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> doesn't that rather put MongoDB in the position of commercially exploiting the work of developers who contribute their code under the expectation that it wil

by mason55 13y ago

> doesn't that rather put MongoDB in the position of commercially exploiting the work of developers who contribute their code under the expectation that it will be freely shared under AGPL? While the MongoDB product is open source and licensed under the AGPL, they very rarely accept outside contributions. A vast majority of the product was built by 10gen/MongoDB, so this is less of an issue than it would be for something like Postgres.

jameshart 13y ago
Which seems like further evidence that the use of AGPL is somewhat disingenuous - more a poison-pill than a genuine attempt to embrace free software principles. If I use MongoDB, and modify it to suit my needs, I have to make my changes available to anyone who consumes a service I back with my modified MongoDB. MongoDB Inc., presumably by virtue of having licensing agreements in place with all the copyright holders whose code is in their core distribution of the product, have the ability not to do that. They could, however, examine my improvements and do a cleanroom reimplementation of them. The real risk to them is that a vastly improved fork of MongoDB is built up by contributors who don't license over their contributions to MongoDB Inc., preventing their incorporation into commercial licensed versions...
- mason55 13y ago
  > The real risk to them is that a vastly improved fork of MongoDB is built up by contributors who don't license over their contributions to MongoDB Inc., preventing their incorporation into commercial licensed versions... aka MariaDB :)
- jamesaguilar 13y ago
  The GPLs are meant to be poison pills. That's what they are for. Mongo's use of the license this way is standard, then in addition they allow you to buy the antidote.
  - belorn 13y ago
    People giving out code for free is poisonous? Here is someone people saying: "Hey, wrote some nice software. Here. You want it? Take it. We like it. It's Free.". Now if you want to take that software and give it to someone else, they ask you to not go around the hide where you got it, what changes you made to it, and not sue people for patents over that software. Its a polite, if backed up statement, that people can't go around using other people software and then be exploitative about it. Play nice, or do not play at all. Is it really your view that doing so is poisonous?

by mason55 13y ago

jameshart 13y ago

Which seems like further evidence that the use of AGPL is somewhat disingenuous - more a poison-pill than a genuine attempt to embrace free software principles. If I use MongoDB, and modify it to suit my needs, I have to make my changes available to anyone who consumes a service I back with my modified MongoDB. MongoDB Inc., presumably by virtue of having licensing agreements in place with all the copyright holders whose code is in their core distribution of the product, have the ability not to do that. They could, however, examine my improvements and do a cleanroom reimplementation of them. The real risk to them is that a vastly improved fork of MongoDB is built up by contributors who don't license over their contributions to MongoDB Inc., preventing their incorporation into commercial licensed versions...

mason55 13y ago
> The real risk to them is that a vastly improved fork of MongoDB is built up by contributors who don't license over their contributions to MongoDB Inc., preventing their incorporation into commercial licensed versions... aka MariaDB :)
jamesaguilar 13y ago
The GPLs are meant to be poison pills. That's what they are for. Mongo's use of the license this way is standard, then in addition they allow you to buy the antidote.
- belorn 13y ago
  People giving out code for free is poisonous? Here is someone people saying: "Hey, wrote some nice software. Here. You want it? Take it. We like it. It's Free.". Now if you want to take that software and give it to someone else, they ask you to not go around the hide where you got it, what changes you made to it, and not sue people for patents over that software. Its a polite, if backed up statement, that people can't go around using other people software and then be exploitative about it. Play nice, or do not play at all. Is it really your view that doing so is poisonous?