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Commons Clause

redislabs.com

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Re: Commons Clause

#251

Post by kemitchell »

MrBingley wrote: post #157
vmbrasseur wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi, Kevin. VM Brasseur from https://opensource.org here. It's disappointing to see FOSSA, which claims it exists to assist companies with open source management, publish and encourage use of a clause that very clearly removes projects from the pool of open source alternatives. To do so by using the word "Commons" in the title adds insult to injury and borders on wilful deception, removing software from the commons as…

> However, 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 those open source projects. Instead, they use their monopolistic nature to derive hundreds of millions dollars in revenues from them. Already, this behavior has damaged…

Thank you for the mention. I'm not surprised to see it, though I resolved not to post myself, so that conversation could focus on Commons Clause.

Re: Commons Clause

#252

Post by XiZhao »

mindcrime wrote: post #107
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'…

I worked on bringing the Commons Clause to life Why would you intentionally give birth to such an abomination? This adds no value to the world whatsoever and is just going to confuse people and harm the overall Open Source ecosystem. I'd encourage you to retract this whole idea, stuff it in a hole, "salt and burn it" and try to pretend this whole thing never happened. If you care about putting pressure on Cloud provi…

As addressed in the FAQ, AGPL doesn't satisfy many requirements -- one of which is that it's often too restrictive in the wrong ways. If not the Commons Clause, a very viable "v2" is just to draft a more cohesive source-available license, or in the worst case move the project to closed source.

Re: Commons Clause

#253

Post by XiZhao »

skrebbel wrote: post #219

This limits not just huge cloud providers bit also little startups. In fact, Redis Labs would've probably never been founded if Redis had come with this clause from the beginning.

That's true, but Redis is not closed source. This only applies to a few enterprise modules.

Re: Commons Clause

#254

Post by tannhaeuser »

vmbrasseur wrote: post #93
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'…

Hi, Kevin. VM Brasseur from https://opensource.org here. It's disappointing to see FOSSA, which claims it exists to assist companies with open source management, publish and encourage use of a clause that very clearly removes projects from the pool of open source alternatives. To do so by using the word "Commons" in the title adds insult to injury and borders on wilful deception, removing software from the commons as…

Whose interests does OSI want to represent? Those of developers, or those who want to use other's work? What's gained by advocating Free and Open Source as if it were a goal in itself, and dismiss other licenses as not "OSI- approved"?

Re: Commons Clause

#255

Post by tokyodude »

tannhaeuser wrote: post #225
sgentle wrote: post #208

> Help! Companies are exploiting my open source software for profit! Uh, you told them they could. > Yeah, but they're doing it without contributing back! They're just taking what I wrote and building it into a proprietary product! You told them they could. > But how is it fair that they can make so much money off my code and I never see a cent? You. Told. Them. They. Could. Time and again I see the same sense of hel…

I agree. There's the reflex (here and elsewhere) to dismiss reciprocal licenses such as GPL, AGPL as "uncool", pretentious, and show-stopping. Maybe it's time to reconsider in times of cloud oligopoles. Because why would you want your software become part of the lock-in strategy of a cloud provider.

because they give me a service for free? Or just because we're all in this together?

I'm sure it depends on the examples you pick. I'm totally happy if people use my MITed code in a commerical product without reciprocating. I'm not writing it for them. I'm mostly writing it for myself. The payback is the joy I feel when others find it useful. I also feel joy by being part of the larger collection of people and companies that have given me so much free stuff. Python, clang, v8, firefox, chromium, electron, zlib, libjpeg, libpng, git, sdl, react, etc etc...

Re: Commons Clause

#256

Post by kemitchell »

vmbrasseur wrote: post #231
eloff wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is clearly intended to address the problem of how to build a viable business around open source software. Something open source doesn't address. Having a profitable company driving the development of an open source project is not a hard requirement, but it almost is. The difference is night and day in results. Any puritan approach that considers only the open source ideals, is quite frankly out of touch with reality.…

Open source has no place addressing the question of business model, as open source is about what people can do with the SOFTWARE. It removes the barriers to creating a business around that software, and that's where its concerns with business stop (and always have). It's up to the owners of that business to learn how to RUN a business. In summary: "Open source" is not a business model and is not concerned with them.…

License terms and business models intertwine. Choose Apache 2.0, you're going to have a hard time dual licensing. Choose something stronger, like AGPLv3, you'll have an easier time. Choose something even stronger, you may get locked in long Internet debates about whether it's still "open source".

Re: Commons Clause

#257

Post by [deleted] »

sciurus wrote: post #67
phpnode wrote: post #3

Yikes, the wording around consulting seems especially worrisome - are they effectively prohibiting third parties from providing redis technical support? This move will likely kill the project as it is today.

I don't understand how a copyright license can restrict consulting. If Redis Labs distributes redis to Alice, and Alice hires Bob for redis consulting, neither Alice or Bob are distributing Redis so the license terms are irrelevant to them.

[deleted]

Re: Commons Clause

#258

Post by sonarlunar »

cookiecaper wrote: post #151
borland wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Well, to be fair, it's not that they're trying to prevent it per se. It's just that they want a cut.

If Heroku, AWS, Google, IBM, whoever make money piggybacking Salvatore's work, shouldn't Salvatore actually ALSO make money from his work?

If not, what's the reason for him to continue? Elasticsearch faced the same problem, Redis too.

It's unfair to the developers if cloud providers make money and not contribute or give back a portion to the OSS developers.

Myself, I would never be so liberal like Salvatore had I been in his shoes. I would feel cheated if AWS was making millions, not from EC2 usage but from AWS charging for Redis and I would get nothing. All my suppressed anti-capitalistic ideas would popup in an instant and I would go left all the way.

I have no idea what's the relationship between Salvatore and Redis Labs but, as a hard core Redis user of +8 years, I want Salvatore to be rewarded for his work based on the Redis market value and revenue - wherever it is generated (Redis Labs, AWS, GCP, IBM, Heroku etc). Same for all other Redis contributors.

Back in the day I asked Pieter Noordhuis if he's interested in paid consulting work, knowing Salvatore has publicly stated he is not interested or has time. Back in 2012 that was the contribution I could do to support Redis (Pieter declined as he was working for VMWare).

It's not some anonymous geek building Redis. They are people who have families, obligations, problems, responsibilities. They create open source code and have every guy and his brother blame them for their open source software bug or feature missing, flame them and get aggressive in many non productive ways for what they developed and offer for free. "F that" - read it tons of time in twitter from open source developers.

Sorry, I want my money to go into Salvatore's pocket, not Bezos's.

Re: Commons Clause

#259

Post by sincerely »

tokyodude wrote: post #255
tannhaeuser wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. There's the reflex (here and elsewhere) to dismiss reciprocal licenses such as GPL, AGPL as "uncool", pretentious, and show-stopping. Maybe it's time to reconsider in times of cloud oligopoles. Because why would you want your software become part of the lock-in strategy of a cloud provider.

because they give me a service for free? Or just because we're all in this together? I'm sure it depends on the examples you pick. I'm totally happy if people use my MITed code in a commerical product without reciprocating. I'm not writing it for them. I'm mostly writing it for myself. The payback is the joy I feel when others find it useful. I also feel joy by being part of the larger collection of people and compan…

How can you say “We’re all in this together” when youre donating your time and they use the fruits of that labor to profit off you

Re: Commons Clause

#260

Post by peterwwillis »

paulsutter wrote: post #239
sgentle wrote: post #208

> Help! Companies are exploiting my open source software for profit! Uh, you told them they could. > Yeah, but they're doing it without contributing back! They're just taking what I wrote and building it into a proprietary product! You told them they could. > But how is it fair that they can make so much money off my code and I never see a cent? You. Told. Them. They. Could. Time and again I see the same sense of hel…

I thought your comment was great, until I actually read the link. Once I read the link I’m happy to see this experimentation and evolution of licenses. As someone who builds services and develops open source code, this approach seems more appealing than GPL and seems to cover the concerns of the Redis project nicely. Time will tell how it actually works out, but I think it looks promising. > the License does not gran…

According to this new clause, you may never provide consulting services for a fee if it involves these modules. Still cool?
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