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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

#301

Post by [deleted] »

hueving wrote: post #229
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 "…

Not sure anyone actually thinks "open source" is a term owned by an organization and the gp didn't say they were restricting Mongo, so I'm not sure if your clarification is necessary. It's like someone claiming certain software doesn't scale. There is no need to clarify that the author doesn't own the word "scalability". Op is speaking for the OSI's opinion on whether it's open source or not.

[deleted]

Re: MongoDB switches up its open source license

#302

Post by metheus »

nine_k wrote: post #286
metheus wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if you take the licensed software, and link it (via rpc / network) to your other software, you must share not only any changes you've made to the licensed part, but the whole thing that uses it. Slight modification makes this accurate to the SSPL: if you take the licensed software, and link it (via rpc / network) to your other software which you use to offer the SSPL licensed software as a service , you must share.…

Playing a devil's advocate. Suppose somebody made a clean-room implementation of a MongoDB driver that contacts MongoDB, then passes the data to a MongoDB-compatible interface that shares no code with MongoDB. This wrapper is duly shared. Can that guy then offer a SaaS MongoDB-compatible DB by exposing this driver, connected to a real MongoDB, without a commercial license? As we notice, all that SSPL would require to…

The SSPL neatly sidesteps that workaround. It does not specify anything about the provenance of code, or the extent to which code is shared with the licensed software's code.

If you offer a service based on the licensed software, and the value of the service being publicly provided entirely or primarily derives from the licensed software, every bit of code -- the clean-room driver, the compatible interface, the admin scripts, UI for management, etc. -- used to offer that service must be made available under the SSPL.

Re: MongoDB switches up its open source license

#303

Post by mrkurt »

kodablah wrote: post #123
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…

> comfy taking OSS work, doing a ton of proprietary development on it, and leaving the companies who did all the groundwork flailing in the wind 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 developmen…

> We need to stop demonizing restrictionless development.

I'm not! I love permissive OSS licenses, I think they're great until they get abused.

What I'm demonizing is overly powerful megacorps owning an unreasonable amount of the available "tech" revenue.

This license from MongoDB is an unfortunate side effect of that. I don't think anyone there wanted a weirdly restrictive license, but I do think they want to build a healthy business on top of their work. And that's something I want them to be able to do as well.

There's a big, big difference between companies in an oligopoly position and normal companies. Permissive OSS grew up in a world that wasn't a weird oligopoly for good reasons, but a lot has changed in the last 10 years and it's downright dangerous to license things permissively and try to build a business at the same time.

Example: we built an Edge Runtime, it's under a permissive license, if we're successful I expect we'll run into the same problem DB companies have and then have to navigate around that: https://github.com/superfly/fly

Re: MongoDB switches up its open source license

#304

Post by stonogo »

kstrauser wrote: post #55
christkv wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This new license has language that allows the 'infringer' to pay their way out. This is a shorter path toward proving damages in a US court. This license is basically a litigation cannon being wheeled around to aim at people who are currently making the money that MongoDB wishes it were making.

Re: MongoDB switches up its open source license

#305

Post by darkarmani »

zzzcpan wrote: post #26
reacharavindh wrote: post #2

At 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…

But you can still offer it as a service, just as long as you opensource your infrastructure. The only thing it prevents you is profiting from lock-in of your services without sharing those profits with MongoDB. Very much in the spirit of open source.

> sharing those profits with MongoDB. Very much in the spirit of open source.

I'm not sure how these ideas tie together.

Re: MongoDB switches up its open source license

#306

Post by mrkurt »

chaostheory wrote: post #114
mrkurt wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 c…

> Abuse is taking all the free candy at a doctor's office. This is a bad analogy for software, since software is not a finite resource. Anyone can make a near infinite number of copies. Don't blame 3rd parties when you realized that an open source license is the wrong license for your product.

It's bad analogy, but the candy bowl in this particular example is "revenue available to companies selling this stuff". The cost to duplicate these things is 0, but the available income is fixed.

Re: MongoDB switches up its open source license

#307

Post by putlake »

Doctor_Fegg wrote: post #294
DannyBee wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So i'm the one who forbid WTFPL at Google, and we forbid it mainly because it's bad for developers, believe it or not. We go over it in new googler training (and our reasoning is on the Google open source policy site we publish: https://opensource.google.com/docs/thirdparty/licenses/#wtfp... ) You are welcome to not (but if you go and look, it's completely consistent with my viewpoints and history in OSS so ...). I w…

I do understand your viewpoints. I just disagree that they're significant enough in practice to outweigh the value I see in WTFPL. The lack of a warranty disclaimer isn't an issue in practice; my readme just says "WTFPL, no warranty". The vague rights grant isn't something I've seen as an issue in analogous situations in case law. More important, to me, is what WTFPL says about my code: I'm not precious about it, I g…

Why not just release it into the public domain then?

Re: MongoDB switches up its open source license

#308

Post by MadcapJake »

AsyncAwait wrote: post #299
Sir_Cmpwn wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fine, if you must have it spoon fed to you: https://www.fsf.org/campaigns/

How is https://www.fsf.org/campaigns supposed to prove that the FSF has "far-reaching political ambitions"? It's not really different in function from https://opensource.org/AdvocateCircle and squarely fails within achieving the goals of free software. The FSF wants free software to be adopted as widely as possible. The OSI supposedly wants open-source to be as widely adopted as possible, doesn't it?

Looking at both links it is completely obvious which is the political of the two. You are really stretching calling the Advocate Circle the same as the various FSF campaigns. Some of the FSF campaigns listed are "surveillance", "upgrade from Windows" and DRM.

Re: MongoDB switches up its open source license

#309

Post by kazinator »

vmbrasseur wrote: post #120

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…

> non-approved license and therefore IS NOT OPEN SOURCE.

You don't own the term "open source", and nobody requires your approval for its usage.

"May not carry the OSI trademark or logo" is not the same thing as "is not open source".

Re: MongoDB switches up its open source license

#310

Post by threeseed »

bunderbunder wrote: post #292
threeseed wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Open source for most people means whether you can see and modify the source code. Not whether OSI gives it some arbitrary stamp of approval.

That's a fine interpretation of the term for amateurs. By which I mean, it's probably fine to think of things that way when you're working in an amateur capacity. If you're working in a non-amateur capacity, thinking about things that way could result in unwittingly exposing yourself to more legal risk than you want.

If I am using an open source project I make sure to understand the license rather than blindly trusting some organisation.

Seems pretty amateur not to do this.

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