3 ms·

Antirez, how would you feel about a company that forks redis, renames it, removes all references to you and sells it successfully to some enterprises as next-ge

by buster 14y ago

Antirez, how would you feel about a company that forks redis, renames it, removes all references to you and sells it successfully to some enterprises as next-gen super database, making a lot of money? Maybe even enhancing it, fixing bugs, or doing some other work in a closed-source manner (documentation, translation stuff.). In your post you say that you appreciate when people make money out of your work but you also seem to have the faith that people contribute back because forks are inconvenient.

johnbellone 14y ago
Redis is a poor example because it is licensed under BSD which you can do exactly what you're describing. If you think there's something wrong with a corporation (likely a few hackers) selling open source software and making money off of it then, well, you simply don't belong in open source. This is exactly how Redhat operates. But there's obviously a difference between making money (re-branding) and then attempting to re-license (or break the existing one, assuming GPL, by not contributing back).
- buster 14y ago
  I think Red Hat is a prime example of a successful opensource company and if every company would operate like that we wouldn't need GPL. Clearly, that's a bad example. Red Hat does contribute to BSD licensed software as well, it's not at all what i described..
Mahn 14y ago
How would you feel about someone taking pictures of you while you are using the restroom? clearly we should ban cameras from restrooms and remove all sorts of windows. In fact, we should demand all pictures taken with a camera to be submitted to a public archive, just to make sure no evil deeds are done.
- saurik 14y ago
  ... as people generally don't like pictures of them being taken of them while they are in the bathroom, we actually do have laws that state that it is illegal to do so; past that, your analogy doesn't hold: we don't require all software to be submitted to a central archive so as to enforce GPL.
antirez 14y ago
I'm fine with this of course, that's why Redis is BSD licensed. I don't expect users to just use a subset of the rights they have with this license. However as I said the real value is in the evolution of software. If a company can evolve a Redis fork very well, they are able to provide new releases that are stable with well designed features, they are probably also able to rewrite it from scratch (with bigger efforts), so I just provided a tool to enter into business ASAP.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- buster 14y ago
  I see. I think i'm just not as good a person as you, i would not like that. From my point of view the company could as well operate open-source and make money through additional services (e.g. Redhat) and that would bother me very much. So kudos to you for thinking that way.
  - bartbes 14y ago
    Personally I also think of it like this: If someone can make money out of what I provide for free, they're providing some service. They either have better hosting, promoting, features, bugfixes, etc, etc, if you treat this service, however small, as added value, it is only reasonable they can get paid for it.
    - buster 14y ago
      That's why i tried to make an example where that added service is not existing or very small. Making your money with "added services" or some real additional value is fine but then, you could just stay with GPL. I tried to build that example where someone exploits the "do whatever you want". Like rebranding everything, telling some customer "that's my product" and "please pay $$$$$$ for that awesome product". Of course in that example the customer would still have some kind of contract and that sales person would still have to offer some kind of support/guarantee..
    - 14y ago
mkhattab 14y ago
I think this is unrealistic considering technical debt involved in any codebase. There is an example of what you described, specifically a company that rebranded Blender, renamed it to 3DMagix. I guess the companies you're describing are mostly out to make a quick buck and they'll do it regardless of licensing.

by buster 14y ago

johnbellone 14y ago

Redis is a poor example because it is licensed under BSD which you can do exactly what you're describing. If you think there's something wrong with a corporation (likely a few hackers) selling open source software and making money off of it then, well, you simply don't belong in open source. This is exactly how Redhat operates. But there's obviously a difference between making money (re-branding) and then attempting to re-license (or break the existing one, assuming GPL, by not contributing back).

buster 14y ago
I think Red Hat is a prime example of a successful opensource company and if every company would operate like that we wouldn't need GPL. Clearly, that's a bad example. Red Hat does contribute to BSD licensed software as well, it's not at all what i described..

Mahn 14y ago

How would you feel about someone taking pictures of you while you are using the restroom? clearly we should ban cameras from restrooms and remove all sorts of windows. In fact, we should demand all pictures taken with a camera to be submitted to a public archive, just to make sure no evil deeds are done.

saurik 14y ago
... as people generally don't like pictures of them being taken of them while they are in the bathroom, we actually do have laws that state that it is illegal to do so; past that, your analogy doesn't hold: we don't require all software to be submitted to a central archive so as to enforce GPL.

antirez 14y ago

I'm fine with this of course, that's why Redis is BSD licensed. I don't expect users to just use a subset of the rights they have with this license. However as I said the real value is in the evolution of software. If a company can evolve a Redis fork very well, they are able to provide new releases that are stable with well designed features, they are probably also able to rewrite it from scratch (with bigger efforts), so I just provided a tool to enter into business ASAP.

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
buster 14y ago
I see. I think i'm just not as good a person as you, i would not like that. From my point of view the company could as well operate open-source and make money through additional services (e.g. Redhat) and that would bother me very much. So kudos to you for thinking that way.
- bartbes 14y ago
  Personally I also think of it like this: If someone can make money out of what I provide for free, they're providing some service. They either have better hosting, promoting, features, bugfixes, etc, etc, if you treat this service, however small, as added value, it is only reasonable they can get paid for it.
  - buster 14y ago
    That's why i tried to make an example where that added service is not existing or very small. Making your money with "added services" or some real additional value is fine but then, you could just stay with GPL. I tried to build that example where someone exploits the "do whatever you want". Like rebranding everything, telling some customer "that's my product" and "please pay $$$$$$ for that awesome product". Of course in that example the customer would still have some kind of contract and that sales person would still have to offer some kind of support/guarantee..
  - 14y ago

mkhattab 14y ago

I think this is unrealistic considering technical debt involved in any codebase. There is an example of what you described, specifically a company that rebranded Blender, renamed it to 3DMagix. I guess the companies you're describing are mostly out to make a quick buck and they'll do it regardless of licensing.