3 ms·

The situation changed. A license that's the right choice at one point may not be the right license a decade later.

embedding-shape 6mo ago
Agree, as long as existing contributors agree the license should be changed, projects should feel free to do so, no harm, no foul.
ncruces 6mo ago
That's fair, but forking the FOSS version is also an adequate response.
- ceejayoz 6mo ago
  Yes. But so would financially contributing to the folks who did the work.
  - chii 6mo ago
    If those folks wanted money for their work, they should be charging a price for it.
    - ceejayoz 6mo ago
      That’s what they eventually did, yes. But it’s ok to be voluntarily grateful for hard work.
      - sumedh 6mo ago
        > But it’s ok to be voluntarily grateful for hard work. You don't become a billionaire using that approach though.
  - ncruces 6mo ago
    Sure. Since they're a for profit entity, they'll do whatever they think offers the best cost/benefit.
  - tedivm 6mo ago
    AWS literally did that. They paid for full time developers to contribute back to the redis code base, including core redis developers. If you actually look at the redis code base the majority of it was written by people who never worked for redis.
    - cylemons 6mo ago
      > If you actually look at the redis code base the majority of it was written by people who never worked for redis. Thats a really big deal, how did they legally managed to do the license change? I was under the impression that only works if the original owner is the doing most work
      - sakjur 6mo ago
        Permissive licenses don't protect against projects that decide to change the license when releasing a new version. Copyleft protects against that as a general rule. However some projects that rely on copyleft require contributors to sign license agreements granting the project owners a more permissive license.
      - jen20 6mo ago
        > Thats a really big deal, how did they legally managed to do the license change? I was under the impression that only works if the original owner is the doing most work Almost all of these license changes just change the terms under which _new_ work is contributed - which is why many of them have forks from the last OSI-licensed commit.
        cylemons 6mo ago
        Now that makes sense, so its legal because the contributors can still access their code
jabwd 6mo ago
I hate Amazon and monopolies, but I hate companies that think opensourcing their code as a marketing stunt gives them more rights or whatever. If you don't want to opensource, then don't?!
- sincerely 6mo ago
  I can’t agree more, this “our software is open source but we have unwritten rules about how you can use it or we’ll attempt to shame you” attitude is absurd

Agree, as long as existing contributors agree the license should be changed, projects should feel free to do so, no harm, no foul.

ncruces 6mo ago

That's fair, but forking the FOSS version is also an adequate response.

ceejayoz 6mo ago
Yes. But so would financially contributing to the folks who did the work.
- chii 6mo ago
  If those folks wanted money for their work, they should be charging a price for it.
  - ceejayoz 6mo ago
    That’s what they eventually did, yes. But it’s ok to be voluntarily grateful for hard work.
    - sumedh 6mo ago
      > But it’s ok to be voluntarily grateful for hard work. You don't become a billionaire using that approach though.
- ncruces 6mo ago
  Sure. Since they're a for profit entity, they'll do whatever they think offers the best cost/benefit.
- tedivm 6mo ago
  AWS literally did that. They paid for full time developers to contribute back to the redis code base, including core redis developers. If you actually look at the redis code base the majority of it was written by people who never worked for redis.
  - cylemons 6mo ago
    > If you actually look at the redis code base the majority of it was written by people who never worked for redis. Thats a really big deal, how did they legally managed to do the license change? I was under the impression that only works if the original owner is the doing most work
    - sakjur 6mo ago
      Permissive licenses don't protect against projects that decide to change the license when releasing a new version. Copyleft protects against that as a general rule. However some projects that rely on copyleft require contributors to sign license agreements granting the project owners a more permissive license.
    - jen20 6mo ago
      > Thats a really big deal, how did they legally managed to do the license change? I was under the impression that only works if the original owner is the doing most work Almost all of these license changes just change the terms under which _new_ work is contributed - which is why many of them have forks from the last OSI-licensed commit.
      - cylemons 6mo ago
        Now that makes sense, so its legal because the contributors can still access their code

jabwd 6mo ago

I hate Amazon and monopolies, but I hate companies that think opensourcing their code as a marketing stunt gives them more rights or whatever. If you don't want to opensource, then don't?!

sincerely 6mo ago
I can’t agree more, this “our software is open source but we have unwritten rules about how you can use it or we’ll attempt to shame you” attitude is absurd