Redis will remain BSD licensed • Hacker News Board

Re: Redis will remain BSD licensed

#181

Post by e12e » Wed, Aug 22, 2018, 10:36 PM UTC

johannes1234321 wrote: post #176

legohead wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GNU licenses require sharing code. Bad for business.

For GPL (not talking AGPL as my knowledge there is too limited) Vendors in "classical" environments GPL is a valid business choice - competitors get access to the code, but also have to share their extensions. The original vendor however can be in a stronger position and share their extensions commercially (with dual licensing and CLAs for external contributions) In a cloud environment however the cloud vendor doesn'…

And the main trust of the AGPL is treating giving access to a running program, as traditional GPL "distribution" - code must be made available to users of a service upon request - along with any changes.

With GPL - for example - Amazon could freely customize the Linux kernel with a new software defined networking stack for use by s3 back-end services. And would be free not to share the changes. If the kernel was under AGPL users of s3 would have a legal right to see the changes.

Re: Redis will remain BSD licensed

#182

Post by scrollaway » Wed, Aug 22, 2018, 10:38 PM UTC

rectang wrote: post #71

Yiftach wrote: post #55

Hi, this is Yiftach, CTO and Co-founder of Redis Labs. First, let me assure you that Redis remains and always will remain, open source, BSD license. For avoiding any doubt - commons clause (as defined in commonsclause.com) is applied only to add-ons (modules), on top of Redis (e.g. RediSearch, Redis Graph, ReJSON, Redis-ML, Rebloom) that were developed by Redis Labs . We initially released these modules under AGPL li…

Thank you for the explanation. I see no problem with this approach in principle and wish your business the best of luck. However, you have made a big mistake with how the "Commons Clause" confuses Open Source under the OSD with "source available". You were not well served by those who advised you to do so.

This is the top post in the thread from ~18 hours ago:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17816332

Everybody wants to have their word in how that software they didn't write should be licensed. The back and forth ends up being something akin to "It's your own fault for picking BSD; you shouldn't have picked that in the first place!... now why don't you make all the other stuff BSD too?".

Frankly, I don't see what the OSD/OSI definition of open source matters. You pick the license that suits your needs best. People ought to argue the license on its actual text and merits, not whether some other organization likes it or not, otherwise it's just argumentation by authority.

Re: Redis will remain BSD licensed

#183

Post by dang » Wed, Aug 22, 2018, 10:39 PM UTC

digitaLandscape wrote: post #46

DanielGee wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Thanks, I removed fake news because I've the feeling that in US it is used by right-wing people It's a term used by both the left and the right. By politicians and the media. > In the doubt I changed the wording. I did not expect the term to be political. You shouldn't have. Who cares if it is political. You are the author and you should express yourself the way you want.

He cares, because he wasn't trying to be political. You could try being literate.

Personal attacks will get you banned here. Please don't post like this to HN.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Redis will remain BSD licensed

#184

Post by jsmeaton » Wed, Aug 22, 2018, 10:50 PM UTC

dahdum wrote: post #130

keepper wrote: post #95

What I find interesting is all of the comments saying "Well, I was going to use RedisLabs.. but because of this, i'll use AWS/elasticache" Which is just such a weird statement. So instead of supporting the OSS creators and main contributors, who want a way to monetize their "value add" modules, while still giving the core software freely; you rather support a huge corporation that gives almost zero back to OSS ( AWS…

One reason from a corporate standpoint is dependency. You can assume AWS will continue to host the core Redis indefinitely, but if you use Redis Labs and your developers begin to use any of the the new proprietary modules, you are locked into the RL platform only. No other platform will be able to use those modules, the only option being rolling your own. If RL quadruples their pricing, you'll just have to bear it. D…

But can’t AWS pay RedisLabs for those modules? That’s exactly what RL are after - a cut from the big hosting providers. If the demand is there (for the modules) then you’ll be able to license them via AWS.

Re: Redis will remain BSD licensed

#185

Post by trasz » Wed, Aug 22, 2018, 10:58 PM UTC

e12e wrote: post #181

johannes1234321 wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For GPL (not talking AGPL as my knowledge there is too limited) Vendors in "classical" environments GPL is a valid business choice - competitors get access to the code, but also have to share their extensions. The original vendor however can be in a stronger position and share their extensions commercially (with dual licensing and CLAs for external contributions) In a cloud environment however the cloud vendor doesn'…

And the main trust of the AGPL is treating giving access to a running program, as traditional GPL "distribution" - code must be made available to users of a service upon request - along with any changes. With GPL - for example - Amazon could freely customize the Linux kernel with a new software defined networking stack for use by s3 back-end services. And would be free not to share the changes. If the kernel was unde…

Of the Linux kernel was under AGPL, they would probably just use some other code under less restrictive license instead.

Re: Redis will remain BSD licensed

#186

Post by e12e » Wed, Aug 22, 2018, 11:08 PM UTC

trasz wrote: post #185

e12e wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the main trust of the AGPL is treating giving access to a running program, as traditional GPL "distribution" - code must be made available to users of a service upon request - along with any changes. With GPL - for example - Amazon could freely customize the Linux kernel with a new software defined networking stack for use by s3 back-end services. And would be free not to share the changes. If the kernel was unde…

Of the Linux kernel was under AGPL, they would probably just use some other code under less restrictive license instead.

It was just an example. Fwiw netflix uses a bit of freebsd - but I also believe they contribute back to the community.

Re: Redis will remain BSD licensed

#187

Post by kfogel » Wed, Aug 22, 2018, 11:08 PM UTC

Yiftach wrote: post #55

Hi, this is Yiftach, CTO and Co-founder of Redis Labs. First, let me assure you that Redis remains and always will remain, open source, BSD license. For avoiding any doubt - commons clause (as defined in commonsclause.com) is applied only to add-ons (modules), on top of Redis (e.g. RediSearch, Redis Graph, ReJSON, Redis-ML, Rebloom) that were developed by Redis Labs . We initially released these modules under AGPL li…

"...a few people here (and other threads) have asked why we didn't create a new proprietary license..."

But, you did create a new proprietary license. That's what ${ANY_OPEN_SOURCE_LICENSE} + COMMONS_CLAUSE is.

All this is is a proprietary fork of Redis. It's no different than if someone else -- someone other than Redis Labs -- had done it. What's unusual here is just the reluctance on Redis Labs' part to call it what it is. I think a lot of the surprise and blowback across the Net is simply because of the strange unwillingness on Redis Labs' part to call this by its right name and own it.

Re: Redis will remain BSD licensed

#188

Post by nailer » Wed, Aug 22, 2018, 11:33 PM UTC

pvg wrote: post #146

nailer wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "what's the clause?" section starts with a plug for the clause's creator - even before answering the question, which seems a bit unnecessary, but I'll edit the post and remove the personal reference. Sorry Dan.

Simply naming someone is not 'a plug'. It's just naming someone.

This response, created by nailer on Hacker News, illustrates the awkwardness of mentioning the credit before the content.

Re: Redis will remain BSD licensed

#189

Post by prepend » Wed, Aug 22, 2018, 11:40 PM UTC

zimbatm wrote: post #88

Even if Redis were to change license, the ones who would be to blame are the big cloud providers that re-package OSS products and rent them without giving anything back. They are milking the work out of these projects, taking only the opportunity to make money out of it. I remember talking to Elastic and they had a similar issue where AWS would take their product, package it and not give anything back (money or patch…

Why would this tweak the developers. Isn’t this precisely what the license they chose was made for to include and allow?

In this case Amazon functions like a hosting company. So would you be surprised if a hardware vendor automated the install and patching of Elastic? They’re basically just installing OSS for end users.

Re: Redis will remain BSD licensed

#190

Post by pvg » Thu, Aug 23, 2018, 12:00 AM UTC

nailer wrote: post #188

pvg wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Simply naming someone is not 'a plug'. It's just naming someone.

This response, created by nailer on Hacker News, illustrates the awkwardness of mentioning the credit before the content.

It doesn't really, or if it does, it demonstrates awkwardness, not endorsement or a plug. Beside that, they they posted the faq just as DannyBee started asking them questions here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17815389

and specifically asked them who drafted the thing, among other things.