MongoDB switches up its open source license
techcrunch.com
MongoDB switches up its open source license
1–10 of 487 posts
Re: MongoDB switches up its open source license
#2At the outset, it sounds simple that MongoDB inc thinks why should some 3rd party cloud provider (AWS, GCP, DO and the like) be allowed to run MongoDB as a service and make money while MongoDB contributes the biggest part of the open source project that is MongoDB.
But, it feels like yet another fallacy. What really is an open source project then?
Say some developer X contributes to a project like MongoDB his/her open source code so that they can one day run MongoDB as a service and make money. At that time, he/she believe that status is true and submits their code. But, later, after the project is mature, the major contributor easily changes license at will, and the open source contributors walk away with nothing?
I'm not saying that MongoDB Inc, does not have the majority stake here. Just wondering about whether it is a "bait & switch"esque move?
Imagine if all projects did the same... Say Docker? later on chooses to say that you can use Docker for free but if you distribute your software through repositories supported by the daemon, then you need to pay up.. Wouldnt that be a loss for the contributors that are not working for the company?
Re: MongoDB switches up its open source license
#3At the outset, it sounds simple that MongoDB inc thinks why should some 3rd party cloud provider (AWS, GCP, DO and the like) be allowed to run MongoDB as a service and make money while MongoDB contributes the biggest part of the open source project that is MongoDB. But, it feels like yet another fallacy. What really is an open source project then? Say some developer X contributes to a project like MongoDB his/her ope…
wouldn't the older versions of mongodb still be under the old license? (IANAL)
Re: MongoDB switches up its open source license
#4At the outset, it sounds simple that MongoDB inc thinks why should some 3rd party cloud provider (AWS, GCP, DO and the like) be allowed to run MongoDB as a service and make money while MongoDB contributes the biggest part of the open source project that is MongoDB. But, it feels like yet another fallacy. What really is an open source project then? Say some developer X contributes to a project like MongoDB his/her ope…
I had the feeling that AWS and Azure are pushing their own NoSQL solutions and don't care much about MongoDB.
Re: MongoDB switches up its open source license
#5At the outset, it sounds simple that MongoDB inc thinks why should some 3rd party cloud provider (AWS, GCP, DO and the like) be allowed to run MongoDB as a service and make money while MongoDB contributes the biggest part of the open source project that is MongoDB. But, it feels like yet another fallacy. What really is an open source project then? Say some developer X contributes to a project like MongoDB his/her ope…
IANAL, but I believe in this case a maintainer can just fork MongoDB from right before they changed the license, then new contributors can just contribute to that forked repo, creating an off brand “Non-goDB” that will get a lot of the updates that people want. This would fracture the development of the project and would be bad for everyone, but at least the open source community wouldn’t completely lose the project.
Re: MongoDB switches up its open source license
#6At the outset, it sounds simple that MongoDB inc thinks why should some 3rd party cloud provider (AWS, GCP, DO and the like) be allowed to run MongoDB as a service and make money while MongoDB contributes the biggest part of the open source project that is MongoDB. But, it feels like yet another fallacy. What really is an open source project then? Say some developer X contributes to a project like MongoDB his/her ope…
wouldn't the older versions of mongodb still be under the old license? (IANAL)
Yup, article also states this.
Re: MongoDB switches up its open source license
#7[deleted]
Re: MongoDB switches up its open source license
#8I used to like permissive (OSI) licenses a lot more than restrictive licenses, but now I like copyleft better (for my own projects) because…
1. You’re still helping education, nonprofits, and individuals benefit from your work.
2. It’s still open source, so people will still be able to contribute and use your work in their own projects.
3. Companies that want to use your code to make money can do so, but only if they also help out the other “worthy” causes by contributing changes back.
In fact, I'm consider something more radical like a YUMMY license (you make money, I make money) - which has all the same benefits of being open source and helping worthy causes, except at least you get to make money when someone uses your work to do something that you might not even want, like selling ads.
Re: MongoDB switches up its open source license
#9At the outset, it sounds simple that MongoDB inc thinks why should some 3rd party cloud provider (AWS, GCP, DO and the like) be allowed to run MongoDB as a service and make money while MongoDB contributes the biggest part of the open source project that is MongoDB. But, it feels like yet another fallacy. What really is an open source project then? Say some developer X contributes to a project like MongoDB his/her ope…
I had the feeling that AWS and Azure are pushing their own NoSQL solutions and don't care much about MongoDB.
A lot of AWS's managed services are just off the shelf open source projects on the backend.
Amazon can afford to fork the project and poach top talent from your company. I think these moves are extremely short-sighted.
Changing license models only causes instability in the overall ecosystem.
Re: MongoDB switches up its open source license
#10This is a bad move and does not inspire confidence.
Instead of switching the license, they should have gone after companies that were abusing the terms of GNU AGPLv3 license.