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Commons Clause

redislabs.com

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Re: Commons Clause

#431

Post by yebyen »

another-cuppa wrote: post #413
yebyen wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're mistaken. (Well, maybe not mistaken if I read exactly what you said literally, but people/companies most certainly do choose not to use GPL software if they're looking to build a system that they can exploit for profit-making purposes.) It takes a very forward-thinking person to understand that they have more to gain from the thousands of eyes and the support of the community, than from a paywall that gates ac…

You're not talking about using the software, you're talking about making derivatives. The GPL doesn't restrict use of software in any way. It only prevents you from redistributing derivatives under more restrictive terms.

This is splitting hairs. Of course there is no restriction on use, but in order to produce a derivative work I will want to eat my own dogfood. If my company's legal department says that our product must remain proprietary and closed-source, then it stands to reason I will not be able to build it on a GPL base. Those people will likely have to choose not to use GPL software, at least to some extent.

(If they have a good legal department that understands intellectual property issues at all, and their product team knows they don't actually need to hack on the Linux kernel to make whatever they're building, then they will not likely be restricted against using Linux ... but the decision will necessarily restrict their choices when finding other components to use as part of the system they are building.)

Whether that is a good thing or a bad thing, I certainly feel is debatable and I'll reserve judgement. But it is provably wrong to say that nobody chooses not to use a GPL-licensed piece of software because of the license it is distributed under. Tons of people do.

Re: Commons Clause

#432

Post by rmc »

Karunamon wrote: post #393
anyzen wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In particular, I've always wondered why "GPL or ask me for permission" isn't being explored more. Maybe because then you need to have CLA's (Contributor License Agreements)? Otherwise, who is "you" that they need to ask? It's not just your code, it is based on work of many other contributers.

Possibly-ignorant legal question: Could the "CLA" be as simple as a checkbox on the PR submission form that says something to the effect of "You agree that your contributions to this repository, while owned by and credited to you, belong to (ownername) for the purposes of copyright and license enforcement?" Basically, making anyone who contributes aware that the contribution doesn't give them a claim in the copyright…

A CLA is basically a simple as you describe. It's just that some people (how many?) don't want their contributions to be ever closed source and might not agree to that term. Worse case, they fork your project, applying their changes to their fork.

It's the social issue, not the legal issue, that's annoying about CLAs.

Re: Commons Clause

#433

Post by dragonwriter »

dman wrote: post #204
rectang wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Open Source ecosystem rests on top of the OSI definition of "Open Source". Those with an interest in preserving the meaning of "Open Source" are broad, numerous and diverse; those with an interest in subverting it to confuse "open source" with "source available" are few, and destructive.

Dont think this is as cut and dry as you make it out to be. The emergence of cloud providers + hosted solutions and the ongoing disappearance of on premise computing means its increasingly hard to figure out a business model for infrastructure tech. Multiple database companies with excellent products (Rethinkdb et al) have faced significant challenges commercializing software that is open source. We need credible mon…

> The emergence of cloud providers + hosted solutions and the ongoing disappearance of on premise computing means its increasingly hard to figure out a business model for infrastructure tech.

The fact that open source works to the benefit of the largest providers of software-related services by commoditizing software itself is not new with the rise of the cloud as a new and popular domain of software-related services. And the source available and free non-commercial and selective commercial use, but negotiate a separate license for commercial use that we want to monopolize model is not an innovative solution to that problem, and generally isn't all that successful of a solution, especially as a switch for software which already has open source versions available that third parties can fork and commercially exploit even after the change.

Re: Commons Clause

#434

Post by ricardobeat »

antirez wrote: post #330

I clarified that the Redis core ( https://github.com/antirez/redis ) remains BSD, and what I think about the license switch Redis Labs is operating on certain Redis Modules. https://twitter.com/antirez/status/1032180321834467330 and the considerations thread: https://twitter.com/antirez/status/1032192721308594176

> Redis Labs is growing very fast, but yet not enough people IMHO understand that it's worth to buy the service from the folks that invest in the OSS side of such system.

I fail to see the problem. Aren't people choosing to buy from other providers because it's easier / better in some way?

Not personal: It's totally fine to make proprietary software, but I find this post-rationalization about fairness totally off-putting. Something was released as BSD, it's given away. If the maintenance workload is 'unfair', stop working on it, make a proprietary fork and charge money for it, but no need to hide under the pretense of being taken advantage of or 'OSS is failing' - to me that's exactly the spirit. Make software available to others, in exchange for being able to build a business in top of theirs. Fairness is not part of the equation.

Re: Commons Clause

#435

Post by ragall »

slavak wrote: post #214
quanticle wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>At it's core, this is fundamentally about property rights. The owners of the Redis copyright are well within their right to license their property in any way they see fit. They absolutely are. And I'm free to say that their license is ridiculous and do my best to warn others about the potential pitfalls of their license. >You could go build your own infrastructure software, of course, that is a valid path forward. B…

> Not true. You have to remember that the new license only applies to Redis going forward. At the risk of repeating myself all over this thread, I feel the need to emphasize that the new license does _not_ apply to Redis proper, which, in the words of the post, "is, and always will remain, an open source BSD license." Full disclosure: Am a Redis Labs employee, although not here in any official capacity.

I'm very curious to see if this stands in court, since "consulting" can be considered similar to repairing and there are laws in many countries that restrict a manufacturer's right to limit repairs and who performs them.

Re: Commons Clause

#436

Post by dragonwriter »

kazinator wrote: post #430
dragonwriter wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do you posit that people are more inclined to share contributions to a codebase that does not ask them to share such contributions? I posit that people businesses share contributions because it brings them business value, and the business itself being able to use the code in proprietary derivatives often significantly enhances the business value from sharing contributions, which is why SQLite (available as public d…

> I observe that a GPL-or-proprietary offer cannot use GPL-only contributions. That's no worse than the GNU project, which obtains copyright assignments from contributors.

I would suggest that a project run by an foundation whose entire purpose is Free Software and which strongly prefers making its own software available under exclusive reciprocal license for ideological reasons tied to it's central purpose has a very different position with regard to securing contributions of code ownership from people interested in contributing to the community than a company licensing software under a GPL+proprietary scheme, whose implicit ideology is “we should get paid by commercial users for what we develop, but you should not for what you develop for us”.

Re: Commons Clause

#437

Post by 0xbadcafebee »

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'…

> understand what systems are forcing deeply passionate OSS devs to consider more proprietary options

Does an artist stop painting because they aren't selling enough paintings? Did Linus stop making the kernel because he "created a lot of value" that big companies didn't compensate him for? He should be a billionaire by now, but he did fine for himself, so he didn't care that people were making billions off his creation. He made it because he needed it, but also because he loved programming. Deeply passionate people just do.

Not everyone can be passionate. But please don't pat these developers on the back for being capitalists.Right now they're just upset that they aren't making more cash, and are sticking it to the cloud providers out of spite.

Google didn't have to open source Kubernetes. They did it because they knew the power of open source is in the community. [1] If Docker had a "commons clause", imagine how limited the technology we use would be today.

The fact that this license stifles contribution to and use of the software is important, because it will probably evolve until no commercial use is allowed at all - without a paid license. Back to the good 'ol days of proprietary software companies.

And even if you're not a company, but you're a consultant who gets paid to set up a cluster for someone else, this license could be construed as preventing that consultant from getting paid for setting up the software. I'm not willing to be taken to court, so I'm not touching this software with a ten foot pole. If a company uses it, I won't work with that company.

[1] https://www.computerworlduk.com/cloud-computing/why-did-goog...

Re: Commons Clause

#438

Post by [deleted] »

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'…

[deleted]

Re: Commons Clause

#439

Post by peterwwillis »

scj wrote: post #146
tomnipotent wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "including without limitation fees for hosting or consulting/ support services related to the Software" This single line completely destroys any confidence I have in Commons Clause. I will avoid any project with this license moving forward until this is fixed. It's embarrassing that I'm being told that the time & energy I've invested in deploying this software (redis in particular) will now be rewarded with the ina…

Why would I invest, or encourage clients to invest, in a technology that has a support monopoly?

This is a good question. Most proprietary software companies allow other companies to charge for support of the software. This seems like they're a service provider too, and want to stifle competition. Like if Google made it illegal to charge for services in setting up a private kubernetes install for a company.

Re: Commons Clause

#440

Post by joshberkus »

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'…

Kevin,

If the goal is to monetize the Redis Labs modules, why not just put them under straightforwards proprietary licenses? This is a well-trodden and well-understood path.

This Commons Clause combines the twin mistakes of being both offensive and ineffective. It will get Redis pulled out of many OSS repositories, decreasing your distribution and mindshare. At the same time, I can see Amazon and Microsoft lawyers laughing at it now; it will do zero to prevent them from building their own cloud offerings.

I really have to wonder about the quality of advice that FOSSA is providing to its clients if it went ahead with this. You say 'OSS-savvy companies aren't dumb' but it seems like the consultants of FOSSA are, or they are counting on everyone else in the industry being gullible.

(and before you play the "consider the poor OSS developer" on me, I worked on Postgres for 18 years, and we never pulled this kind of nonsense)

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