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The Commons Clause is an existential threat to open source

drewdevault.com

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Re: The Commons Clause is an existential threat to open source

#161

Post by mindcrime »

lovelearning wrote: post #132
mindcrime wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What "bad behavior"? Was anybody doing anything that was prohibited by the terms of the previous license(s)? If not, then the real "problem" is that somebody made a bad choice w/r/t licensing. The solution is to switch to an existing license which has the desired terms, OR - as an absolute last resort - create a new license. Preferably the former, as the latter adds to license proliferation, creates confusion, contri…

This RedisLabs link explains the kind of bad behavior this clause aims to prevent. As I understand it, the bad guys here are cloud providers. [1]: https://redislabs.com/community/licences/

Again, what was happening that was a violation of the license terms? As I read it, nothing. That's not "bad behavior". That's "I chose the wrong license for my project".

Re: The Commons Clause is an existential threat to open source

#162

Post by beaner »

riffraff wrote: post #159
AstralStorm wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In other words, it is no longer Apache license and it is NOT ALLOWED to use Apache Software Foundation trademark Apache. Call it Indian license or what not. This is unlike GPL which allows the use of the name as long as the clauses are not restrictive.

how can extra clauses not be restrictive? I mean, if they don't add new restrictions, what do they do?

I guess a clause could specify exemptions to previous clauses.

Re: The Commons Clause is an existential threat to open source

#163

Post by toyg »

riffraff wrote: post #159
AstralStorm wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In other words, it is no longer Apache license and it is NOT ALLOWED to use Apache Software Foundation trademark Apache. Call it Indian license or what not. This is unlike GPL which allows the use of the name as long as the clauses are not restrictive.

how can extra clauses not be restrictive? I mean, if they don't add new restrictions, what do they do?

Remove restrictions? For example, the BSD license requires attribution, so you could have an extra clause that basically says "attribution is not required anywhere".

Re: The Commons Clause is an existential threat to open source

#164

Post by quadrangle »

dragonwriter wrote: post #82
quadrangle wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the AGPL point is to say that there is not a need for an anti-commercial license if the AGPL effectively stops the things you're aiming to restrict. AGPL isn't perfect, but obviously neither is a non-open, non-free anti-commerce clause.

AGPL didn't stop cloud hosting providers from offering hosted serviced with the Redis modules at issue, though, because either they weren't making modifications or they weren't deterred by the requirement to share. RedisLabs wants money, not sharing, from this kind of downstream use, so AGPL doesn't work.

I agree that AGPL is not a complete anti-commerce license. It doesn't stop all forms of commercial use nor try to. It's unclear that stopping such use (without separate permissiong) will result in more money for the original project, but that's not impossible.

I was just clarifying the point being made above about AGPL.

Re: The Commons Clause is an existential threat to open source

#165

Post by quadrangle »

servilio wrote: post #145
dragonwriter wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AGPL didn't stop cloud hosting providers from offering hosted serviced with the Redis modules at issue, though, because either they weren't making modifications or they weren't deterred by the requirement to share. RedisLabs wants money, not sharing, from this kind of downstream use, so AGPL doesn't work.

No license can work where it isn't used, AGPL included. Redis has been licensed under BSD 3-clause since at least version 2.2[1]. [1] https://github.com/antirez/redis/blob/2.2/COPYING

I think the point is that there had been separate modules that were AGPL but still being used…?

Re: The Commons Clause is an existential threat to open source

#166

Post by detuur »

lovelearning wrote: post #132
mindcrime wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What "bad behavior"? Was anybody doing anything that was prohibited by the terms of the previous license(s)? If not, then the real "problem" is that somebody made a bad choice w/r/t licensing. The solution is to switch to an existing license which has the desired terms, OR - as an absolute last resort - create a new license. Preferably the former, as the latter adds to license proliferation, creates confusion, contri…

This RedisLabs link explains the kind of bad behavior this clause aims to prevent. As I understand it, the bad guys here are cloud providers. [1]: https://redislabs.com/community/licences/

So in effect Redis has moved from a traditional community project (by the community, for the community—where RedisLabs is part of that community) to a please-do-my-work-for-me project (by the community, for RedisLabs).

RedisLabs is about to experience in real time just how quickly a community can abandon software and embrace a fork or competitor. Which is stupid, because many other projects have gone through the exact same process.

Re: The Commons Clause is an existential threat to open source

#167

Post by s73v3r_ »

sebazzz wrote: post #156
etatoby wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's their purpose. This entire endeavor is quite evil IMHO.

We haven't read anything about their intentions yet. Have they addressed this confusion?

It's been asked several times to him on this topic, and quite frankly, he's had ample time to respond to someone.

Re: The Commons Clause is an existential threat to open source

#168

Post by jessaustin »

kmmbvnr_ wrote: post #97
jessaustin wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen this prediction on a regular basis since the mid-1990s. Usually the prediction hasn't included the qualifier "sometime after 2018". Would you like to add a qualifier to your statement?

This is already happens with rethinkdb. Even after community "acquisition" the development process mostly dead https://github.com/rethinkdb/rethinkdb/graphs/commit-activit...

This thread is about the health of open source in general. A specific project slowing down doesn't tell us anything about that. Especially since the project you're talking about was created by a business and abandoned by that business when the business situation changed. It seems perverse to infer anything about open source from that.

Re: The Commons Clause is an existential threat to open source

#169

Post by cryptonector »

Sir_Cmpwn wrote: post #152
cryptonector wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An open source project can (and some do) require copyright assignment such that there is a single owner who can re-license at will. It's a fair thing to do: would-be contributors know this is happening and can choose to not participate. I have no objection to owners taking a codebase proprietary. It doesn't change the fact that earlier versions stay open source and third parties (including the community) can still fo…

>An open source project can (and some do) require copyright assignment such that there is a single owner who can re-license at will. It's a fair thing to do: would-be contributors know this is happening and can choose to not participate. I spoke directly to this point in my article, grep for "CLA". >but SQLite3 has succeeded Note that SQLite3 succeeded and is open source.

Yes, I thought both of those points were clear enough. The first I wanted to make here in the comments, and the second I thought I mentioned SQLite3 is in the public domain...

Re: The Commons Clause is an existential threat to open source

#170

Post by marshray »

dgreensp wrote: post #143

Does a software license actually have the power to prevent you from selling consulting services? All a license can do is grant you rights you wouldn’t otherwise have because of copyright law, right? I’m new to the matter, but I do see in the Commons Clause an intent to manipulate and mislead. If the goal is to provide an option for companies who would otherwise take their software closed-source, why does that option…

Services+software is older than software licensing itself.

DFSG #6 is written to address this specifically: "No discrimination against fields of endeavor, like commercial use." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debian_Free_Software_Guideline...

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