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MongoDB switches up its open source license

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Re: MongoDB switches up its open source license

#471

Post by dang »

BFatts wrote: post #231
AsyncAwait wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Getting angry with them for protecting open source from bad actors who try to subvert its freedoms OSI was specifically created to subvert freedoms that the Free Software Foundation protects, so this statement is quite ironic.

No, again someone who doesn't really know the history. Open Source was a way to make free software acceptable to businesses, not subvert the FSF. The FSF's goal is to have ZERO PROPRIETARY SOFTWARE at all and that software patents are stupid and should be illegal. So, without such knowledge your statement might make sense. But even stating that OSS subverts FSF is laughable!

You repeatedly became uncivil in your posts to this thread. We ban accounts that do that. Please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and follow the rules when posting here.

(That includes not using uppercase for emphasis. That's basically online yelling.)

Re: MongoDB switches up its open source license

#472

Post by anarazel »

mrkurt wrote: post #39
DannyBee wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking as a lawyer: There was no abuse, there was only mongo not being able to make money in all cases they wanted to. That's what they see as abuse. It isn't. While they complain of bad actors, bad actors always act bad. This will not disincentivize them (they are also often in a lot of interesting jurisdictions that would make it hard anyway). Instead, this is really about making it completely unpalatable for nor…

Speaking as not a lawyer: there is lots of abuse of OSS infrastructure from big tech corps — because the AGPL isn't equipped for everything-as-a-service eating software licensing. If "abuse" were license violations, they wouldn't have to use a new license. Abuse is often legal.

> because the AGPL isn't equipped for everything-as-a-service eating software licensing

The AGPL is just generally a ridiculously badly written license.

Re: MongoDB switches up its open source license

#473

Post by mikl »

the_af wrote: post #242
amirathi wrote: post #236

None of OSI's Open Source licenses (including AGPL) protect creators financial interest in the cloud first world. Period. I want to issue "View and Internal Use License" for my work. Anyone can view the source code, modify, and use the software for their own benefit as they see fit. Under no circumstances can anyone sell/re-distribute/host the paid version of software or any derivative thereof. Why can't OSI create s…

The license you describe, while definitely useful, is not open source by any meaningful definition of the concept. I don't mean "not OSI open source", but "not open source as the term has evolved". Similar licenses have been tried (see Microsoft's Shared Source Initiative) and you can definitely devise one yourself and no-one can stop you. The "world" won't let you call your license open source for good reason: it's…

The whole point of open source is that OSS code can be used (and modified) for whatever use anyone wants. Copy-left compels you to share your modifications, but does not limit you from using the software however you please.

Re: MongoDB switches up its open source license

#474

Post by the_af »

mikl wrote: post #473
the_af wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The license you describe, while definitely useful, is not open source by any meaningful definition of the concept. I don't mean "not OSI open source", but "not open source as the term has evolved". Similar licenses have been tried (see Microsoft's Shared Source Initiative) and you can definitely devise one yourself and no-one can stop you. The "world" won't let you call your license open source for good reason: it's…

The whole point of open source is that OSS code can be used (and modified) for whatever use anyone wants. Copy-left compels you to share your modifications, but does not limit you from using the software however you please.

Exactly. Which is why amirathi's proposed license is not open source.

Re: MongoDB switches up its open source license

#475

Post by 2little_time »

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…

Why would we want to force a company like Mango to go proprietary? There is a virtuous cycle at work when companies build business models that enable them to stick around and continue to make significant community contributions as Mango has done. The cloud has enabled bad actors to cut off the air supply of contributors. If you care about open source, you should care about the ability for companies to build business models around it that are benevolent to individual users, but don't let parasites suck the life blood out of contributing organizations.

Re: MongoDB switches up its open source license

#476

Post by 2little_time »

darkarmani wrote: post #254
zjaffee wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's funny because redis recently did something rather similar to what mongo just did. This will be an accelerating trend in open source, where these sorts of companies will either develop proprietary platforms with closed source code (databricks), or will move forward the way redis and mongo are.

> This will be an accelerating trend in open source Until communities refuse to sign CLA that let projects bait-and-switch to another license once they have a large community and want to now take buckets of VC money.

In my experience its the opposite. Companies form around the business plan of exploiting FOSS by hosting, solicit buckets of VC money, and give nothing back. It's completely unsustainable.

It's totally rational to create a license model that prevents hosting to third parties, but still allows end users to adopt the technology without paying. As has been pointed out elsewhere, that may not be right for all OS projects, but it should be an option.

Re: MongoDB switches up its open source license

#477

Post by 2little_time »

darkarmani wrote: post #342
tannhaeuser wrote: post #78

Earlier 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…

> 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 rep…

I think you're overestimating outside contributions to these types of projects. In my experience, they are typically minuscule, and mutually beneficial relationships when they do occur.

Re: MongoDB switches up its open source license

#478

Post by nateburke »

mbreese wrote: post #66
zzzcpan wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you can still offer it as a service, just as long as you opensource your infrastructure. The only thing it prevents you is profiting from lock-in of your services without sharing those profits with MongoDB. Very much in the spirit of open source.

Yeah, but how is that really supposed to work? I can see why MongoDB would want to do this, but how on earth is this really supposed to be implemented? Where do you draw the line? What I suspect is that you'll end up with a bunch of shell scripts for creating MongoDB instances...

>> shell scripts for creating MongoDB instances...

_minified_ shell scripts

Re: MongoDB switches up its open source license

#479

Post by DannyBee »

lacker wrote: post #240
DannyBee wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Google has released roughly every meaningful patch it has made to the open source software it was built on. Chrome or Android seem like good counterexamples, where the software that most people use (Chrome, or Android + Google Experience) is specifically kept in two separate buckets, open source and closed source, so that Google can strategically keep some parts open and some parts closed.

Err? They are certainly not useful counterexamples. That is open source software Google made itself.

The original complaint was about taking other people's open source (mongodb) without contributing back. Not "failing to release stuff it made itself". That's a completely different thing.

Even there, what i said is still true: Google has released every meaningful patch to the open source software it used in making Chrome/Android.

Re: MongoDB switches up its open source license

#480

Post by DannyBee »

darkarmani wrote: post #345
DannyBee wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

For production server kernel: The only kernel patches these days i'm aware of that aren't upstream are hardware drivers for very custom hardware, or ones we released but upstream didn't want and we still maintain.

Like any sane kernel team, google tries to minimize it's difference with upstream since it has huge maintenance cost.

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