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MongoDB switches up its open source license

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Re: MongoDB switches up its open source license

#251

Post by the_af »

hartator wrote: post #205
BFatts wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But we do need a gatekeeper - that's where you're wrong. Without it, we don't get a fair review of licenses by people most adept at understanding what Open Source is. Without it, we will go back to the wild west of licensing where we have hundreds of OSS licenses that each have their own little clauses and are written by developers, not lawyers, so they don't really hold up in court. Open Source is for corporations t…

> The source is provided, yes, but that doesn't make it open source. For me it's actually the definition of open source, having the sources in the open. After you can have more or less restrictive licenses.

> For me it's actually the definition of open source, having the sources in the open.

But that's not actually the most commonly accepted definition of open source. It means something else, as widely understood by the software community.

Re: MongoDB switches up its open source license

#252

Post by AsyncAwait »

Sir_Cmpwn wrote: post #218
AsyncAwait wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The OSI exists to be a non-political entity so that people who want to work on open source have resources to do so without necessarily participating in the politics of the FSF. In what way is the FSF any more political than the OSI, beyond trying to protect the defined freedoms of free software? By inserting itself as the only legitimate body to define what "open-source" is, it is by definition engaging in politics…

>In what way is the FSF any more political than the OSI, beyond trying to protect the defined freedoms of free software? The OSI only concerns itself with defining open source and publishing a list of open source licenses. The FSF unquestionably concerns itself with much more. >The right to take my code, profit from it and not share back is essentially what the OSI stands for and is thus not respected by me. No, this…

> The OSI only concerns itself with defining open source and publishing a list of open source licenses. The FSF unquestionably concerns itself with much more.

The FSF concerns itself with defining/defending free software, same as OSI does for open-source. If FSF "concerns itself with much more", I assume you would not have a problem listing some of these things.

> No, this is what open source stands for. If you don't want to write open source software, then don't. That's your choice. But the right to do exactly this is protected by both the OSI and the FSF, and I doubt you can find another authority which disagrees.

The difference here is that the OSI was historically created as a response to FSF for this exact purpose, whereas the FSF was primarily created to defend copyleft, later adopting some non-copyleft licenses as well, so the exact reverse of what OSI did.

Re: MongoDB switches up its open source license

#253

Post by amirathi »

the_af wrote: post #242
amirathi wrote: post #236

None of OSI's Open Source licenses (including AGPL) protect creators financial interest in the cloud first world. Period. I want to issue "View and Internal Use License" for my work. Anyone can view the source code, modify, and use the software for their own benefit as they see fit. Under no circumstances can anyone sell/re-distribute/host the paid version of software or any derivative thereof. Why can't OSI create s…

The license you describe, while definitely useful, is not open source by any meaningful definition of the concept. I don't mean "not OSI open source", but "not open source as the term has evolved". Similar licenses have been tried (see Microsoft's Shared Source Initiative) and you can definitely devise one yourself and no-one can stop you. The "world" won't let you call your license open source for good reason: it's…

> The "world" won't let you call your license open source for good reason

What is that good reason?

Is prohibiting commercialisation of my work not in the spirit of open source? How is my "View and Internal Use License" bad for the open source ecosystem?

Re: MongoDB switches up its open source license

#254

Post by darkarmani »

zjaffee wrote: post #147
mrkurt wrote: post #33

(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…

It's funny because redis recently did something rather similar to what mongo just did. This will be an accelerating trend in open source, where these sorts of companies will either develop proprietary platforms with closed source code (databricks), or will move forward the way redis and mongo are.

> This will be an accelerating trend in open source

Until communities refuse to sign CLA that let projects bait-and-switch to another license once they have a large community and want to now take buckets of VC money.

Re: MongoDB switches up its open source license

#255

Post by BFatts »

jpambrun wrote: post #137
FooBarWidget wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The authority on word definitions is a dictionary, so that we don't have to argue like that. This definition seems suitable: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/open-source

The definitions in a dictionary are for general purposes and not used, necessarily, in legal battles. There are legal definitions for things like Intellectual Property, Copyrights, Patents, and Trademarks. These definitions are what will be used when it comes to determining, legally, what open source is - not some wordsmith.

Re: MongoDB switches up its open source license

#256

Post by BFatts »

vasco wrote: post #130
FooBarWidget wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

So by me saying that the term might be interpreted differently by different people - since it can't be owned by anyone now that it's in wide use (and hence implying there's different opinions out there) you assume that I fail to see there's a multitude of different opinions on the matter? That's exactly the point I was making.

Please, just read this:

https://opensource.org/osd

Re: MongoDB switches up its open source license

#257

Post by AsyncAwait »

BFatts wrote: post #233
AsyncAwait wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The OSI exists to be a non-political entity so that people who want to work on open source have resources to do so without necessarily participating in the politics of the FSF. In what way is the FSF any more political than the OSI, beyond trying to protect the defined freedoms of free software? By inserting itself as the only legitimate body to define what "open-source" is, it is by definition engaging in politics…

>> The right to take my code, profit from it and not share back is essentially what the OSI stands for and is thus not respected by me. Nope. You are so very wrong here. The OSI defines open source so that licenses comply with the terms... that's all. They don't have any other agenda, period. Stating so shows a complete lack of understanding OSS and the OSI.

Stating so shows a complete lack of understanding of why and by whom OSS/the OSI was started and popularized.

It ignores by who the OSI was co-founded and promoted by, (ESR, O'Reilly etc.) and why, (as a response to FSF to make free software more appealing to corporations for the exact purpose I outlined in my original post).

Re: MongoDB switches up its open source license

#258

Post by zzzcpan »

BFatts wrote: post #227
vasco wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't own the term open source mate.

The OSI owns the definition, yes. You are incorrect. See https://opensource.org/osd which is what DEFINES open source. The term has been around for 20 years. Your lack of understanding the history doesn't make you any kind of an expert.

> The OSI owns the definition

No, OSI doesn't own the definition and doesn't get to define open source. Some people agree with that definition, some don't. Nobody has to though. You can't really own what other people think, you can only try to agree on some definition during interaction. No need to pretend there is some universal truth that they just don't know about. It's an agreement, not truth.

And OSI might become irrelevant anyway if it doesn't change in light of recently emerged licenses with more restrictions and doesn't certify them in some way. People will just stick to a handful of popular known licenses and call them open source.

Re: MongoDB switches up its open source license

#259

Post by axaxs »

darkarmani wrote: post #237
muks wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The result, however, is that at this moment, MongoDB is under a non-approved license and therefore IS NOT OPEN SOURCE. Perhaps you meant to say "is not OSI Certified", because the OSI don't appear to have a right to restrict use of the phrase "open source". See what's on your own website: https://opensource.org/pressreleases/certified-open-source.p... On the other comments in this thread, even though MongoDB have "…

> because the OSI don't appear to have a right to restrict use of the phrase You are really hung up on this. Where did they say they were restricting the use of the phrase? If they said: "MongoDB is not good software" would you be saying they aren't allowed to restrict MongoDB from saying they are good software?

Open source is mostly objective, unlike 'good software'. The parent comment stated in caps that MongoDB is not open source, which is objectively untrue. It's a silly thing to bicker about, but the original should have probably said something along the lines of 'OSI approved open source license'.

Re: MongoDB switches up its open source license

#260

Post by BFatts »

jfk13 wrote: post #146
sangnoir wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only if you're completely ignoring the context, which is MongoDB asked OSI to approve their license as "Open Source" - OSI isn't in a position to do so immediately, and so in OSI's estimation, MongoDB isn't "Open Source"

As OSI hasn't yet reviewed the license, perhaps it would have been better for the OSI VP to explain that "MongoDB may not meet the OSI definition of Open Source" than to announce (in CAPITALS, no less) that "MongoDB...IS NOT OPEN SOURCE".

If it doesn't fit the OSD (https://opensource.org/osd) it IS NOT OPEN SOURCE. The license has not been reviewed by the OSI, and there isn't any "Approved until shown otherwise" clause to refer to. So, in the OSI's eyes (and really anyone who knows what open source actually is) it's NOT OPEN SOURCE anymore.
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