there are alternatives that overall would be better (including their technical merits and how easy it is to introduce them to a commercial company) then use them. No one is forced to buy dual-license.
sakjur 3y ago
If you’re happy with paying a few maintainers, a support staff, and some salespeople the cash flow necessary for being a successful endeavor is a whole lot different than if you’ve raised $350 million. Maybe the problem lies more with overreaching and trying to cash out?
- verdverm 3y ago
  For sure, there is a problem in startup culture that looks down upon lifestyle companies. Devtools and developer focused products often get caught up in this. At the same time, founders take money to build their idea into something more than they could do with a small team. An big companies are risk averse, having a small staff or being susceptible to "hit by a bus" failure is often a deal breaker
  - sakjur 3y ago
    That’s very true. Business is very much a balancing act in that sense. Sometimes raising money is the reason you succeed, but it can equally well be why you fail (especially if you’d be happy running a smaller company but take on investors that want you to be hungrier).

tsimionescu 3y ago

The whole move to new "open-core" licenses started with the most famous (infamous?) AGPL project - MongoDB. The AGPL is not what companies like this want (Mongo, Elastic, Redis etc). They don't want AWS's code: AWS is already providing that. They want AWS to pay them royalties or stop competing.

throwaway5959 3y ago
Then they shouldn’t have open sourced it in the first place.
- leoedin 3y ago
  Yeah, it feels like this pattern of “ship an open source product, get popular, try to backtrack” ignores the fact that the only reason you got popular in the first place was the open source aspect. Would anyone have given mongo a look if it was a fully proprietary technology? They would have gone bust years ago.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
thayne 3y ago
> They want AWS to pay them royalties or stop competing. But the switch from AGPL to SSPL didn't do either of those things. AWS still built DocumentDB to compete with Mongodb, and didn't use any SSPL OR AGPL code in the implementation (at least according to their FAQ[1]). And AFAIK AWS isn't paying mongo any royalties. [1]: https://aws.amazon.com/documentdb/faqs/ https://aws.amazon.com/documentdb/faqs/
- tsimionescu 3y ago
  Well, I was using AWS more as a catch-all term for cloud. They never actually offered a managed MongoDB service, but other like IBM and Oracle did (or still do?). I'm not sure what impact this had exactly, whether those services were discontinued or if they are now paying Mongo for them - but surely they had a significant impact one way or the other.

orthoxerox 3y ago

some kind of GPL + no CLA = good. If you contribute to GPL Redis, the Redis company cannot relicense your work, because they own it as much as you do. GPL + CLA = bad. If you contribute to GPL Redis and transfer the copyright to your contributions to the Redis company, they can switch to whatever license they want. SSPL + no CLA = interesting, I would love to see the Redis company open source their hosting stack because they are accepting external contributions.

IshKebab 3y ago
It's too simplistic to call these "good" or "bad".

kamikazechaser 3y ago

SSPL that is now adopted by Redis >7.4.2 is a fork of AGPL and adds one more extra clause that makes it more difficult to run any competing product.