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MongoDB switches up its open source license

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Re: MongoDB switches up its open source license

#451

Post by erlend_sh »

It is still unclear to me how the release of any "Service Source Code" is scoped. The license states:

> If you make the functionality of the Program or a modified version available to third parties as a service, you must make the Service Source Code available via network download to everyone at no charge, under the terms of this License

Would greatly appreciate it if someone could give an example of a MongoDB service company and what parts of their proprietary code they would have to release if they opted not to buy a commercial license .

Re: MongoDB switches up its open source license

#452

Post by talltimtom »

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…

> exploit permissive licenses to the max.

Why does this debate consyantly flare up again and again? No one is exploiting licenses, if you release something as open source then it’s open source, amongst other things you give up any claim to the money others might make using your software. That is your choice, any no one is exploiting you or your work by using the software within the license you granted them.

People need to stop this attempt at having “financially closed” open source. If you want you software to be propriataty and have limitations on usage just do that. Don’t release it as open source and cry fowl when other treat it like that instead of treating it like you had a proprietary license on it.

Re: MongoDB switches up its open source license

#453

Post by grogers »

erlend_sh wrote: post #451

It is still unclear to me how the release of any "Service Source Code" is scoped. The license states: > If you make the functionality of the Program or a modified version available to third parties as a service, you must make the Service Source Code available via network download to everyone at no charge, under the terms of this License Would greatly appreciate it if someone could give an example of a MongoDB service…

> “Service Source Code” means the Corresponding Source for the Program or the modified version, and the Corresponding Source for all programs that you use to make the Program or modified version available as a service, including, without limitation...

It's as broad as it can be to make it essentially impossible to comply with and force you to use the commercial license. You can't release the Linux source under SSPL, but the OS would almost certainly qualify under this clause (but IANAL). In the definitions it seems to exclude the kernel and "System Libraries" but only if unmodified, it's still a but of a minefield.

Re: MongoDB switches up its open source license

#454

Post by nunobrito »

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.

On my side those cases are categorised as "Public source" and the respective license terms are then labelled as freeware for most cases, as a sub-variant of Proprietary license types. The other two variants would be Purchase or Subscription.

From a licensing compliance/verification perspective, being OSI approved is a good help to guide developers and reduce the effort of processing the applicable terms. For the auditor itself, the OSI stamp is OK but not something critical.

Looking better, we simply don't even use the terms Open Source nor FOSS on our procedures to be inclusive of the commercial/closed 3rd party products.

Re: MongoDB switches up its open source license

#455

Post by shady-lady »

talltimtom wrote: post #452
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…

> exploit permissive licenses to the max. Why does this debate consyantly flare up again and again? No one is exploiting licenses, if you release something as open source then it’s open source, amongst other things you give up any claim to the money others might make using your software. That is your choice, any no one is exploiting you or your work by using the software within the license you granted them. People ne…

Spirit of the law vs. letter of the law

Re: MongoDB switches up its open source license

#456

Post by zzzcpan »

jazzyjackson wrote: post #368
BFatts wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, they do! They are the ones that put together the OSD ( https://opensource.org/osd ) which they derived from the DGSL. No one else has defined open source, not even Richard M. Stallman. His definition is for "Free Software", not "Open Source". So when it comes to who owns the definition, the definitive answer is the OSI. Anything else is just subjective opinions. You must not work. Because businesses that do REAL…

I think what I'm seeing over and over in this thread is people talking past each other because the grandparent shouldn't have assumed we were all working in the same context. I agree, in the legal context of business decisions, OSI has a very specific claim to the term 'open source' and declaring that mongoDB "IS NOT OPEN SOURCE" is a warning directed towards people making business judgements around legal risk. To ev…

> in the legal context of business decisions, OSI has a very specific claim

But it doesn't. In the legal context of business decisions conformance to an OSI definition of "Open Source" means exactly nothing and OSI-certified "Open Source" even less than nothing. It doesn't help you with anything and doesn't protect you from anything.

Re: MongoDB switches up its open source license

#457

Post by belorn »

bad_user wrote: post #445
jahewson wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

You can still modify it for my purposes so long all users who interacts with it over a network has access to the modified source code. If the number of users are you then modify away!

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

That is the tricky part. A video streaming site is considered distribution by many copyright laws. There was a time where simply using a website was not considered distribution, but then scope of copyright was extended and concepts like "public performance" and "making available to the public" was applied to works provided through web services.

GPLv3 however gives an additional permission that allow "interaction with a user through a computer network", even if copyright law would forbid it.

Re: MongoDB switches up its open source license

#458

Post by perseusprime11 »

"MongoDB is a bit miffed that some cloud providers — especially in Asia — are taking its open-source code and offering a hosted commercial version of its database to their users without playing by the open-source rules. To combat this, MongoDB today announced it has issued a new software license, the Server Side Public License (SSPL), that will apply to all new releases of its MongoDB Community Server, as well as all patch fixes for prior versions."

That's how open source works. Isn't it?

Re: MongoDB switches up its open source license

#459

Post by bunderbunder »

Freso wrote: post #448
jfoutz wrote: post #416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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."

Not even just money.

Part of why I originally used the term "non-amateur" instead of "professional" when I described people who shouldn't work under that definition is that, while students and maintainers of open source projects might not be getting paid for what they're doing, they still have compelling reasons to be more careful about licensing.

One worst-case scenario for a student might be that some software licensing snafu threatens their academic work, and, by extension, their whole career. And open source project maintainers have an ethical responsibility not to get users of their work into legal hot water.

For those people, falling in line with OSI offers a huge advantage: You can't avoid crossing the software licensing legal tightrope. But, by sticking to working with OSI-approved licenses, you can at least ensure that you're working with a net.

Re: MongoDB switches up its open source license

#460

Post by bad_user »

belorn wrote: post #457
bad_user wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You can still modify it for my purposes so long all users who interacts with it over a network has access to the modified source code. If the number of users are you then modify away! > Usage is whatever you do with it that's not distribution in the sense defined by the copyright law. That is the tricky part. A video streaming site is considered distribution by many copyright laws. There was a time where simply using…

That's an interesting take on the matter.

Personally I agree with copyleft licenses for as long as they are just restricting distribution as defined by copyright law. This because IMO there needs to be a clear, lawful boundary for what FOSS licenses can and cannot restrict.

Will look more into it.

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