121–130 of 487 posts
The license is clearly based on (A)GPL which is copyrighted by FSF, and has the following notice: "Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this license document, but changing it is not allowed." Does that mean that MongoDB is now infringing on FSF copyright of the license text itself?
Is there an OSS license where it won’t allow other providers to offer the original technology as a service and charge for it? If I want to use MongoDB in my ecommerce app no worries. If I want to simply use MongoDB offer some minimal improvement or added functionality, call it ZongoDB and sell subscriptions... not so fine?
(With the caveat that I think what really matters here is "and hoard changes and updates", not "make money at all":) The AGPL comes to mind, but I bet that is slightly too viral? It is a hard problem: how do you legally differentiate a web app built on top of MongoDB from a thin wrapper for MongoDB that provides a minority different API from the backend (or might even simply be a load balancer)?
If your web app uses MongoDB (or any SSPL licensed software) to provide a value that is not substantially MongoDB itself, you are not making the software available as a service. If your code facilitates making MongoDB's features available to other users, you are providing MongoDB as a service and are obligated to make all that code available under the SSPL.
(Context: I worked on Compose/MongoHQ for a very long time. We were the first to monetize MongoDB) I'm sure people will get riled up about this, but it makes sense. Building a business on an OSS database in a world of behemoth cloud providers is really hard. It's clear Google and Amazon (and maybe even Azure) are comfy taking OSS work, doing a ton of proprietary development on it, and leaving the companies who did al…
Well, that's one way to put it I guess. I personally am OK with anyone taking my work and doing a ton of proprietary development on it. I wouldn't put it out there that way if I wasn't (and don't w/ my proprietary stuff).
We need to stop demonizing restrictionless development. Same with commercial/copy-left development of course, but I'm seeing too much copy-left righteousness these days. To each their own. Also, we need to stop being so prideful in our work that we consider some uses of it an affront. Sometimes when you make things available to the world at large sans restrictions you have misusers. That's ok. But hating the proverbial man tends to only negatively affect downstream users at large. MongoDB can do what it wants, and should commercialize where it wants, but all this corporate hatred coupled with openness righteousness should stop being used as justification.
> _Also_ I bet some random licensing folks are crapping their pants at IBM right now. I'm ashamed at how funny that is.
So are their customers and all users who lost some freedoms today because of perceived self-righteousness. Ashamed is a fair word for grinning after pivots like these, but I definitely don't see a problem with the pivot itself. Again, to each their own.
The license is clearly based on (A)GPL which is copyrighted by FSF, and has the following notice: "Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this license document, but changing it is not allowed." Does that mean that MongoDB is now infringing on FSF copyright of the license text itself?
Vice President of the Open Source Initiative here. MongoDB submitted this new license for approval by OSI at the same time that they announced that they'd relicensed all of their code. We wish they'd started the process prior to the announcement, but what's done is done. The result, however, is that at this moment, MongoDB is under a non-approved license and therefore IS NOT OPEN SOURCE. As the license review process…
Vice President of the Open Source Initiative here. MongoDB submitted this new license for approval by OSI at the same time that they announced that they'd relicensed all of their code. We wish they'd started the process prior to the announcement, but what's done is done. The result, however, is that at this moment, MongoDB is under a non-approved license and therefore IS NOT OPEN SOURCE. As the license review process…
You don't own the term open source mate.
On a more practical level: who do you consider be the authority? If the answer is 'nobody' (except yourself) then that makes the term essentially meaningless because there is no standardization, which means that one should stop using that term.
Vice President of the Open Source Initiative here. MongoDB submitted this new license for approval by OSI at the same time that they announced that they'd relicensed all of their code. We wish they'd started the process prior to the announcement, but what's done is done. The result, however, is that at this moment, MongoDB is under a non-approved license and therefore IS NOT OPEN SOURCE. As the license review process…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You don't own the term open source mate.
Your opinion isn't the only one out there. I recognize the OSI as the authority on the term open source. On a more practical level: who do you consider be the authority? If the answer is 'nobody' (except yourself) then that makes the term essentially meaningless because there is no standardization, which means that one should stop using that term.
Vice President of the Open Source Initiative here. MongoDB submitted this new license for approval by OSI at the same time that they announced that they'd relicensed all of their code. We wish they'd started the process prior to the announcement, but what's done is done. The result, however, is that at this moment, MongoDB is under a non-approved license and therefore IS NOT OPEN SOURCE. As the license review process…
I wasn't aware that the OSI was the only one who could declare something to be "OPEN SOURCE". Is there a certification fee to have my license / code blessed with the designation?
The entire approval process is documented on our website: https://opensource.org/approval
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You don't own the term open source mate.
Your opinion isn't the only one out there. I recognize the OSI as the authority on the term open source. On a more practical level: who do you consider be the authority? If the answer is 'nobody' (except yourself) then that makes the term essentially meaningless because there is no standardization, which means that one should stop using that term.