14 ms·

Yeah, we just did this whole ride with Elastic [0]: company changes the license out from under the community, community revolts, company gives up and changes it

Yeah, we just did this whole ride with Elastic [0]: company changes the license out from under the community, community revolts, company gives up and changes it back. Both companies even pulled the same "it worked" excuse ("while it was painful, it worked", "this achieved our goal"). Neither company has built in a legal safety mechanism to prevent themselves from pulling the rug again later and both companies have shown themselves to be untrustworthy stewards. They came groveling back when it turned out that community goodwill really did matter after all, but this is definitely a "fool me twice, shame on me" situation. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41394797 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41394797

citizenpaul 1y ago
This seems to be accelerating. I guess the era of lighting investment money on fire and pretending that the flames equal success is coming to an end. Unless of course you are an AI startup.
jaapz 1y ago
Interestingly their CEO states that AWS an Google forking redis and maintaining it separately was their "goal" all along. Because fragmentation is apparently good?
- badlucklottery 1y ago
  > Because fragmentation is apparently good? I think it's more "they are no longer piggybacking off our work for free". I also think what they actually wanted was that plus "...and they paid us".
  - tedivm 1y ago
    The reason the ValKey fork happened so fast is that AWS was already sponsoring developers for the open source redis project.
    - SweetLlamaMyth 1y ago
      And not merely "some developers", but a member of the Redis Core Team: https://redis.io/blog/redis-core-team-update/ https://redis.io/blog/redis-core-team-update/
      - lolinder 1y ago
        Yeah, the whole "they give nothing back" line might be the worst part of the PR around these changes. It's obvious to anyone familiar with the ecosystem that it's not true, which damages the credibility of Redis's argument in the eyes of the people who matter most.
echelon 1y ago
This keeps happening: 1. People put a lot of work into building databases. The license choice is OSS / FOSS. 2. Some people in the community (original authors, community leads) make a company around the database and continue developing it for years on end. They sometimes raise venture capital to expand the business. 3. Amazon / Google / Microsoft offer managed versions of the database and make bank on it. Easily millions in revenue. Original creator / company doesn't get anything, and the hyperscaler isn't obliged to pay. 4. The company decides to change the license to force Amazon / Google / Microsoft to pitch in and pay a fee. 5. Amazon / Google / Microsoft fork the database. The community revolts. Sometimes the people revolting are employees of the hyperscalers, other times these are just FOSS fans that hate "source available" licenses or relicensing. 6. Database company is forced to walk back the changes. Still no revenue. --- The solution is clear: start your new database with an "equitable source / source available" license from day one. Nobody will complain about a relicense since your license will handle the hyperscalers right off the bat. Basically your license needs one of a few things if you want to prevent Amazon from walking off with your money: - A hyperscaler clause such that any managed offering has to (1) be fully open source, (2) has to pay a fee, or (3) is prevented outright. - A MAU / ARR clause such that hyperscalers are in the blast radius. Note that this also hits your customers.
- blibble 1y ago
  the problem is the definition of Open Source is controlled by the Open Source Initiative, which has been captured by the hyperscalers which is sort of funny because the term "Open Source" was itself coined to make it possible for people to seek funding to build companies based on the (crazy?) idea of producing software, then giving away its source code 20 years later, the structure of the industry has now changed, and now "Open Source" exists to feed Amazon, Microsoft and Google if it's not possible to alter the definition to include licenses that include terms that allow sustainable value creation for businesses other than the hyperscalers, then the term is no longer fit for purpose, and we need a new one "Fair Software"?
  - echelon 1y ago
    > "Fair Software"? That's the term most frequently used! I've seen a number of different efforts start to coalesce around this. https://fair.io/ https://fair.io/ This was also a really nice license: https://defold.com/license/ https://defold.com/license/ We need licenses like these to combat Amazon, Google, and Microsoft. "Open Source" is their grift now.
hmottestad 1y ago
Dunno about Redis, but for Elastic I still feel sorry for them being thrown around like a rag doll by Amazon. On principal I will not use the Amazon fork, because I don’t want to support a company that would prefer to fork a project rather than fork over some cash. Amazon is more than willing to sell you their Elasticsearch fork at a loss as long as they can eventually recoup the losses when Elastic inevitably dies. At which point they will naturally abandon the open sources side of their fork and continue development in private, at a much slower rate, while doubling the price of the AWS service. At which point you’ll have no choice but the pay up, cause there aren’t any competitors left.
- andrepd 1y ago
  I sure wish I lived in a world where anti-competitive regulators weren't a joke.
  - ikiris 1y ago
    What exactly do you think is anti-competitive about offering an open source product as a service?
    - palata 1y ago
      Being in a position where you can copy anything and crush competition is a problem. In terms of antitrust, I believe that if you could prove that Amazon forked and offered the service with the intent to crush the competition, it would be downright illegal. A current case is Meta: back then, Zuckerberg was happily writing (internally) that Facebook needed to buy WhatsApp and Instagram and Snapchat to prevent them from ever competing. This is anti-competitive. This post explains it well: https://pluralistic.net/2025/04/18/chatty-zucky/#is-you-taking-notes-on-a-criminal-fucking-conspiracy https://pluralistic.net/2025/04/18/chatty-zucky/#is-you-taki...
      - growse 1y ago
        They can't "copy anything". They can only copy what they're explicitly legally allowed to. Elastic explicitly allowed AWS to copy and use their source code, then whined about it.
atombender 1y ago
NATS almost ended up doing it recently, too. Fortunately they caved in just today, after the CNCF and the community protested. [1] While the outcome is great, it was a bunch of drama for nothing, and their reputation has been harmed. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43863721 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43863721
- PeterZaitsev 1y ago
  Yep. Actually if Redis would end up in CNCF and Redis Labs could provide commercial hosting, extensions - this would be outcome I would be excited about
golergka 1y ago
> Neither company has built in a legal safety mechanism to prevent themselves from pulling the rug again later Previous versions are still available under the original license, right? So if you don't want to use it with a new license, you're in the same situation as if company went out of business or stopped support and development for any other reason. There are no safety mechanisms for that either.
- palata 1y ago
  An existing safety mechanism is to do exactly what Linux does: have a copyleft licence and no CLA. So that the copyright is shared between the contributors (so it's impossible to change the licence) and the licence enforces sharing your changes of the project.
immibis 1y ago
The legal safety mechanism is the license. They gave you software under a certain license and you're in the clear as long as you follow it. You don't have to delete it if they give different software under a different license. If you do need constant updates, you may trust forks more not to switch license, but forks tend to disappear at about the same rate that originals switch license, so why does it matter? Such is the nature of relying on free stuff - you're at the mercy of the one who hands it out.

citizenpaul 1y ago

This seems to be accelerating. I guess the era of lighting investment money on fire and pretending that the flames equal success is coming to an end. Unless of course you are an AI startup.

jaapz 1y ago

Interestingly their CEO states that AWS an Google forking redis and maintaining it separately was their "goal" all along. Because fragmentation is apparently good?

badlucklottery 1y ago
> Because fragmentation is apparently good? I think it's more "they are no longer piggybacking off our work for free". I also think what they actually wanted was that plus "...and they paid us".
- tedivm 1y ago
  The reason the ValKey fork happened so fast is that AWS was already sponsoring developers for the open source redis project.
  - SweetLlamaMyth 1y ago
    And not merely "some developers", but a member of the Redis Core Team: https://redis.io/blog/redis-core-team-update/ https://redis.io/blog/redis-core-team-update/
    - lolinder 1y ago
      Yeah, the whole "they give nothing back" line might be the worst part of the PR around these changes. It's obvious to anyone familiar with the ecosystem that it's not true, which damages the credibility of Redis's argument in the eyes of the people who matter most.

echelon 1y ago

This keeps happening: 1. People put a lot of work into building databases. The license choice is OSS / FOSS. 2. Some people in the community (original authors, community leads) make a company around the database and continue developing it for years on end. They sometimes raise venture capital to expand the business. 3. Amazon / Google / Microsoft offer managed versions of the database and make bank on it. Easily millions in revenue. Original creator / company doesn't get anything, and the hyperscaler isn't obliged to pay. 4. The company decides to change the license to force Amazon / Google / Microsoft to pitch in and pay a fee. 5. Amazon / Google / Microsoft fork the database. The community revolts. Sometimes the people revolting are employees of the hyperscalers, other times these are just FOSS fans that hate "source available" licenses or relicensing. 6. Database company is forced to walk back the changes. Still no revenue. --- The solution is clear: start your new database with an "equitable source / source available" license from day one. Nobody will complain about a relicense since your license will handle the hyperscalers right off the bat. Basically your license needs one of a few things if you want to prevent Amazon from walking off with your money: - A hyperscaler clause such that any managed offering has to (1) be fully open source, (2) has to pay a fee, or (3) is prevented outright. - A MAU / ARR clause such that hyperscalers are in the blast radius. Note that this also hits your customers.

blibble 1y ago
the problem is the definition of Open Source is controlled by the Open Source Initiative, which has been captured by the hyperscalers which is sort of funny because the term "Open Source" was itself coined to make it possible for people to seek funding to build companies based on the (crazy?) idea of producing software, then giving away its source code 20 years later, the structure of the industry has now changed, and now "Open Source" exists to feed Amazon, Microsoft and Google if it's not possible to alter the definition to include licenses that include terms that allow sustainable value creation for businesses other than the hyperscalers, then the term is no longer fit for purpose, and we need a new one "Fair Software"?
- echelon 1y ago
  > "Fair Software"? That's the term most frequently used! I've seen a number of different efforts start to coalesce around this. https://fair.io/ https://fair.io/ This was also a really nice license: https://defold.com/license/ https://defold.com/license/ We need licenses like these to combat Amazon, Google, and Microsoft. "Open Source" is their grift now.

hmottestad 1y ago

Dunno about Redis, but for Elastic I still feel sorry for them being thrown around like a rag doll by Amazon. On principal I will not use the Amazon fork, because I don’t want to support a company that would prefer to fork a project rather than fork over some cash. Amazon is more than willing to sell you their Elasticsearch fork at a loss as long as they can eventually recoup the losses when Elastic inevitably dies. At which point they will naturally abandon the open sources side of their fork and continue development in private, at a much slower rate, while doubling the price of the AWS service. At which point you’ll have no choice but the pay up, cause there aren’t any competitors left.

andrepd 1y ago
I sure wish I lived in a world where anti-competitive regulators weren't a joke.
- ikiris 1y ago
  What exactly do you think is anti-competitive about offering an open source product as a service?
  - palata 1y ago
    Being in a position where you can copy anything and crush competition is a problem. In terms of antitrust, I believe that if you could prove that Amazon forked and offered the service with the intent to crush the competition, it would be downright illegal. A current case is Meta: back then, Zuckerberg was happily writing (internally) that Facebook needed to buy WhatsApp and Instagram and Snapchat to prevent them from ever competing. This is anti-competitive. This post explains it well: https://pluralistic.net/2025/04/18/chatty-zucky/#is-you-taking-notes-on-a-criminal-fucking-conspiracy https://pluralistic.net/2025/04/18/chatty-zucky/#is-you-taki...
    - growse 1y ago
      They can't "copy anything". They can only copy what they're explicitly legally allowed to. Elastic explicitly allowed AWS to copy and use their source code, then whined about it.

atombender 1y ago

NATS almost ended up doing it recently, too. Fortunately they caved in just today, after the CNCF and the community protested. [1] While the outcome is great, it was a bunch of drama for nothing, and their reputation has been harmed. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43863721 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43863721

PeterZaitsev 1y ago
Yep. Actually if Redis would end up in CNCF and Redis Labs could provide commercial hosting, extensions - this would be outcome I would be excited about

golergka 1y ago

> Neither company has built in a legal safety mechanism to prevent themselves from pulling the rug again later Previous versions are still available under the original license, right? So if you don't want to use it with a new license, you're in the same situation as if company went out of business or stopped support and development for any other reason. There are no safety mechanisms for that either.

palata 1y ago
An existing safety mechanism is to do exactly what Linux does: have a copyleft licence and no CLA. So that the copyright is shared between the contributors (so it's impossible to change the licence) and the licence enforces sharing your changes of the project.

immibis 1y ago

The legal safety mechanism is the license. They gave you software under a certain license and you're in the clear as long as you follow it. You don't have to delete it if they give different software under a different license. If you do need constant updates, you may trust forks more not to switch license, but forks tend to disappear at about the same rate that originals switch license, so why does it matter? Such is the nature of relying on free stuff - you're at the mercy of the one who hands it out.