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It will stay free and you can read the source code and change it. BUT: Amazon, Google and Microsoft (et al) will have to pay if they offer Redis as part of the

It will stay free and you can read the source code and change it. BUT: Amazon, Google and Microsoft (et al) will have to pay if they offer Redis as part of their cloud. Seems fair and any article not giving a voice to those being reported on is trash. Here you go, though: Under the new license, CLOUD SERVICE PROVIDERS hosting Redis offerings will no longer be permitted to use the source code of Redis free of charge. https://redis.com/blog/redis-adopts-dual-source-available-licensing/ https://redis.com/blog/redis-adopts-dual-source-available-li...

sanxiyn 3y ago
100% this. I see neither legal nor moral problems.
that_lurker 3y ago
It will still cause financial problems for the user that currently use redis offered by those clous companies as they will 100% increase the prices to cope with the changes and at the same time make more money.
- bilbo0s 3y ago
  Then don't use redis. Lots of other cloud products you can use. There's no problem with the outlined approach.
  - alephnerd 3y ago
    To add to this. If you don't want to pay a premium, there are other projects you can support. This is the same reason Postgres and Redis became extremely popular in the 2010s was because companies didn't want to pay a premium to Oracle or IBM for their DBMSes. There are other options that exist today as well. Non-paying or non-contributing users are not entitled to first class support from contributors. Similarly, contributors and projects are not entitled to users.
  - jrochkind1 3y ago
    Indeed, I will probably have the choice of a fork made from open source redis, and I will choose to take it. https://www.linuxfoundation.org/press/linux-foundation-launches-open-source-valkey-community https://www.linuxfoundation.org/press/linux-foundation-launc...
    - alephnerd 3y ago
      Go for it! This is how innovation happens!
  - bennyhill 3y ago
    According to this comment[1], redis is mostly contributions from other people. I find it pretty outrageous when I contribute code to something if the end goal is to succeed from contributions like mine in taking away the platform I was using and making a monopoly lock in on my preferred solution to my needs like Oracle. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39862021 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39862021
    - alephnerd 3y ago
      The largest contributors to Redis are either employed by Redis Labs or by major customers of Redis Labs - at least based on contribution statistics. The beauty of software is you can always choose something else.
      - bennyhill 3y ago
        At the top of the software stack it is a horror that everyone bellow you can always choose something else. Stand on your own two feet and achieve nothing or invest knowing your investments may be canceled by politics, monetization, etc. I.e. if there is too much fragments in redis alternatives, whatever skills or contributions you made you can't use in any organization because they will avoid all redis like solutions.
        alephnerd 3y ago
        It is the job of senior Engineering leadership to take these considerations into account. Some decide to purchase, others decide to build in house, and others yet decide to design in an agnostic manner. Software is a tool used to build products. We can nerd out about a hammer all we want, but if you aren't a hammer manufacturer, a major hammer buyer, or someone who has critically contributed to the R&D of the entire hammer industry, your opinions are basically useless. I personally don't care what hammer is used so long as my house is built. If this truly irks you, you absolutely should create an alternative. > I.e. if there is too much fragments in redis alternatives, whatever skills or contributions you made you can't use in any organization because they will avoid all redis like solutions Patently false, as the proliferation of SQL and SQL-esque systems has shown.
- acdha 3y ago
  The ceiling is the price it costs a user to install Redis on a VM and use that instead. This seems … fair?
  - Spivak 3y ago
    No it isn't, have you met managed cloud services? The price of running it on a VM is the floor.
    - acdha 3y ago
      The price of running it on a VM _including_ your real cost of supporting it is the ceiling. My point is simply that if a licensing change meant that a cloud provider had to pass on extra costs, there is a natural feedback mechanism. If AWS ElastiCache prices doubled, a lot of people would be doing the math versus whatever they pay for labor. There’s some room to grow there but it’s not infinite.
donatj 3y ago
That’s the worst case scenario. That code is now untouchable. Open, I can use it. Now that I can read it but not use it, if I accidentally reproduce it there’s a case for me having stole it. If it were fully closed, there’s no case. Very little good comes from non-open source you can just happen to read.
- margorczynski 3y ago
  > Now that I can read it but not use it, if I accidentally reproduce it there’s a case for me having stole it In the decades of existence of GPL-ed software has there even been such a case? I see this point regurgitated time and time again but no concrete examples are ever provided. Seems a bit like anti-OSS FUD.
  - SR2Z 3y ago
    No, but famously early IBM clones had to do clean-room reverse engineering of bootloaders and other ancillary code to produce compatible designs. IBM was able to legally annihilate anyone who ever saw the source code or read technical documents on these designs, but the people who made sure they didn't were able to defend their designs in court. If you've worked in IP-heavy fields (my experience is with video codecs) you will also see strict guidance to not read patents in your day-to-day.
mynegation 3y ago
My understanding is that it is only true for Redis versions post licence change _and_ produced by Redis the company. The amazons of the world can still take a BSD version of Redis and host it for money, they can even start maintaining forks under BSD or other licenses. The gamble from the Redis Co here is that newer versions provide enough additional value for customers to either pay them directly or amazons to provide it as a service in their clouds and pay money to Redis the company as per the licensing agreements.
- echelon 3y ago
  Every new open source company should start with these anti-Amazon licenses from day one. Why work your ass off and have the trillion dollar company get more market share off of your thing than you? Why have them threaten your business?
  - Ekaros 3y ago
    Or just make closed source product... Or even source available. If it generates enough value surely people will pay for it.
    - lumb63 3y ago
      I see what you’re saying, but I think there’s a moral argument to be made for wanting code to be open source, but for humans only. Contrary to what law says, corporations are not people. The contributors likely feel like their altruism is being exploited by mega corporations who are looking to harvest free labor. I sure wouldn’t want to work on a project if that’s how I perceived my users. But that doesn’t diminish their desire to provide a code base that anyone can use, learn from, modify, etc.
      - Ekaros 3y ago
        There is very limited number of essentially non-commercial licenses. Which makes things hard for this sort of goals. But on other hand some think that such limitations go against open source too... In my mind there should be no threshold on who should pay for use if they profit. It should not be limited only to mega corporations. You have tens of thousands in revenue, surely you can pay for code you use?
api 3y ago
I predict most forks will go nowhere because the success of a fork requires developers to contribute to it. In most cases the forks are being driven by people who just want free stuff and are angry they can't be subsidized anymore. They don't want to actually do any work. Open source is not about just leeching free stuff. It's supposed to be a gift economy where you give back either directly or indirectly by promoting, educating, or donating. The F in FOSS is supposed to stand for Freedom not Free-as-in-beer. A full revolt is in progress against the entire SaaS enterprise leeching off open source. Larger often business backed projects like this changing to source available licenses is the most visible manifestation, but I also see more and more indie devs using licenses like the AGPL or not open sourcing at all. Open source will die as anything but a dumping strategy by mega-corps to crush competition if we don't deal with this. The OSI is fully captured by companies that benefit from the status quo, so I don't see them doing anything about it.

sanxiyn 3y ago

100% this. I see neither legal nor moral problems.

that_lurker 3y ago

It will still cause financial problems for the user that currently use redis offered by those clous companies as they will 100% increase the prices to cope with the changes and at the same time make more money.

bilbo0s 3y ago
Then don't use redis. Lots of other cloud products you can use. There's no problem with the outlined approach.
- alephnerd 3y ago
  To add to this. If you don't want to pay a premium, there are other projects you can support. This is the same reason Postgres and Redis became extremely popular in the 2010s was because companies didn't want to pay a premium to Oracle or IBM for their DBMSes. There are other options that exist today as well. Non-paying or non-contributing users are not entitled to first class support from contributors. Similarly, contributors and projects are not entitled to users.
- jrochkind1 3y ago
  Indeed, I will probably have the choice of a fork made from open source redis, and I will choose to take it. https://www.linuxfoundation.org/press/linux-foundation-launches-open-source-valkey-community https://www.linuxfoundation.org/press/linux-foundation-launc...
  - alephnerd 3y ago
    Go for it! This is how innovation happens!
- bennyhill 3y ago
  According to this comment[1], redis is mostly contributions from other people. I find it pretty outrageous when I contribute code to something if the end goal is to succeed from contributions like mine in taking away the platform I was using and making a monopoly lock in on my preferred solution to my needs like Oracle. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39862021 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39862021
  - alephnerd 3y ago
    The largest contributors to Redis are either employed by Redis Labs or by major customers of Redis Labs - at least based on contribution statistics. The beauty of software is you can always choose something else.
    - bennyhill 3y ago
      At the top of the software stack it is a horror that everyone bellow you can always choose something else. Stand on your own two feet and achieve nothing or invest knowing your investments may be canceled by politics, monetization, etc. I.e. if there is too much fragments in redis alternatives, whatever skills or contributions you made you can't use in any organization because they will avoid all redis like solutions.
      - alephnerd 3y ago
        It is the job of senior Engineering leadership to take these considerations into account. Some decide to purchase, others decide to build in house, and others yet decide to design in an agnostic manner. Software is a tool used to build products. We can nerd out about a hammer all we want, but if you aren't a hammer manufacturer, a major hammer buyer, or someone who has critically contributed to the R&D of the entire hammer industry, your opinions are basically useless. I personally don't care what hammer is used so long as my house is built. If this truly irks you, you absolutely should create an alternative. > I.e. if there is too much fragments in redis alternatives, whatever skills or contributions you made you can't use in any organization because they will avoid all redis like solutions Patently false, as the proliferation of SQL and SQL-esque systems has shown.
acdha 3y ago
The ceiling is the price it costs a user to install Redis on a VM and use that instead. This seems … fair?
- Spivak 3y ago
  No it isn't, have you met managed cloud services? The price of running it on a VM is the floor.
  - acdha 3y ago
    The price of running it on a VM _including_ your real cost of supporting it is the ceiling. My point is simply that if a licensing change meant that a cloud provider had to pass on extra costs, there is a natural feedback mechanism. If AWS ElastiCache prices doubled, a lot of people would be doing the math versus whatever they pay for labor. There’s some room to grow there but it’s not infinite.

donatj 3y ago

That’s the worst case scenario. That code is now untouchable. Open, I can use it. Now that I can read it but not use it, if I accidentally reproduce it there’s a case for me having stole it. If it were fully closed, there’s no case. Very little good comes from non-open source you can just happen to read.

margorczynski 3y ago
> Now that I can read it but not use it, if I accidentally reproduce it there’s a case for me having stole it In the decades of existence of GPL-ed software has there even been such a case? I see this point regurgitated time and time again but no concrete examples are ever provided. Seems a bit like anti-OSS FUD.
- SR2Z 3y ago
  No, but famously early IBM clones had to do clean-room reverse engineering of bootloaders and other ancillary code to produce compatible designs. IBM was able to legally annihilate anyone who ever saw the source code or read technical documents on these designs, but the people who made sure they didn't were able to defend their designs in court. If you've worked in IP-heavy fields (my experience is with video codecs) you will also see strict guidance to not read patents in your day-to-day.

mynegation 3y ago

My understanding is that it is only true for Redis versions post licence change _and_ produced by Redis the company. The amazons of the world can still take a BSD version of Redis and host it for money, they can even start maintaining forks under BSD or other licenses. The gamble from the Redis Co here is that newer versions provide enough additional value for customers to either pay them directly or amazons to provide it as a service in their clouds and pay money to Redis the company as per the licensing agreements.

echelon 3y ago
Every new open source company should start with these anti-Amazon licenses from day one. Why work your ass off and have the trillion dollar company get more market share off of your thing than you? Why have them threaten your business?
- Ekaros 3y ago
  Or just make closed source product... Or even source available. If it generates enough value surely people will pay for it.
  - lumb63 3y ago
    I see what you’re saying, but I think there’s a moral argument to be made for wanting code to be open source, but for humans only. Contrary to what law says, corporations are not people. The contributors likely feel like their altruism is being exploited by mega corporations who are looking to harvest free labor. I sure wouldn’t want to work on a project if that’s how I perceived my users. But that doesn’t diminish their desire to provide a code base that anyone can use, learn from, modify, etc.
    - Ekaros 3y ago
      There is very limited number of essentially non-commercial licenses. Which makes things hard for this sort of goals. But on other hand some think that such limitations go against open source too... In my mind there should be no threshold on who should pay for use if they profit. It should not be limited only to mega corporations. You have tens of thousands in revenue, surely you can pay for code you use?

api 3y ago

I predict most forks will go nowhere because the success of a fork requires developers to contribute to it. In most cases the forks are being driven by people who just want free stuff and are angry they can't be subsidized anymore. They don't want to actually do any work. Open source is not about just leeching free stuff. It's supposed to be a gift economy where you give back either directly or indirectly by promoting, educating, or donating. The F in FOSS is supposed to stand for Freedom not Free-as-in-beer. A full revolt is in progress against the entire SaaS enterprise leeching off open source. Larger often business backed projects like this changing to source available licenses is the most visible manifestation, but I also see more and more indie devs using licenses like the AGPL or not open sourcing at all. Open source will die as anything but a dumping strategy by mega-corps to crush competition if we don't deal with this. The OSI is fully captured by companies that benefit from the status quo, so I don't see them doing anything about it.