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MongoDB removed from RHEL 8 beta due to license

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Re: MongoDB removed from RHEL 8 beta due to license

#71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does this work? How are RedHat able to reach into any of the thousands of projects in their repository and fix bugs and vulnerabilities? How do they have people on staff who understand all those codebases and algorithms? Do RedHat support engineers get tickets like 'bug in the energy minimisation algorithm of GraphViz - go in, learn that field of computer science, and fix it'?

It is the upstream vendor that issues fixes. What RedHat does is that it takes the commits that fix the bug and merge them into their forks and release.

> It is the upstream vendor that issues fixes.

So if you have a bug in a RedHat package, and you're paying $100k a year RedHat support contract, all they really do is open a GH issue with the upstream to ask them to fix it? And then you just wait hoping they fix it so RedHat can cherry pick it?

Re: MongoDB removed from RHEL 8 beta due to license

#72
post #65
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By that logic the GPL is also non-free, since you can't run a GPL program embedded in a closed-source management program.

> you can't run a GPL program embedded in a closed-source management program Uh? Of course you can. What kind of scenario are you envisioning that makes running a GPLed software not legal?

AGPL doesn't target specific users of the software, it affects all users regardless of how they use it.

Re: MongoDB removed from RHEL 8 beta due to license

#73
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it does seem against the spirit of freedom 2. » The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help others (freedom 2). https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html But it seems strange to even think that Red Hat would do anything that violates the idea of free software. Surely there must be about angle to it that we have not considered?

They don't want you redistributing something called Redhat Enterprise Linux after you backdoor it?

That is a different argument for a different set of circumstances pertaining to modification. To contrast, you could be a Canonical customer, and distribute the ubuntu DVDs and mirror their repos to your heart's content. You can't if you are a RH customer.

Re: MongoDB removed from RHEL 8 beta due to license

#74
post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you can't run a GPL program embedded in a closed-source management program Uh? Of course you can. What kind of scenario are you envisioning that makes running a GPLed software not legal?

AGPL doesn't target specific users of the software, it affects all users regardless of how they use it.

We're specifically talking about GPL.

Re: MongoDB removed from RHEL 8 beta due to license

#75

It seems[0] the new MongoDB license is basically non-free and it would make no sense to include it in RHEL8. I hope Debian and other distros follow suit as a result if they come in agreement. It's sad that the license change all resorts to greed basically, as if Oracle took over MongoDB. If I were to ever use a NoSQL database for a new project I'd aim for MIT / 2-clause BSD based projects instead. PostgreSQL has no i…

Well, distros will follow through. One such example could be the rise of `systemd`; once it was adopted by Fedora/RHEL it was game over for `init`.

That's a somewhat different situation: they take different levels of purity test on licensing (not to mention falling under different legal considerations depending on where the developers reside) but adding or removing Mongo has little ripple effect for anyone who doesn't use it. If they don't ship it, the people who were using it will switch to Mongo's main YUM repo and nobody else will notice.

In contrast, changing the init system affects every package which runs a daemon and systemd does more than most of the alternatives so supporting multiple init systems is a substantial amount of extra work which is unlikely to attract corresponding volunteer assistance or result in any user-visible benefits.

Re: MongoDB removed from RHEL 8 beta due to license

#76
post #56
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose" (freedom 0) You can't run it using closed source management software to offer MongoDB as a service.

By that logic the GPL is also non-free, since you can't run a GPL program embedded in a closed-source management program.

You absolutely can run GPL software embedeeded however you feel. You can't distribute it without meeting the conditions, however (and some database software providers think distribution within a company counts as distribution, so there's that)

AGPL is a totally different beast.

Re: MongoDB removed from RHEL 8 beta due to license

#77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is the upstream vendor that issues fixes. What RedHat does is that it takes the commits that fix the bug and merge them into their forks and release.

> It is the upstream vendor that issues fixes. So if you have a bug in a RedHat package, and you're paying $100k a year RedHat support contract, all they really do is open a GH issue with the upstream to ask them to fix it? And then you just wait hoping they fix it so RedHat can cherry pick it?

We don't know. I'm going to tell you a short story, though.

Rumor has it that KMS[1] was developed entirely because a deep-pocketed RH customer was annoyed that their workstations showed a fraction of a second of the boot/init log, and wanted a more seamlessly-graphical boot.

This feature was not universally welcomed by the kernel community. It excluded BSD cousins and frustrated nVidia and AMD/ATI. I remember standing next to the DRM/KMS maintainer while Linus yelled at us.

RH absolutely will interact with upstream on behalf of their customers. They don't just "open a GH issue"; they present designs, code, rationale, and evidence to upstream. I wonder whether this is something that Oracle does, but it doesn't sound like it.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_Rendering_Manager#Kerne...

Re: MongoDB removed from RHEL 8 beta due to license

#78
post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, distros will follow through. One such example could be the rise of `systemd`; once it was adopted by Fedora/RHEL it was game over for `init`.

That's a somewhat different situation: they take different levels of purity test on licensing (not to mention falling under different legal considerations depending on where the developers reside) but adding or removing Mongo has little ripple effect for anyone who doesn't use it. If they don't ship it, the people who were using it will switch to Mongo's main YUM repo and nobody else will notice. In contrast, changin…

Well, yes, you're very much right on that regard, and as others mentioned, the 'official installation instructions' were always using Mongo's official repo, so it's a different case.

But I still feel that Red Hat has pull with the Linux industry, and others might make their decisions based on "what's RHEL up to".

Re: MongoDB removed from RHEL 8 beta due to license

#80
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had hopes for MongoDB back 10 years ago, but it just let me down. I'm thinking of trying out ArangoDB next. OrientDB is just riddled with bug and their docs are lack luster.

But MongoDB is only 9 yo!

I guess so. I wrote some tutorials back in 2010 https://web.archive.org/web/20100604100310/http://www.dealta...

https://web.archive.org/web/20100725142105/http://www.dealta...

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