5 ms·

I don't get the point of this - people are upset that Redis is trying to make money from companies like AWS and Google?

drewdevault 3y ago
Substantial portions of Redis were written by AWS and Google. People are upset because Redis is a collaborative project with many people working on it and Redis Ltd wants the sole right to commercialize the work of an entire community. LWN has a good overview: https://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/966631/8bc9d155d4e2afb3/ https://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/966631/8bc9d155d4e2afb3/ Redis Ltd is only responsible for about 20% of the work.
- baq 3y ago
  Perhaps true but besides the point, actually - the same companies will happily take your code and make a saas offering out of it on their oligopolistic infrastructures, making it economically unviable to compete with. ...which, given LGPL, will be worse now as they'll simply not share their modifications because that's the legally safest option.
  - KingOfCoders 3y ago
    And well, why not? That is the idea. It's open source.
- sotillan 3y ago
  Yeah, I think a key point is that Salvatore Sanfilippo, the original developer, maintainer and principle contributor[1] for 11 years, was not a founder of Redis Labs. He joined as an employee in 2015 but resigned in 2020. Perhaps he has equity in Redis Labs, but it's not clear he stands to profit at all from this switch. [1] https://github.com/redis/redis/graphs/contributors https://github.com/redis/redis/graphs/contributors
- sanxiyn 3y ago
  AWS and Google contributed those under BSD license, being fully informed that Redis Ltd can commercialize like this. It makes perfect sense for AWS and Google to fork immediately after the switch, but for contributions before the switch, there is no basis for AWS and Google to complain Redis Ltd, either legally or morally.
  - bunnyfoofoo 3y ago
    Legally, they can't complain, but morally it is icky. Redis is a leech.
    - sanxiyn 3y ago
      If you don't want to be leeched, don't contribute to BSD licensed projects.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
- gadders 3y ago
  >>Substantial portions of Redis were written by AWS and Google Employees on their own time, or paid to do it? So I'm clear though - if I wrote a SAAS product tomorrow that under the covers used Redis, I'm OK, but if I spun up a bunch of servers and offered managed Redis as a product, I would need to pay?
  - drewdevault 3y ago
    >So I'm clear though - if I wrote a SAAS product tomorrow that under the covers used Redis, I'm OK, but if I spun up a bunch of servers and offered managed Redis as a product, I would need to pay? That's the pitch of the license, essentially, but in practice the SSPL is an utter nightmare to comply with (to the point of being deliberate) and it mainly exists to put a veneer of open source on a proprietary product. In actual practice you really just cannot offer Redis as a service unless you are Redis Ltd, which is the actual point of the license in the end.
    - School-Cotton 3y ago
      > In actual practice you really just cannot offer Redis as a service unless you are Redis Ltd Isn’t this exactly what the person you’re replying to was saying?
      - drewdevault 3y ago
        Yes, I realize I worded this poorly. I emphasized this point because this is what makes it non-free/not meet the Open Source Definition; you cannot retain exclusive right to commercialization. But I realize that was not actually something the parent commenter was asking about.
  - xorcist 3y ago
    That's what many people seem to think, but it has not been legally challenged yet. We won't know for sure until Google or AWS decides to test the limits, in your jurisdiction. You should probably ask Redis, Inc. what their intention is. Keep in mind, though, the run the risk of being re-rug-pulled. They have changed the license once and they can do it again.
prmoustache 3y ago
People are upset because Redis is not open source anymore. That is all.
- gadders 3y ago
  Is this like a Richard Stallman ideological thing? (EDIT: Genuine question - I'm trying to understand if this is a license purity issue or something else).
  - Macha 3y ago
    People like having choice. The SSPL provides less choice than open source licenses. It came about because users were utilising their choice in way the project leaders didn't like, because they didn't directly financially benefit from it. But without that choice, arguably Redis would not have reached where it is today. If it had launched as some proprietary single-vendor cloud service, people would have kept using memcached, or their relational DB or whatever for a lot of Redis use cases where it might be nice, but not essential improvements over the competition. So it's shutting the door behind them, accusing the users of taking advantage of the very thing that let Redis get to where they are today. (Especially so for Redis, where Redis Labs started as just another hosted provider unassociated with the open source projects)
    - wink 3y ago
      > But without that choice, arguably Redis would not have reached where it is today. I'd honestly love to know how many people actually use any of the features added to Redis in the last... 5 or 8 years. I'm not saying they were useless, but Redis used to be a pretty fine piece of software that could have easily been done for many use cases, 10 years ago.
  - prmoustache 3y ago
    What is commonly known as open source nowadays is a license that follows the definition adopted by the Open Source Initiative. SSPL is considered as not approved because it encumber unrelated programs to the one licensed by the SSPL: https://web.archive.org/web/20230411163802/https://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-review_lists.opensource.org/2019-February/003977.html https://web.archive.org/web/20230411163802/https://lists.ope... So it is a combination of idealogical issue as well as being an annoyance to people who adopted it because it was released under the BSD in the first place.
diggan 3y ago
Slightly disingenuous question, but I'll bite anyways... No, people are not upset Redis is trying to make money. People are upset that something that used to be FOSS is no longer FOSS, and are trying to protect themselves from future pain by doing something that is very common in FOSS, which is forking a project. Just because someone is trying to make sure the software they rely on continues to be FOSS, doesn't mean that they are out to actively hurt the original creator(s) of the original project. I don't know how you could possibly read the situation like that either.
kryptiskt 3y ago
Redis Labs didn't start Redis, they didn't contribute most of the code. They just own the trademark. They have about as much right to extract money from AWS and Google for Redis as I have, all they are doing is that they are hijacking an open source project to make themselves rich. They're not a victim of the cloud providers, they are a leech trying to make a score while fucking over all the other contributors to Redis, who have done 80% of the work they are trying to extract a ransom for.
- gadders 3y ago
  This makes more sense as an explanation. Are there any instances where an SSPL license or similar is warranted?
  - Macha 3y ago
    If you want to release your project for the first time as SSPL, go right ahead. You may have difficulty getting adoption however. It's the "build your userbase on open source, then lock them in" that bothers people.
- dkdbejwi383 3y ago
  Hmm, so anyone can just start a company with the name of an open source project and try to monetise it? Like someone could start e.g. "Rust Labs" and sell a commercial version of Rust? I don't know much about the genesis of Redis or Redis Labs, who key people and dates are, etc. I guess this obfuscation is part of the problem.
  - Macha 3y ago
    > Like someone could start e.g. "Rust Labs" and sell a commercial version of Rust? No, because the Rust trademark guidelines prohibit that (https://foundation.rust-lang.org/policies/logo-policy-and-media-guide/ https://foundation.rust-lang.org/policies/logo-policy-and-me...) In Redis Labs case, they acquired the Redis trademark from the original author, who they employed for a few years after the project was well established.
KingOfCoders 3y ago
There is open source and there is non open source. Both is fine. Open source does not make a difference who uses it.
- Y-bar 3y ago
  That’s unfortunate. I have a clause forbidding Anish Kapoor from forking or using my code.

Substantial portions of Redis were written by AWS and Google. People are upset because Redis is a collaborative project with many people working on it and Redis Ltd wants the sole right to commercialize the work of an entire community. LWN has a good overview: https://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/966631/8bc9d155d4e2afb3/ https://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/966631/8bc9d155d4e2afb3/ Redis Ltd is only responsible for about 20% of the work.

baq 3y ago
Perhaps true but besides the point, actually - the same companies will happily take your code and make a saas offering out of it on their oligopolistic infrastructures, making it economically unviable to compete with. ...which, given LGPL, will be worse now as they'll simply not share their modifications because that's the legally safest option.
- KingOfCoders 3y ago
  And well, why not? That is the idea. It's open source.
sotillan 3y ago
Yeah, I think a key point is that Salvatore Sanfilippo, the original developer, maintainer and principle contributor[1] for 11 years, was not a founder of Redis Labs. He joined as an employee in 2015 but resigned in 2020. Perhaps he has equity in Redis Labs, but it's not clear he stands to profit at all from this switch. [1] https://github.com/redis/redis/graphs/contributors https://github.com/redis/redis/graphs/contributors
sanxiyn 3y ago
AWS and Google contributed those under BSD license, being fully informed that Redis Ltd can commercialize like this. It makes perfect sense for AWS and Google to fork immediately after the switch, but for contributions before the switch, there is no basis for AWS and Google to complain Redis Ltd, either legally or morally.
- bunnyfoofoo 3y ago
  Legally, they can't complain, but morally it is icky. Redis is a leech.
  - sanxiyn 3y ago
    If you don't want to be leeched, don't contribute to BSD licensed projects.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
gadders 3y ago
>>Substantial portions of Redis were written by AWS and Google Employees on their own time, or paid to do it? So I'm clear though - if I wrote a SAAS product tomorrow that under the covers used Redis, I'm OK, but if I spun up a bunch of servers and offered managed Redis as a product, I would need to pay?
- drewdevault 3y ago
  >So I'm clear though - if I wrote a SAAS product tomorrow that under the covers used Redis, I'm OK, but if I spun up a bunch of servers and offered managed Redis as a product, I would need to pay? That's the pitch of the license, essentially, but in practice the SSPL is an utter nightmare to comply with (to the point of being deliberate) and it mainly exists to put a veneer of open source on a proprietary product. In actual practice you really just cannot offer Redis as a service unless you are Redis Ltd, which is the actual point of the license in the end.
  - School-Cotton 3y ago
    > In actual practice you really just cannot offer Redis as a service unless you are Redis Ltd Isn’t this exactly what the person you’re replying to was saying?
    - drewdevault 3y ago
      Yes, I realize I worded this poorly. I emphasized this point because this is what makes it non-free/not meet the Open Source Definition; you cannot retain exclusive right to commercialization. But I realize that was not actually something the parent commenter was asking about.
- xorcist 3y ago
  That's what many people seem to think, but it has not been legally challenged yet. We won't know for sure until Google or AWS decides to test the limits, in your jurisdiction. You should probably ask Redis, Inc. what their intention is. Keep in mind, though, the run the risk of being re-rug-pulled. They have changed the license once and they can do it again.

prmoustache 3y ago

People are upset because Redis is not open source anymore. That is all.

gadders 3y ago
Is this like a Richard Stallman ideological thing? (EDIT: Genuine question - I'm trying to understand if this is a license purity issue or something else).
- Macha 3y ago
  People like having choice. The SSPL provides less choice than open source licenses. It came about because users were utilising their choice in way the project leaders didn't like, because they didn't directly financially benefit from it. But without that choice, arguably Redis would not have reached where it is today. If it had launched as some proprietary single-vendor cloud service, people would have kept using memcached, or their relational DB or whatever for a lot of Redis use cases where it might be nice, but not essential improvements over the competition. So it's shutting the door behind them, accusing the users of taking advantage of the very thing that let Redis get to where they are today. (Especially so for Redis, where Redis Labs started as just another hosted provider unassociated with the open source projects)
  - wink 3y ago
    > But without that choice, arguably Redis would not have reached where it is today. I'd honestly love to know how many people actually use any of the features added to Redis in the last... 5 or 8 years. I'm not saying they were useless, but Redis used to be a pretty fine piece of software that could have easily been done for many use cases, 10 years ago.
- prmoustache 3y ago
  What is commonly known as open source nowadays is a license that follows the definition adopted by the Open Source Initiative. SSPL is considered as not approved because it encumber unrelated programs to the one licensed by the SSPL: https://web.archive.org/web/20230411163802/https://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-review_lists.opensource.org/2019-February/003977.html https://web.archive.org/web/20230411163802/https://lists.ope... So it is a combination of idealogical issue as well as being an annoyance to people who adopted it because it was released under the BSD in the first place.

diggan 3y ago

Slightly disingenuous question, but I'll bite anyways... No, people are not upset Redis is trying to make money. People are upset that something that used to be FOSS is no longer FOSS, and are trying to protect themselves from future pain by doing something that is very common in FOSS, which is forking a project. Just because someone is trying to make sure the software they rely on continues to be FOSS, doesn't mean that they are out to actively hurt the original creator(s) of the original project. I don't know how you could possibly read the situation like that either.

kryptiskt 3y ago

Redis Labs didn't start Redis, they didn't contribute most of the code. They just own the trademark. They have about as much right to extract money from AWS and Google for Redis as I have, all they are doing is that they are hijacking an open source project to make themselves rich. They're not a victim of the cloud providers, they are a leech trying to make a score while fucking over all the other contributors to Redis, who have done 80% of the work they are trying to extract a ransom for.

gadders 3y ago
This makes more sense as an explanation. Are there any instances where an SSPL license or similar is warranted?
- Macha 3y ago
  If you want to release your project for the first time as SSPL, go right ahead. You may have difficulty getting adoption however. It's the "build your userbase on open source, then lock them in" that bothers people.
dkdbejwi383 3y ago
Hmm, so anyone can just start a company with the name of an open source project and try to monetise it? Like someone could start e.g. "Rust Labs" and sell a commercial version of Rust? I don't know much about the genesis of Redis or Redis Labs, who key people and dates are, etc. I guess this obfuscation is part of the problem.
- Macha 3y ago
  > Like someone could start e.g. "Rust Labs" and sell a commercial version of Rust? No, because the Rust trademark guidelines prohibit that (https://foundation.rust-lang.org/policies/logo-policy-and-media-guide/ https://foundation.rust-lang.org/policies/logo-policy-and-me...) In Redis Labs case, they acquired the Redis trademark from the original author, who they employed for a few years after the project was well established.

KingOfCoders 3y ago

There is open source and there is non open source. Both is fine. Open source does not make a difference who uses it.

Y-bar 3y ago
That’s unfortunate. I have a clause forbidding Anish Kapoor from forking or using my code.