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MongoDB switches up its open source license

techcrunch.com

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Re: MongoDB switches up its open source license

#51

Post by mindcrime »

My biggest problem with this is just that it contributes to "license proliferation" even if OSI certifies it. It muddies the waters and makes OSS licensing that much more confusing. In this regard, I'm fairly leery of it.

As for what they're trying to accomplish... it sounds like a slightly different version of the AGPL (in spirit), and while I'm not the biggest fan of the AGPL and similar licenses, it's not the abomination that the Common Clause stuff was. This seems to just be saying "if you want to offer a MDaaS (MongoDb as a Service), you have to release the source code to the entire service". It's probably not a license I'd choose, but it's not exactly unreasonable.

Disclaimer: I haven't read the entire license yet, so my comments above are based on other people's summaries / the text of the article linked above. My opinion is subject to change once I've had time to digest this fully.

Re: MongoDB switches up its open source license

#52

Post by antirez »

kstrauser wrote: post #38
antirez wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To legally fight in China pretending that something you can't see was modified is... hard. IMHO the only wrong thing about this move is trying to get it OSI approved, otherwise I can understand that they have concerns that do not apply to most normal users. However one should boldly say we are moving away from an OSS model, to a "available source" model where you retain most rights.

How is those going to affect China? If the old enforcement methods didn’t work with the previous sane-ish license, they certainly won’t work any better with the new monstrosity.

Now you don't have to pretend that they changed something without having any way to prove it. Now if the orchestration software is not open source, they can't use it.

Re: MongoDB switches up its open source license

#53

Post by christkv »

kstrauser wrote: post #38
antirez wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To legally fight in China pretending that something you can't see was modified is... hard. IMHO the only wrong thing about this move is trying to get it OSI approved, otherwise I can understand that they have concerns that do not apply to most normal users. However one should boldly say we are moving away from an OSS model, to a "available source" model where you retain most rights.

How is those going to affect China? If the old enforcement methods didn’t work with the previous sane-ish license, they certainly won’t work any better with the new monstrosity.

You can go after their western subsidiaries and thus keep them out of western markets

Re: MongoDB switches up its open source license

#54

Post by DannyBee »

nebulous1 wrote: post #50
DannyBee wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking as a lawyer: There was no abuse, there was only mongo not being able to make money in all cases they wanted to. That's what they see as abuse. It isn't. While they complain of bad actors, bad actors always act bad. This will not disincentivize them (they are also often in a lot of interesting jurisdictions that would make it hard anyway). Instead, this is really about making it completely unpalatable for nor…

The article is missing the specifics of what Mongo are saying that others are doing that they won't be able to do under this new licence.

The license is very clear, you'd have to ship the entire system around it.

Re: MongoDB switches up its open source license

#55

Post by kstrauser »

christkv wrote: post #53
kstrauser wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is those going to affect China? If the old enforcement methods didn’t work with the previous sane-ish license, they certainly won’t work any better with the new monstrosity.

You can go after their western subsidiaries and thus keep them out of western markets

How does this change make that any easier. I’m asking genuinely.

Re: MongoDB switches up its open source license

#56

Post by amyjess »

notacoward wrote: post #32
shadowmint wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://webassets.mongodb.com/_com_assets/legal/SSPL-compare... “Service Source Code” means the Corresponding Source for the Program or the modified version, and the Corresponding Source for all programs that you use to make the Program or modified version available as a service, including, without limitation, management software, user interfaces, application program interfaces, automation software, monitoring softwa…

The "all programs you use" clause seems to make it extremely viral, perhaps unprecedentedly so. It seems to me that anyone not willing to comply with AGPL would be even less likely to comply with this. Not sure how that's supposed to be a good outcome, even for Mongo.

This sounds like a violation of provision 9 of the Open Source Definition and the DFSG.

It's going to backfire hard when distros start removing Mongo from their main repos.

Re: MongoDB switches up its open source license

#57

Post by DannyBee »

mrkurt wrote: post #39
DannyBee wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking as a lawyer: There was no abuse, there was only mongo not being able to make money in all cases they wanted to. That's what they see as abuse. It isn't. While they complain of bad actors, bad actors always act bad. This will not disincentivize them (they are also often in a lot of interesting jurisdictions that would make it hard anyway). Instead, this is really about making it completely unpalatable for nor…

Speaking as not a lawyer: there is lots of abuse of OSS infrastructure from big tech corps — because the AGPL isn't equipped for everything-as-a-service eating software licensing. If "abuse" were license violations, they wouldn't have to use a new license. Abuse is often legal.

What is your definition of "abuse"?

This feels a lot like when i hear about "GPL" abuse when it was specifically not designed for what people think is abuse (and that's not my view but stallman's).

Similarly, AGPL was not designed to require every piece of software around a piece of AGPL software to be open sourced.

Deliberately so. Not doing so is not "abuse".

You may have different goals, and that's actually fine! But it doesn't make following the license and what it was meant for abuse.

I'll also point out: In the history of my work on open source, by far the largest legal abusers of open source are startups. By many orders of magnitude. This is real abuse in the sense of clear license non-compliance. I worked on M&A at a variety of companies that acquired all sorts of different kind/stages of startups.

They rarely are compliant with even simple notice licenses (IE don't bother to post notices), let alone any of the more restrictive licenses.

Large corps often have legal departments that try to understand and consider and figure out what to do, even if they do it wrong.

So to me, every time i hear "large company open source abusers" i kind of laugh, because IMHO getting the startups to stop abusing open source would have a much more significant difference on OSS than getting 2 or 3 large companies to stop "abusing" it.

Re: MongoDB switches up its open source license

#58

Post by derekp7 »

Doctor_Fegg wrote: post #28
ReverseCold wrote: post #8

I 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…

I really like WTFPL as a permissive licence in these cases. Small developers and companies without layers of lawyers will read the licence, see that it says "do what the ---- you want", and use your code accordingly. Big companies with layers of lawyers will read the licence, blanch in terror, and either refuse to use the software, or contact you for alternative terms. Case in point: Google forbids use of the WTFPL.…

So similar to a clause in the license that says "don't use it for evil". Many companies will want a license that doesn't have that clause in it, because it is so ill defined.

Re: MongoDB switches up its open source license

#59

Post by amyjess »

bad_user wrote: post #43

I hope OSI and the FSF don’t approve their new “SSPL” license. AGPL style licenses impose restrictions on usage, thus violating freedom 0 in the Free Software’s definition or Open Source’s rule 6. AGPL should have never been allowed, precisely because it opens the door for commercial entities to eat their cake and have it too, being the kind of license that can be effectively used to disallow commercial products buil…

This new license also gratuitously violates rule 9. Mongo just made a big mistake.

Re: MongoDB switches up its open source license

#60

Post by mrkurt »

DannyBee wrote: post #57
mrkurt wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking as not a lawyer: there is lots of abuse of OSS infrastructure from big tech corps — because the AGPL isn't equipped for everything-as-a-service eating software licensing. If "abuse" were license violations, they wouldn't have to use a new license. Abuse is often legal.

What is your definition of "abuse"? This feels a lot like when i hear about "GPL" abuse when it was specifically not designed for what people think is abuse (and that's not my view but stallman's). Similarly, AGPL was not designed to require every piece of software around a piece of AGPL software to be open sourced. Deliberately so. Not doing so is not "abuse". You may have different goals, and that's actually fine!…

Abuse is taking all the free candy at a doctor's office. It might just violate a norm without breaking a law, but it's still abuse.

It's situational, but if you define abuse as "breaking a contract or law" we're not going to agree on anything about this.

MongoDB has _always_ wanted to make money when other people make money reselling their work. The AGPL doesn't really do what they needed, but their intent has been clear since day one.

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