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Commons Clause

redislabs.com

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Re: Commons Clause

#111

Post by justinjlynn »

dcow wrote: post #88
geofft wrote: post #64

> but all other users will be unaffected by this change. This is untrue for the simple reason that you will be unable to apt-get install this software directly from Linux distros with a policy of including only FOSS. Or, more generally - the value of FOSS is in the opportunities for public collaboration and redistribution. If you think you're doing the vast majority of the development work anyway and you want people…

They mention later on that redis core will always remain BSD. I share your sentiment, though it seems like this is an effort to not totally isolate the project. Their goal appears to be clamping down on straight up resale of integration components & modules.

If they're concerned about brand dilution via resale of "Redis"-as-a-Service RedisLabs could easily trademark the term Redis and prohibit its use in this way. This mechanism is much the same way Mozilla controls the Firefox trademarks. I do wish they hadn't made their Open Source licence a confusing mess and effectively proprietary for certain modules. That's their right, of course - as copyright holders. However, it's really unhelpful for the rest of the community. We're going to spend a lot of time trying to clarify for people who don't understand the implications of these toxic licence provisions why they make such components unacceptable.

Re: Commons Clause

#112

Post by mindcrime »

borland wrote: post #108
colinbartlett wrote: post #103

If this clause comes to Redis Core, will it mean Heroku and others cannot offer me the simple hosted Redis they do today? Thesd cloud providers are exactly what makes Redis attractive to me, dramatically reducing the cost of spinning up new infrastructure for projects.

If you read the article, it implies that people like Heroku and others offering hosted Redis is EXACTLY the kind of thing they are trying to prevent with this clause. To quote: "today’s cloud providers have repeatedly violated this ethos by taking advantage of successful open source projects and repackaging them into competitive, proprietary service offerings. Cloud providers contribute very little (if anything) to t…

If you read the article, it implies that people like Heroku and others offering hosted Redis is EXACTLY the kind of thing they are trying to prevent with this clause.

The thing is, the AGPL already existed for dealing with the whole "cloud vendors turning things effectively proprietary" issue.

Re: Commons Clause

#114

Post by pvg »

DannyBee wrote: post #62
XiZhao wrote: post #58

Hi folks. Kevin from http://fossa.io here. I worked on bringing the Commons Clause to life ( https://commonsclause.com/ ) and led many of the project efforts here. Happy to answer questions here (or on Twitter @kevinverse). I wanted to write a blog post to set some context because the real story is a lot less salacious then "Redis just went proprietary", but here's a quick summary: 1/ No, Redis isn't proprietary. It'…

As an open source lawyer, this is definitely not an open source license in any meaningful sense (it meets no definition of open source/free software/DFSG/you name it). No restrictions on fields of endeavor and no discrimination is a pretty basic tenent that goes back a long long time (the DFSG were published in 1997, there are other things saying the same thing that pre-date it). I also know this is what other open s…

The FAQ at https://commonsclause.com says it was drafted by Heather Meeker.

Re: Commons Clause

#115

Post by CharlesW »

DannyBee wrote: post #62
XiZhao wrote: post #58

Hi folks. Kevin from http://fossa.io here. I worked on bringing the Commons Clause to life ( https://commonsclause.com/ ) and led many of the project efforts here. Happy to answer questions here (or on Twitter @kevinverse). I wanted to write a blog post to set some context because the real story is a lot less salacious then "Redis just went proprietary", but here's a quick summary: 1/ No, Redis isn't proprietary. It'…

As an open source lawyer, this is definitely not an open source license in any meaningful sense (it meets no definition of open source/free software/DFSG/you name it). No restrictions on fields of endeavor and no discrimination is a pretty basic tenent that goes back a long long time (the DFSG were published in 1997, there are other things saying the same thing that pre-date it). I also know this is what other open s…

> As an open source lawyer, this is definitely not an open source license in any meaningful sense…

TFA plainly says that it isn't, "at least not by the official definition set forth by the OSD."

> I'm sure you can make up another word other than "proprietary" to call it…

TFA also answers this:

> "Applying the Clause to an open source project will transition the project to 'source-available'."

Re: Commons Clause

#116

Post by throwaway13337 »

The problem this license is trying to solve is a reasonable one: that cloud providers package up open source products as their own service and capture the majority of the value without adding much themselves.

This license might not be the best way around it but the issue should be addressed.

Re: Commons Clause

#117

Post by kazinator »

pmilot wrote: post #41

Doesn't this Commons Clause goes specifically against one of the core principles of Free Software? The whole idea is that a Free Software license should not restrict what you can do with said software. Even the most restrictive FS licenses like GPL will not prevent me from selling consulting services around the product licensed under it. If you combine this clause with a Free Software license, it sounds to me like it…

> Even the most restrictive FS licenses like GPL will not prevent me from selling consulting services around the product licensed under it.

At least this doesn't prevent buying those services. If I obtain the program from some party A, then A redistributed it to me. Then if I contract B to work on/with the software, B is not bound by the contract because they did not redistribute it to me. However, though I can pay B, neither of us can sell the enhancements though, if enhancements were made.

Moreover, I can't use the software to run any kind of business, because that's might be a product or service that arguably derives substantial value from the software.

Re: Commons Clause

#118

Post by mindcrime »

mchahn wrote: post #102
mindcrime wrote: post #55

This is pretty stupid. If you want to license your software under a proprietary license, just license it under a proprietary license. Or if you want to be "Shared Source"[1] use one of the old MS licenses for that. But don't try to put lipstick on a pig and add a veneer of "openness" by shipping something under an Open Source license + terms that make it very explicitly not Open Source. As much as I like Redis, and e…

> If you want to license your software under a proprietary license, just license it under a proprietary license. It's not that simple. I'm about to come out with a 3d-printed product that will sell in a similar market to 3d printers. My product is begging to be open-source hardware since anyone with a 3d-printer can create a large part of it and I'd be ecstatic (and richer) if the product developed a community of fol…

So you're planning to bring a proprietary product to market, and make the code "shared source". There's nothing novel about that, and there are already licenses out there specifically for allowing "code available, but you can't redistribute". Using a faux "open source" license like "Apache + Commons Clause" is disingenuous, confusing, and irresponsible.

Re: Commons Clause

#119

Post by bradrydzewski »

DannyBee wrote: post #84
tschellenbach wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no affiliation with Redis, it's clearly still open source, it's just not free for some of their users.

It's clearly not open source. It meets no definition of open source that has ever existed. Even other things like the debian free software guidelines (which date back to 1997. Seee https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debian_Free_Software_Guideline... ) would not consider this free It's also clear the goal is to "seem" open source by reusing the license names of open source licenses.

Can you point me to the line in the license file that clearly demonstrates Redis is not open source? https://github.com/antirez/redis/blob/unstable/COPYING

Re: Commons Clause

#120

Post by cjbprime »

Aw, man. We yelled at the Redis dev so often for poorly reimplementing distributed consensus algorithms that he switched to poorly reimplementing software licenses instead.
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