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MongoDB switches up its open source license

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Re: MongoDB switches up its open source license

#461

Post by sam0x17 »

joshsimmons wrote: post #164
sam0x17 wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. The idea that OSI seriously thinks it gets to decide what counts as open source is laughable. This is akin to Linux being released for the first time, and Microsoft issuing a warning that they have not yet verified that Linux is a "real" operating system, and to stay tuned for their final judgement. The arrogance here is hilarious. I've been working in open source for years and I've never, ever heard of OSI. 2. Al…

Open source is a term of art with an agreed upon definition, and it has been for 20 years which, not-so-coincidentally, is also when the Open Source Initiative was founded. The fact that you've never heard of OSI means we've been doing our job well enough that you've never needed to know about it. The fact that you've never heard of OSI does NOT mean that it's not legitimate, and frankly, that kind of rhetoric is jus…

Something is "closed source" if you literally can't get a copy of the source code. What is the antonym of "closed source"? The opposite of "closed source" is "open source" and it means that the general public can get a copy of the source code. "A permissive open source license" on the other hand implies the things that OSI is trying to confer on the word "open source".

Re: MongoDB switches up its open source license

#462

Post by sam0x17 »

joshsimmons wrote: post #164
sam0x17 wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. The idea that OSI seriously thinks it gets to decide what counts as open source is laughable. This is akin to Linux being released for the first time, and Microsoft issuing a warning that they have not yet verified that Linux is a "real" operating system, and to stay tuned for their final judgement. The arrogance here is hilarious. I've been working in open source for years and I've never, ever heard of OSI. 2. Al…

Open source is a term of art with an agreed upon definition, and it has been for 20 years which, not-so-coincidentally, is also when the Open Source Initiative was founded. The fact that you've never heard of OSI means we've been doing our job well enough that you've never needed to know about it. The fact that you've never heard of OSI does NOT mean that it's not legitimate, and frankly, that kind of rhetoric is jus…

"Open Source" is also a term that predates OSI https://hyperlogos.org/article/Who-Invented-Term-Open-Source

Re: MongoDB switches up its open source license

#463

Post by CydeWeys »

codegeek wrote: post #208
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…

Honest question. If I write some code and release it on Github with an MIT license, do I need permission from OSI to call my project "Open Source"? Is there a legal requirement? I am confused.

You don't need anyone's permission to call anything "open source". There's certainly no legal requirement.

Note, however, if this language starts making its way into contracts, and you're calling something "open source" that isn't actually open source by any standard meanings of the term, then you could be in trouble. But releasing something under a common open source license is prima facie open source, so no problems there.

Re: MongoDB switches up its open source license

#464

Post by manigandham »

tannhaeuser wrote: post #440
manigandham wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no issue here. The whole point of OSS is that anyone can use it. Cloud vendors are providing managed services because that's what their customers demand, and the value isn't in the software itself but the managed part of it all. Any other company (like Compose) can do the same thing and there are several hundred vendors offering various options. MongoDB Atlas is entirely this, and seems to be doing well by le…

You've got it backwards. The fact that we now have cloud providers is a direct consequence of F/OSS and the software commoditization it brings. Cloud (running other people's software) and support are the only ways to make money in this market, so I'm expecting lots of fighting, cloud-specific forking, and license changes going forward. Cloud providers don't manage shit; they're just employing bottom-of-the-barrel sta…

What's backwards? Who cares how we got cloud providers? They are responding to customer demand and we've had colos and datacenter players for decades doing similar things, just at a smaller scale.

Obviously the service is managed and that has value, regardless of the backend and your opinions on how they run it. Perhaps your issue is with all the customers who want and pay for this rather than providers meeting a need.

Re: MongoDB switches up its open source license

#465

Post by sam0x17 »

joshsimmons wrote: post #164
sam0x17 wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. The idea that OSI seriously thinks it gets to decide what counts as open source is laughable. This is akin to Linux being released for the first time, and Microsoft issuing a warning that they have not yet verified that Linux is a "real" operating system, and to stay tuned for their final judgement. The arrogance here is hilarious. I've been working in open source for years and I've never, ever heard of OSI. 2. Al…

Open source is a term of art with an agreed upon definition, and it has been for 20 years which, not-so-coincidentally, is also when the Open Source Initiative was founded. The fact that you've never heard of OSI means we've been doing our job well enough that you've never needed to know about it. The fact that you've never heard of OSI does NOT mean that it's not legitimate, and frankly, that kind of rhetoric is jus…

No, but the fact that OSI is just a random 501(c) that didn't even invent the term "open source" does.

Re: MongoDB switches up its open source license

#466

Post by Kalium »

MrStonedOne wrote: post #392
BFatts wrote: post #167

Earlier 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…

There is absolutely zero reason why the concept empowering open source software, the free and open exchange of code and software, can't apply to the licenses themselves. The reason I believe in open source software is that it empowers the communities and users behind the software, despite (and sometimes, in spite of) the leadership, nobody controls open source software. If the linux kernel went in a direction I didn'…

You're right. There's no reason at all why the concept empowering open source and the free exchange of code can't apply to licenses. After all, software is shared freely by people with the skills to handle it, why can't we do the same with licenses?

Of course, this does kind of require that the people working with license experimentation know enough about law to provably know what they're doing. So perhaps the community might not be as large as might be hoped, as there are limits to what a self-taught not-lawyer can do when it comes to having legal standing.

Re: MongoDB switches up its open source license

#467

Post by tannhaeuser »

manigandham wrote: post #464
tannhaeuser wrote: post #440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've got it backwards. The fact that we now have cloud providers is a direct consequence of F/OSS and the software commoditization it brings. Cloud (running other people's software) and support are the only ways to make money in this market, so I'm expecting lots of fighting, cloud-specific forking, and license changes going forward. Cloud providers don't manage shit; they're just employing bottom-of-the-barrel sta…

What's backwards? Who cares how we got cloud providers? They are responding to customer demand and we've had colos and datacenter players for decades doing similar things, just at a smaller scale. Obviously the service is managed and that has value, regardless of the backend and your opinions on how they run it. Perhaps your issue is with all the customers who want and pay for this rather than providers meeting a nee…

Yeah sorry reading my post just now I should've edited it, or not submitted in the first place. What I meant is that F/OSS has kindof created a situation where no commercial software development by ISVs is sustainable, and now F/OSS itself looses one of the last remaing avenues for monetarization eg. feedback into development and innovation.

Re: MongoDB switches up its open source license

#468

Post by tracker1 »

Likely a move since the purchase of mLab to eliminate competition in the services space. Seems a lot like the recent changes with the direction of Redis.

Hopefully this spurs some movement in supporting open database communities better. PostgreSQL and RethinkDB being two that come to the front of my mind.

Re: MongoDB switches up its open source license

#469

Post by tracker1 »

DannyBee wrote: post #45
Doctor_Fegg wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really like WTFPL as a permissive licence in these cases. Small developers and companies without layers of lawyers will read the licence, see that it says "do what the ---- you want", and use your code accordingly. Big companies with layers of lawyers will read the licence, blanch in terror, and either refuse to use the software, or contact you for alternative terms. Case in point: Google forbids use of the WTFPL.…

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…

Can you explain in what ways WTFPL is significantly different than MIT or ISC licenses? Or how it would be harmful by comparison?

Re: MongoDB switches up its open source license

#470

Post by dang »

kolderman wrote: post #330
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…

> The result, however, is that at this moment, MongoDB is under a non-approved license and therefore IS NOT OPEN SOURCE You sound like a fucking tyrant.

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