Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Commons Clause

redislabs.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

441–450 of 496 posts

Re: Commons Clause

#441

Post by joshberkus »

joshberkus wrote: post #440
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 la…

For historical relevance:

Microsoft already tried this with its "Shared Source" nonsense, an attempt to reap the marketing benefits of Open Source while actually opening anything. If Microsoft couldn't pull it off with their $billions in marketing funds, why on Earth do you think Redis Labs can?

(yes, the Shared Source program still exists, but it's no longer Microsoft's answer to Open Source, but just a way of handling required government disclosure of their older proprietary products. It's pretty clear to anyone who follows MS now that they consider Shared Source to have been a complete flop)

Re: Commons Clause

#442

Post by Boulth »

dragonwriter wrote: post #388
etatoby wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So why aren't they simply re-licensing under AGPL? That's what I would do.

> So why aren't they simply re-licensing under AGPL? That's what I would do. Because they want money from certain downstream commercial uses (or to block them so that they can monopolize those services), not to force people to release any modifications when they sell, e.g., hosted Redis services.

That why dual licensing exists. AGPL or commercial license. Sidekiq does that [0].

[0]: https://sidekiq.org/products/pro.html

Re: Commons Clause

#443

Post by another-cuppa »

yebyen wrote: post #431
another-cuppa wrote: post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 g…

No it's not splitting hairs. Using a piece of software and distributing a derivative of that piece of software are two completely different things. Nobody chooses not to use a piece of software because it's GPL. If people choose not to distribute derivatives under restrictive terms then that's great because that's exactly the reason I licensed it to them under the GPL.

Re: Commons Clause

#444

Post by joshberkus »

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…

Josh Berkus, member of the OSI license review committee here.

License Zero was rejected because it's not open source. It is, in fact, a business model for a specific startup (and, I'd argue, not for the writers of the code either).

Kyle had some other interesting ideas for licensing that could have been approved as open source, but was uninterested in pursuing them if they didn't support License Zero the business.

Re: Commons Clause

#445

Post by mbrumlow »

zepolen wrote: post #250
mbrumlow wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but its not like they are "getting it for free". It is a ecosystem, and cloud providers have provided many nice things back to the ecosystems. Including jobs to many prominent OSS developers. Not to mention cloud providers do the most important sort of work on any project. That is running it reporting bugs and often submitting patches to those bugs. Larger cloud providers even hire people for the sole purpose t…

I get what you're saying but Redis found popularity way before clouds started offering it. Clouds later further contribute (and profit) to the ecosystem, but make no mistake they didn't help create or spend any resources for that ecosystem. Redis is probably the number one kv store atm, not sure what the number two is, and for sure no clouds are offering it right now; but if this licensing thing goes sour with the co…

I disagreed, partly on the what makes the "ecosystem". While Redis has its own micro ecosystem it is NOT the entire ecosystem. While there may not have been direct exchanges on the level you described Redis did benefit from having the larger ecosystem to work within.

Does the fox owe the worm for the fish it had for dinner because the fish had the worm for lunch?

Basically you can't isolate yourself from the entire ecosystem and cry foal. When you fail to see the benefit.

Re: Commons Clause

#446

Post by joshberkus »

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…

If you read the shutdown blog post for RethinkDB, licensing was not among their problems. Instead, they were market positioning, reputation, and developing products suitable for their market in a timely fashion. In other words, business execution.

Believe it or don't, no license, no matter how clever, will allow you to be financially successful if you blow the business execution.

Let's turn this on its head: what was the business plan that RedisLabs re-invented itself under? Was it a good business plan? Is is vulnerability to Amazon/MS that made it fail, or was the plan flawed from the start?

Re: Commons Clause

#447

Post by macspoofing »

zwily wrote: post #367
macspoofing wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Happy to answer questions here You didn't answer many (any) questions. Here's mine, why is this needed? Redis could have adopted AGPL as the base license which would have effectively prevented any cloud vendors from using it as a manged service. For those companies, Redis could have provided a paid proprietary option. Why even bother with this?

AGPL would prevent a ton of companies from using Redis at all. A surprising number of big companies flat out ban all AGPL code.

As it stands 'Common Clause' is a poison pill for every business. It won't get past any legal department.

Re: Commons Clause

#449

Post by joshberkus »

kemitchell wrote: post #271
vmbrasseur wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Arguably the largest users of Redis—Amazon, Google, and Microsoft—are all among the many sponsors of the Open Source Initiative and each make immense contributions to free and open source software. Redis Labs is not a sponsor (but is welcome to become one). Despite that, had they come to OSI looking for assistance with this issue we could have helped open discussions between them and their largest users. They did not…

You start your career later than your siblings. You land your first real job. You scrimp and save to buy your first real set of Christmas presents. Comes the day, and everyone seems grateful. You feel established, for a moment. The others exchange presents, but oddly, not with you. In the end, your hands are empty. Everyone else is okay with this. They make out great. Giving OSI money isn't giving Redis Labs money. I…

Why should the success or failure of VC-funded startups be a concern for open source?

If Redis Labs folds, that's sad for them and I'm sure I'll end up writing some references for people.

But it's only a concern for open source if Redis stops being maintained as a result. Which I seriously doubt would happen; Salvatore built Redis before Redis Labs existed, and I'm sure would land a job at one of those "established enterprises" if they fold.

Maybe we should be more focused on how the VC-funded startup model is actually reinforcing the power of established players, instead of messing around with licenses?

Re: Commons Clause

#450

Post by jondubois »

zeveb wrote: post #420
jondubois wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is true. Most people who start an open source project don't do it for financial reasons. Usually they want to learn, to build a reputation or to create a good product just for the sake of it. Later, after many years, the developer sees other companies making a lot of money using their OSS project but they themselves are basically broke; they're forced to work for other companies during the day and they still nee…

> I'm 100% certain that these companies would not have used my project if it wasn't MIT open source licensed. Nope, instead they'd have hired you or a programmer like you — or figured out a way to make money from GPLed code. The trouble with the MIT & BSD licenses is that they encourage corporations to freeload. That's why Google, Facebook, Amazon & Apple love them so much. The great thing about the GPL is that it le…

In spite of the MIT license and my project having thousands of GitHub stars, it took several years before any big reputable company started actually using it.

The problem is that if tou want to make an impact in your industry, you need big companies to be using your project; to achieve this, you need to distribut your project under a license that they like.

Post reply on HN