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Thank you, Simon. I believe that cases like Elastic and Redis returning back to an open source license is like writing on the rock: "open source won", at least

Thank you, Simon. I believe that cases like Elastic and Redis returning back to an open source license is like writing on the rock: "open source won", at least in the system software space. Companies get created, prosper and fail over time, but this message is here to stay with us for a long time, and shapes the society of tomorrow. It's a win of the software community itself.

lolinder 1y ago
It's a win for the community over and against the corporations that are Redis and Elastic. They're not the good guys for giving in to the pressure. They tried to ride FOSS to prominence and then extract wealth on the backs of the community and found that the community mattered more than they did. So sure, let's celebrate, but celebrate the community, not those who tried to pull the rug out from under them.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- antirez 1y ago
  I said exactly that's a win of the community. But money are needed to pay the folks that work at open source software, and the companies that went for the SSPL were trying to protect their business (and, as a side effect, wanted or not, the ability to pay for such work). I believe the software world failed to protect open source software in the cloud era, but in general the environment that we collectively created made the open source software won.
  - lolinder 1y ago
    I don't buy that justification. These two companies (and the others like them) set up a model for funding their business knowing full well that they would have to compete with others who were able to provide the same service they were. That's always been baked into FOSS—you can't plan around a monopoly when you're releasing your code for free, that's part of the trade-off you make. When AWS and Co did provide hosting and provided it better than these guys could, now it's suddenly AWS who are the bad guys for using the FOSS software the way the license always said they could. Now we're suddenly supposed to ignore the terms on which FOSS has always been released and pick up our pitchforks against the big mean cloud provider. Instead of sticking to the fundamental principles of FOSS (principles which they won business by openly espousing) and adapting their business to the fact that Elastic and Redis lost in the competition they knowingly set up, they fixated on hosting (on top of AWS and Co, no less!) as the business model and changed the licenses to give themselves a monopoly on it.
    - jimbokun 1y ago
      There is no possible way to compete against someone else who doesn't need to fund the development of the software but can still take in all the revenues and profits from deploying it as a service.
      - lolinder 1y ago
        But that has always been true, from the beginning. It's baked in to the FOSS model and always has been. If the companies had made a bad call in structuring their business and owned up to it I think we'd be having a very different conversation than we are. We're here because they failed to own up to it and instead tried to get people to raise pitchforks against AWS. Never mind that their intended model was the obviously doomed model of reselling AWS's hosting with a commission on top, and never mind that it was the trade-off they chose when they chose to release their software as FOSS and get the boost in adoption that comes with. I do fully agree with antirez above that we need a new plan for funding FOSS. But I think that's a poor justification for the rug pulling and vilifying that the existing companies did.
      - overfeed 1y ago
        You make it sound like there is a way to compete against the same organizations if they funded the development of the software - it's not possible to compete against hyperscalers, period. Now that Amazon is funding a fork, is Redis, Inc in a better or worse position to compete?
      - kodablah 1y ago
        Not true, you can compete with the quality of the deployed service _separate_ from the development of the software. The quality of the service can include internal, at-scale optimizations that don't affect user-facing parity with the open-source software. Open source companies with SaaS offerings need to have plans to differentiate themselves on hosting quality, not features. Yes, you can do better at hosting your own product than Amazon in many cases with customized, closed-source optimizations (that are unrelated to feature parity and does not intentionally limit the open-source/self-hosted form), support, etc.
  - barotalomey 1y ago
    > But money are needed to pay the folks that work at open source software Cute. Can I have a check for my redis contributions now please?
- thayne 1y ago
  I strongly suspect there was pressure from within these companies, among developers as well.
znpy 1y ago
I’d say that open source definitely lost, and lost real bad. Free Software won, as you ended up adopting the AGPL. It’s an important distinction.
- fastball 1y ago
  No its not.
  - znpy 1y ago
    One more major piece of software is not open source (BSD) anymore, it's now Free Software (AGPL). And every time someone talks about Open Source licensing, we'll remember how Redis was BSD and that became a shitshow so bad (everybody was fleeing to Valkey) they had to relicense it to AGPL (Free Software). If this isn't losing...

lolinder 1y ago

It's a win for the community over and against the corporations that are Redis and Elastic. They're not the good guys for giving in to the pressure. They tried to ride FOSS to prominence and then extract wealth on the backs of the community and found that the community mattered more than they did. So sure, let's celebrate, but celebrate the community, not those who tried to pull the rug out from under them.

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
antirez 1y ago
I said exactly that's a win of the community. But money are needed to pay the folks that work at open source software, and the companies that went for the SSPL were trying to protect their business (and, as a side effect, wanted or not, the ability to pay for such work). I believe the software world failed to protect open source software in the cloud era, but in general the environment that we collectively created made the open source software won.
- lolinder 1y ago
  I don't buy that justification. These two companies (and the others like them) set up a model for funding their business knowing full well that they would have to compete with others who were able to provide the same service they were. That's always been baked into FOSS—you can't plan around a monopoly when you're releasing your code for free, that's part of the trade-off you make. When AWS and Co did provide hosting and provided it better than these guys could, now it's suddenly AWS who are the bad guys for using the FOSS software the way the license always said they could. Now we're suddenly supposed to ignore the terms on which FOSS has always been released and pick up our pitchforks against the big mean cloud provider. Instead of sticking to the fundamental principles of FOSS (principles which they won business by openly espousing) and adapting their business to the fact that Elastic and Redis lost in the competition they knowingly set up, they fixated on hosting (on top of AWS and Co, no less!) as the business model and changed the licenses to give themselves a monopoly on it.
  - jimbokun 1y ago
    There is no possible way to compete against someone else who doesn't need to fund the development of the software but can still take in all the revenues and profits from deploying it as a service.
    - lolinder 1y ago
      But that has always been true, from the beginning. It's baked in to the FOSS model and always has been. If the companies had made a bad call in structuring their business and owned up to it I think we'd be having a very different conversation than we are. We're here because they failed to own up to it and instead tried to get people to raise pitchforks against AWS. Never mind that their intended model was the obviously doomed model of reselling AWS's hosting with a commission on top, and never mind that it was the trade-off they chose when they chose to release their software as FOSS and get the boost in adoption that comes with. I do fully agree with antirez above that we need a new plan for funding FOSS. But I think that's a poor justification for the rug pulling and vilifying that the existing companies did.
    - overfeed 1y ago
      You make it sound like there is a way to compete against the same organizations if they funded the development of the software - it's not possible to compete against hyperscalers, period. Now that Amazon is funding a fork, is Redis, Inc in a better or worse position to compete?
    - kodablah 1y ago
      Not true, you can compete with the quality of the deployed service _separate_ from the development of the software. The quality of the service can include internal, at-scale optimizations that don't affect user-facing parity with the open-source software. Open source companies with SaaS offerings need to have plans to differentiate themselves on hosting quality, not features. Yes, you can do better at hosting your own product than Amazon in many cases with customized, closed-source optimizations (that are unrelated to feature parity and does not intentionally limit the open-source/self-hosted form), support, etc.
- barotalomey 1y ago
  > But money are needed to pay the folks that work at open source software Cute. Can I have a check for my redis contributions now please?
thayne 1y ago
I strongly suspect there was pressure from within these companies, among developers as well.

znpy 1y ago

I’d say that open source definitely lost, and lost real bad. Free Software won, as you ended up adopting the AGPL. It’s an important distinction.

fastball 1y ago
No its not.
- znpy 1y ago
  One more major piece of software is not open source (BSD) anymore, it's now Free Software (AGPL). And every time someone talks about Open Source licensing, we'll remember how Redis was BSD and that became a shitshow so bad (everybody was fleeing to Valkey) they had to relicense it to AGPL (Free Software). If this isn't losing...