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MongoDB switches up its open source license

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Re: MongoDB switches up its open source license

#441

Post by danShumway »

ReverseCold wrote: post #8

I used to like permissive (OSI) licenses a lot more than restrictive licenses, but now I like copyleft better (for my own projects) because… 1. You’re still helping education, nonprofits, and individuals benefit from your work. 2. It’s still open source, so people will still be able to contribute and use your work in their own projects. 3. Companies that want to use your code to make money can do so, but only if they…

> of being open source

Minor pet peeve, I understand that different people use open source differently -- but I would classify the license you're describing as source available. A FOSS compatible license can't carry restrictions on usage.

I'm assuming you already knew that and were just using the looser, more generic definition. Which is not a problem, I just have seen enough people get confused later on when somebody says, "well, technically, this isn't strictly Open Source", so I like to point it out for anyone else who's reading.

Re: MongoDB switches up its open source license

#442

Post by cyphar »

candeira wrote: post #436
cyphar wrote: post #432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I went and re-read Section 17 (the only section that is different from the OSLv3) and yeah it looks like tl;dr legal misrepresents what the license requires. Effectively, it requires that if you redistribute it and want to do so under the NP-OSLv3 you must make a declaration that you're a non-profit and so on -- otherwise you must distribute it under the OSLv3 and clearly state this is the case. (I don't really see t…

Thanks for changing your mind on receiving new information. DFSG and the OSD are essentially the same thing, having been written both of them by Bruce Perens. Main difference is that Debian doesn't certify licenses: they ship software, so they look at the whole packages, so to speak. OSI only certify licenses, they don't ship software. As to what the DFSG and OSD do that the FSF four principles don't, I think they ar…

> DFSG and the OSD are essentially the same thing, having been written both of them by Bruce Perens.

Right, and I knew this is what you were getting at. I guess my main point is that having a working guideline for acceptable licenses for a distribution makes complete sense (after all of the moral viewpoints have been debated to death you have to ship some code eventually), but using those guidelines as the basis of a movement doesn't really (at least not as much as basing a movement on an a set of ethical axioms). So I would say I favour the DFSG over the OSD purely because of what it is used for and represents, rather than because of the (almost non-existent) differences between the two texts.

But of course, I'm biased since I'm far more in the "free software" camp than I am in the "open source" camp -- purely because I think bringing it back to discussions of ethics is quite important (perhaps more than ever).

Re: MongoDB switches up its open source license

#443

Post by tannhaeuser »

DannyBee wrote: post #173
jhasse wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Our policy pages are clear on why we ban licenses, even things like AGPL. You'll note they are not economic concerns (IE google won't be able to monetize), but compliance ones. AGPL compliance wouldn't be that difficult if you remove making money from the equation. So indirectly your compliance concerns are based on economic concerns.

> AGPL compliance wouldn't be that difficult if you remove making money from the equation. So indirectly your compliance concerns are based on economic concerns. This is simply false (on both points), and you haven't given any reason it would be true past "i feel this way". Even with direct support from our build system, AGPL compliance is incredibly difficult relative to GPL and other licenses[1] This argument also…

Appreciate your response, but what's so incredibly difficult to open-source all the things when you're running AGPL software? You choose not to, which is fine, but it's still just you wanting to monetize other's work without giving anything to others to run yours, in turn.

Re: MongoDB switches up its open source license

#444

Post by tannhaeuser »

jhasse wrote: post #438
WorldMaker wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one knows what AGPL compliance actually means, whether money is being made or not. It has failed several lawyers' sniff tests for being potentially arbitrarily enforceable however the AGPL developer sees fit, and the general consensus is that we won't have any idea of what AGPL compliance even looks like until its had its day or three hundred in the court system defining what exactly its limits are (if any?).

And why is that a problem?

Because it benefits the party with bigger pockets in court.

Re: MongoDB switches up its open source license

#445

Post by bad_user »

jahewson wrote: post #198
bad_user wrote: post #43

I hope OSI and the FSF don’t approve their new “SSPL” license. AGPL style licenses impose restrictions on usage, thus violating freedom 0 in the Free Software’s definition or Open Source’s rule 6. AGPL should have never been allowed, precisely because it opens the door for commercial entities to eat their cake and have it too, being the kind of license that can be effectively used to disallow commercial products buil…

> AGPL style licenses impose restrictions on usage No, not in the commonly understood sense of "usage" as "field of endeavor". I understand what you're getting at but anybody can use AGPL'd software for anything. They just need to publish any modifications they make to said AGPL'd software. It's a restriction, but not on "usage". Such a restriction would be something like "you can't use this in the nuclear industry"…

For me usage is the ability to modify it for my purposes.

Writing a script that interacts with said software to enhance or modify its behavior is as easy as clicking an UI button and I don't see a difference.

Also the "understood sense" is irrelevant. Usage is whatever you do with it that's not distribution in the sense defined by the copyright law.

The genius of the GPL licenses has been that they are just copyright licenses handling distribution, but that don't impose any restriction on usage. This was by design. Here's Richard Stallman's own take on "freedom 0": https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/programs-must-not-limit-freed...

> "They just need to publish any modifications they make to said AGPL'd software"

N.B. that's in fact a huge restriction, being a matter of costs too, because "publishing any modifications" costs both time and money.

Re: MongoDB switches up its open source license

#446

Post by bad_user »

geoelectric wrote: post #365
bunderbunder wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, yes, technically, OSI does not own the term open source, and it could be that this license does comply with everything set out in the Open Source Definition ( https://opensource.org/osd ), and that means that, technically, "(the latest version of) MongoDB is not open source" is overstating the case. Except that, as a non-lawyer developer who generally agrees with the Open Source Definition, "under an OSI-approved…

Between Cygnus/Red Hat and Mozilla, I've worked for open-source-based companies for 7 years of my career, and never once heard or believed "open source" in lowercase to mean "OSI-approved." I appreciate what OSI does, and do value an OSI review and endorsement, but you're seriously reaching here and trying to double-down on it. Edit: To be clear, I think the OSD captures what open source is, but OP tried to say "We h…

> Between Cygnus/Red Hat and Mozilla, I've worked for open-source-based companies for 7 years of my career, and never once heard or believed "open source" in lowercase to mean "OSI-approved."

That bullshit.

If that wasn't the case then Microsoft's Shared Source licenses could also be considered "open source", licenses which completely restricted commercial usage. Thankfully the world did not fall in that trap.

Without a working legal definition, the term "open source" becomes (1) meaningless and (2) a legal minefield.

Basically you've been spoiled by OSI approved licensing because our industry rejected anything else. We could've had a different industry and yes, all those bullshit projects on GitHub without a license are a legal minefield.

Re: MongoDB switches up its open source license

#447

Post by bad_user »

threeseed wrote: post #276
bunderbunder wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, yes, technically, OSI does not own the term open source, and it could be that this license does comply with everything set out in the Open Source Definition ( https://opensource.org/osd ), and that means that, technically, "(the latest version of) MongoDB is not open source" is overstating the case. Except that, as a non-lawyer developer who generally agrees with the Open Source Definition, "under an OSI-approved…

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.

I think you've been spoiled by Open Source licenses, due to the people that actually fight for that definition.

Would you consider Microsoft's Shared Source licenses as being "open source"?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shared_Source_Initiative#Restr...

Re: MongoDB switches up its open source license

#448

Post by Freso »

jfoutz wrote: post #416
bunderbunder wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't either. . . we might be playing a game of moving goalposts here. I was specifically responding to the observation that, "Open source for most people means whether you can see and modify the source code.", and saying that that, while that is a workable definition, it's probably not one that most people want to use.

You might want to be a little tighter with that definition. You can find the source for all sorts of crazy stuff. And with that, you can modify it. Oracle or Microsoft or any other copyright holder that didn’t release that is going to be ticked off at you. There has to be some element of the author wants you to have it. I know this sounds silly and pedantic. I think there have been organizations that ignored copyrigh…

… And I think this has exactly been @bunderbunder's argument from the start? That the "definition" put forth by threeseed is naïve and could at best be usable on an amateur level, but as soon as you start having money involved, you really want a more in-depth/verbose/specific definition (like the one the OSI provides), rather than simply being "I can read (and thus modify) the source."

Re: MongoDB switches up its open source license

#450

Post by pas »

gshipley wrote: post #406
pas wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mongo already provides their own repos, and recommends using that for install and updates. I don't think they care or anyone seriously wanting to develop something on/around Mongo does either.

The same can be said for docker?

Yes, though I think their enterprise efforts are truly different offerings, and Kubernetes probably surprised them a bit there.
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