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MongoDB switches up its open source license

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Re: MongoDB switches up its open source license

#341

Post by the_af »

plopz wrote: post #316
the_af wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

My definition is the same as his. Is there a poll or survey somewhere that determined what the commonly accepted definition was?

Well, besides OSI's definition -- which I understand is being questioned in this comments section, so I suppose mentioning it is begging the question -- most of the bibliography and articles out there use "open source" in the sense I mentioned.

Microsoft was also aware of the accepted meaning, which is why they introduced their "Shared Source Initiative" back in the old days (note how deviously careful they were about the naming).

Re: MongoDB switches up its open source license

#342

Post by darkarmani »

tannhaeuser wrote: post #78
k__ wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had the feeling that AWS and Azure are pushing their own NoSQL solutions and don't care much about MongoDB.

Azure offers Cosmos DB advertised as a drop-in for MongoDB. I'm guessing Cosmos is Mongo in disguise, though I don't know if it really is, and/or whether MS has made a deal with Mongo or just think they can use the AGPL version. For the record: I'm not a big fan of Mongo (the DB) but I think MongoDB, Inc. raises a valid point wrt. developers doing all the hard work including community building and a million other thi…

> I think MongoDB, Inc. raises a valid point wrt. developers doing all the hard work including community building and a million other things, while "cloud providers" get all the money.

I think MongoDB is free loading off the the community and developers. The developers don't get to use the software to make a profit without kicking some money upstream to mongo either. Is Mongo going to start offering money for bug reports and patches or do they get to freeload off of their community?

Re: MongoDB switches up its open source license

#343

Post by amirathi »

the_af wrote: post #295
amirathi wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you not see any problem with that? Companies who are good at commercialisation gets all the dough for work created by small group of inventors. Is protecting inventors interest not important? Isn't this negatively affecting the ecosystem where there's less motivation for inventors to create open source software in the first place? > it's not open source because it forbids redistribution of the source. This can be…

I'm not going to debate open source with you, because as you can imagine this is a topic that's been debated for decades, and as any debate that mixes philosophical and technical issues, it's definitely neither easy nor clear cut. Open source is mostly about user rights (making things more confusing, a user is sometimes also a developer !). By restricting the users' right to resell or redistribute the source code of…

> By restricting the users' right to resell or redistribute the source code of your software, you are effectively making it not open source.

Then the discussion Open Source ecosystem needs to have is whether "protecting users' right to resell" is net positive or net negative for the ecosystem. And answer could go either ways but that dialogue needs to happen.

Last major update amongst any of the popular OSS license was in 2007 to AGPL. It's been 11 years and SaaS/Cloud world has changed a lot in this time. Maybe, just maybe, it's time to review and see if we need an additional license that's net positive for the ecosystem.

Just accepting current textbook definitions of Open Source and abiding by it all our life seems too pedantic.

Re: MongoDB switches up its open source license

#344

Post by jpalomaki »

IIRC MySQL had a bit similar troubles with GPL license. They disliked the fact that some companies shipped closed source software which in practice required MySQL, but instead of getting the paid license, they relied on the open source version.

Google revealed one relevant article:

According to C|net their vice president of marketing said in 2002: "There were people misusing the GPL, using our server tightly coupled with their applications, claiming the GPL didn't apply because the client libraries weren't under the GPL, they were under the LGPL," [1]

According to the article, MySQL decided to sort out this issue by changing the license of the client libraries from LGPL to GPL.

[1] https://www.cnet.com/news/mysql-addresses-open-source-licens...

Re: MongoDB switches up its open source license

#345

Post by darkarmani »

DannyBee wrote: post #77
oropolo wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 all the groundwork flailing in the wind. Have you seen the degree of investment Microsoft has made lately in Open Source? It's an upside-down world where Microsoft if a bigger champion -- and funder -- of open source than a company like Google which was built…

Here, i'll make a provocative statement: Google has released roughly every meaningful patch it has made to the open source software it was built on[1]. As for funding, that's definitely not true by the numbers last i looked (and definitely was not true in the past). Without concrete disagreements, this is just handwaving. So if you make some, i'm happy to argue with real data. [1] The only cases i can think of that t…

At least 10 years ago, i thought google had a lot of custom linux kernel patches that weren't public.

Re: MongoDB switches up its open source license

#346

Post by detuur »

DannyBee wrote: post #107

FWIW: This license is almost certainly incompatible with GPLv3. They struck the portion of section 13 that allowed for such combinations. (You can see it in the redline they published here: https://webassets.mongodb.com/_com_assets/legal/SSPL-compare... )

Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this license document, but changing it is not allowed.

Can someone enlighten me on the significance of this piece of text? Does it mean you're not allowed to edit the license and publish it under the same name, or does it effectively copyright the entire license text? I'm gravitating towards the former since this is a case where the text was edited but renamed, but I'd still like some clarity.

As an aside, is it even possible to copyright a license? There's a copyright notice so isn't this technically plagiarism?

Re: MongoDB switches up its open source license

#347

Post by mcny »

Waterluvian wrote: post #245
hueving wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Then Op should not say in all caps, "IS NOT OPEN SOURCE".

I understood it as meaning "my organization cannot yet certify it as open source" with yet being the operative word.

Re: MongoDB switches up its open source license

#348

Post by jpalomaki »

tannhaeuser wrote: post #78
k__ wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had the feeling that AWS and Azure are pushing their own NoSQL solutions and don't care much about MongoDB.

Azure offers Cosmos DB advertised as a drop-in for MongoDB. I'm guessing Cosmos is Mongo in disguise, though I don't know if it really is, and/or whether MS has made a deal with Mongo or just think they can use the AGPL version. For the record: I'm not a big fan of Mongo (the DB) but I think MongoDB, Inc. raises a valid point wrt. developers doing all the hard work including community building and a million other thi…

CosmosDB is Microsoft's proprietary solution. According to [1] started already in 2010 to support their own online services.

[1] https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/azure-cosmos-db-micro...

Re: MongoDB switches up its open source license

#349

Post by JaimeThompson »

BFatts wrote: post #178
JaimeThompson wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see anything on that page with gives you, the OSI, the legal right to declare things as being opensource or not. You categorically stated it wasn't opensource. Had you stated that in your opinion it wasn't opensource it would be different.

You sound like you're arguing just to argue. Do you have a valid point? Their OSD is what defines open source. You didn't define it. It wasn't defined at some party or demo-conf. It was defined by the OSI - they defined Open Source Software. Arguing otherwise shows a serious lack of OSS knowledge.

Nope. I just dislike it when someone tries to claim control over a simple English words. They don't have a trademark on open source so they don't get the right to go around saying what is / isn't open source.

Re: MongoDB switches up its open source license

#350

Post by ousta »

I guess next one that will do that - if this works- will be elasticsearch and they will then have to fight amazon on this.

The risk being that if someone does a better job than MongoDB at creating features for mongoDB they might loose their product as well playing that card.

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