So what does this mean for IBM's Compose?
Im wondering the same thing !
MongoDB switches up its open source license
421–430 of 487 posts
Re: MongoDB switches up its open source license
#422Earlier 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 wish it was Mongo under the hood. Our migration to Azure almost crashed and burned because, aside from the extortionate pricing model for Cosmos, their "Mongo API" is noticeably incomplete (in our case, they didn't support the array positional operator, and still don't [0]). Nowhere do they have an API compatibility checklist or anything articulating less than complete support for all features--the positional operator has been in Mongo since version 2.4, five years ago. (version 4 is what's current now).
IMO, Azure remains a garbage fire of half-finished features in almost every offering. We replaced Cosmos with a Bitnami-authored canned VMs pre-configured for a simple Mongo cluster (which make up a significant portion of "features" they offer), which failed to restart after the Meltdown cloud reboot because the Bitnami management software corrupted the disks. Now we just run our own VMs with our own Mongo instances and curse the day we were obligated to move to Azure.
[0] https://feedback.azure.com/forums/263030-azure-cosmos-db/sug...
Re: MongoDB switches up its open source license
#423> Making the functionality of the Program or modified version available to third parties as a service includes […], or offering a service that accomplishes for users the primary purpose of the Software or modified version.
Would this apply to independent implementations compatible with MongoDB?
Re: MongoDB switches up its open source license
#424Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Did the MongoDB pay for their Linux distros? GCC? Git? How much are they paying to the FOSS projects they used to build their software for sale?
Intent matters.
Linux, gcc, git OSS projects are less concerned about capturing value from the economic activities enabled by them, which is why they were all set up as not-for-profit enterprises; the expectation is that donations will help cover their operating costs.
MongoDB on the other hand is a for-profit enterprise that took VC funding in the hope that they'd be able to cover their operating costs in the long term without donations.
The only way to do this is to capture some of the value offered by the NOSQL paradigm, but it appears that the cloud providers are beating them at that game, which is why they needed to change tactics, to guarantee their survival as a self-sustaining entity.
Re: MongoDB switches up its open source license
#425Earlier 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.
> That's a fine interpretation of the term for amateurs.
That's a seriously polarizing statement that you've made.
While I understand that your argumentation is from points of law, I think you need to realize that the term open source, was pushed by us, the developer community and so I feel that it is us amateurs that have the right to maintain the heart of the law. So, revisiting the heart of the matter:
"We had identified free software as a promising approach to improving software security and reliability and were looking for ways to promote it. Interest in free software was starting to grow outside the programming community, and it was increasingly clear that an opportunity was coming to change the world. However, just how to do this was unclear, and we were groping for strategies." [0]
So, what MongoDB has done is in fact increased (imho) the open source aspect of their offering by attempting to curtail corporate abuse. You should be thanking them.
[0] https://opensource.com/article/18/2/coining-term-open-source...
Re: MongoDB switches up its open source license
#426Forgive my ignorance, but how is this different from the AGPL?
Re: MongoDB switches up its open source license
#427Earlier quoted context omitted.
> But we do need a gatekeeper Having observed this area for 18 years now, I'll say that gatekeeper (a party which has unwaveringly observed and stuck to delivering the principles of software freedom) is the Free Software Foundation. This is the only reason why users gravitate to "open source" - not its sexy name, but the freedoms such software provides when a user wants to use/apply it. Back in the day, the founding…
For all his craziness, you've got to admire Stallman for his unwavering conviction of his version of what free software should be and allow. I don't know whether he'd be frothing at the mouth, or quietly thinking "I told you so..." about the current antics at Redis and Mongo...
I wonder what it would take for the community to fork a major project in response to a license update by the original company that 'owns' it
Re: MongoDB switches up its open source license
#428Earlier quoted context omitted.
For all his craziness, you've got to admire Stallman for his unwavering conviction of his version of what free software should be and allow. I don't know whether he'd be frothing at the mouth, or quietly thinking "I told you so..." about the current antics at Redis and Mongo...
I wonder what it would take for the community to fork a major project in response to a license update by the original company that 'owns' it
It's already happened for Redis I think? And MySQL -> Maria.
Re: MongoDB switches up its open source license
#429As an open source dev, I think the new SSPL license of @MongoDB is interesting. SaaS is the new black nowadays, I have seen too many companies burnt down trying to support their OSS licensing with SaaS taking all the benefit. SSPL can help #OpenSource.
I also think that SSPL can be very helpful if you want to open source your SaaS. Most of the startups that I consult with are not interested in open sourcing their actual SaaS software since they fear being ripped off.
So, what happens is that they end up not taking the benefit of open source. With SSPL these SaaS companies will be able to open source their SaaS is software to manage SaaS — without the fear of being misused by competition.
If the competition just takes their free software and makes money with SaaS that hurts them instead of helping them since you can't make sure that other SaaS players will actually contribute back to the software.
With SSPL, we get a safety net — companies either won't use it as a SaaS, will pay to use it as a SaaS i.e. they'll help pay for open source software support which is a very good business model and if not that, then they'll have to open source their SaaS as well.
As a non-lawyer developer, it feels like GPL. GPL code that you fork should remain GPL. Similarly, if SSPL code you use as a SaaS then you should keep your SaaS as SSPL and open source it as well.
Peace! ️
Re: MongoDB switches up its open source license
#430Earlier 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…
> But we do need a gatekeeper Having observed this area for 18 years now, I'll say that gatekeeper (a party which has unwaveringly observed and stuck to delivering the principles of software freedom) is the Free Software Foundation. This is the only reason why users gravitate to "open source" - not its sexy name, but the freedoms such software provides when a user wants to use/apply it. Back in the day, the founding…
I'm content to have the FSF be the gatekeeper for "Free Software", and for the OSI to be the gatekeeper for the OSD and "Open Source".