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Relicensing CockroachDB

cockroachlabs.com

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Re: Relicensing CockroachDB

#201

Post by doesnt_know »

stingraycharles wrote: post #110

It’s interesting to see the mindset over here at HN change over the year. I recall when MongoDB introduced their “commons clause”, RedisLabs did the relicensing and ElasticSearch doing the dual license open source code, there was quite some outrage over here. I guess everyone is accepting that these clouds are in fact major threats to these projects, as providing these databases as a service is pretty much the only r…

I disagree with your assessment that people are more acceptable. I think it's just more along the lines of the people that care are "over it" and have learned their lesson now.

Those that genuinely care about the free software movement either have or will stop contributing to these projects and stop signing CLA's[1] so their work can't be abused in the future (turned into a proprietary product).

I personally don't think there is much more to argue about.

[1]https://drewdevault.com/2018/10/05/Dont-sign-a-CLA.html

Re: Relicensing CockroachDB

#202

Post by geofft »

nlh wrote: post #42
JoshTriplett wrote: post #32

And one more database removes itself from the Open Source community, and disqualifies itself as a dependency of other open projects.

How does this move disqualify CRDB as a dependency of other open source projects?

Among other reasons, most open source projects expect their dependencies to be things they can interact with like they're open source. It's one of the reasons OSS support for Windows is poorer than support for OSS platforms, despite Windows as a whole being far more popular. This might be close enough, in that developers can install it on their own, you can put it in CI, etc. But it's a barrier.

Re: Relicensing CockroachDB

#203

Post by no_wizard »

anderspitman wrote: post #171
manigandham wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea, that sounds like an excuse. The APIs are all public. The company can build whatever integrations they want to offer. For example, many already use EC2, VPCs, S3, Lambda, Kinesis, etc. to extend their databases into a client's architecture, and it's no different than what AWS provides.

But you're essentially saying if you want to compete with AWS, you have to offer every feature and integration they offer. Good luck to any startup attempting that.

I wonder if a startup opportunity exists to be a B2B only provider that has all the infrastructure trappings of an AWS or Google Cloud, but never selling directly your services on the open market, but instead selling your services contractually to other businesses (in a sense, not sure if my terms are lining up here).

If this is a million dollar idea, I'm just going to give it away I guess, so here goes nothing in explaining it!

Imagine an AWS/Google Cloud like company that only sells B2B, so Cockroach for instance, could pay this company to host their own cloud offerings, plus sell through other cloud offerings of the said B2B service but under their marketing umbrella. The B2B service gets a nice chunk for administration et. el plus some fixed percentage of gross (maybe? i dunno what it'd look like).

I think if you contractually obligate yourself as a business to never sell cloud services directly (only via partners like, in this instance of theory, cockroachDB, but it could redis, mongo, whatever), it'd be a fairly stable and comfortable arrangement.

Could also be a way for other SAAS companies to buy into infrastructure without indirectly funding a potential competitor too.

Maybe its too complicated to achieve, though.

Re: Relicensing CockroachDB

#204

Post by m0zg »

TBH, I think _renaming_ CockroachDB would do it more good than relicensing. All other things being equal, I think it is safe to say that nobody wants any cockroaches in their infrastructure. I think it's also safe to say that few people know in detail what CockroachDB is, and its name creates additional friction to more people figuring it out. If you disagree, call your next database project TurdDB or something and see how it does in the marketplace. Names matter.

Call it something high-tech sounding and inoffensive. Now that it has some notoriety it no longer needs a controversial name.

Re: Relicensing CockroachDB

#205

Post by jkaplowitz »

tybit wrote: post #191
stingraycharles wrote: post #110

It’s interesting to see the mindset over here at HN change over the year. I recall when MongoDB introduced their “commons clause”, RedisLabs did the relicensing and ElasticSearch doing the dual license open source code, there was quite some outrage over here. I guess everyone is accepting that these clouds are in fact major threats to these projects, as providing these databases as a service is pretty much the only r…

They get a lot of credit in my book for keeping it open and not hiding anything behind enterprise / non free components. I think Elasticsearch for example left a bad taste in people’s mouths by adding enterprise only features for something as crucial as security features and mixed their OSS core with it. Basically they’ve kept collateral damage to a minimum as far as I can tell, where as others haven’t.

They're still having enterprise features. The formerly open source core is now using this new non-free (in the sense of FSF or Debian free software guidelines) license, but they are not dropping their enterprise add-on.

Re: Relicensing CockroachDB

#206

Post by jkaplowitz »

IMTDb wrote: post #153
bdarnell wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if I'm using CockroachDB and don't want to manage it myself, my only option is Cockroach Labs. Cockroach Labs is not your only option; you can also use other providers that have a license agreement with us. Our first partner in this area is ObjectRocket: https://www.objectrocket.com/blog/cockroachdb/introducing_co...

Quick question : my company uses a "devops as a service" partner. Basically we pay a monthly fee to have their guys on call 24/7 in case something starts to go wrong. Additionally they update and manage our kubernetes cluster, installing and setuping any dependency we require. From our point of view, we have a fully managed kubernetes cluster. Financially, we pay AWS for EC2 instances and other expenses + them on top…

I'm not a lawyer or in any way speaking for Cockroach Labs, but the Additional License Grant in their license looks to allow "contractors" to do that kind of thing. It's you or your lawyer's call as to whether you're safe in your scenario, but it seems to me that the answer is yes.

Re: Relicensing CockroachDB

#207

Post by growse »

cabalamat wrote: post #199
matthewaveryusa wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're completely missing the point. The point isn't to stop AWS from integrating. The point is to get a slice of the pie if AWS does decide to do an integration because now, with the new license, AWS needs to come to them first and ask for a license, which I'm sure they would give with reasonable terms.

Indeed. If AWS makes a load of money out of Cockroach's hard work, why shouldn't Cockroach get a slice of it?

> Indeed. If AWS makes a load of money out of Cockroach's hard work, why shouldn't Cockroach get a slice of it?

They should have thought about that before benefitting from it being open source.

Re: Relicensing CockroachDB

#208

Post by meddlepal »

Smart move and I really hope the BSL can be used by others outside of Cockroach DB either in its current form or as a template for a similar license. This is badly needed in our industry to protect innovators from rent seekers.

Re: Relicensing CockroachDB

#209

Post by rurounijones »

mindcrime wrote: post #118
makkesk8 wrote: post #11

It's a good move and I even welcome it. However, I would have loved to see the removal of their enterprise version of the product at the same time. I love cockroachdb to death, but the key features that prevent me from using it in any real projects I'm doing are the backup/restore feature, which is currently locked behind their enterprise version. I also would love to use CDC and table partitioning. Nevertheless, gre…

Making a project that was Open Source, not Open Source anymore, is hardly a "good move". I mean, it might be a good financial move for Cockroach and their VC's, but I have a hard time seeing it as good for the world in general.

> Making a project that was Open Source, not Open Source anymore, is hardly a "good move"

Why? You offer no explanation.

I think it is a good middle ground, it has a very targeted restriction and reverts back to Open Source after 3 years.

Re: Relicensing CockroachDB

#210

Post by lmeyerov »

yarrel wrote: post #198
matthewaveryusa wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're completely missing the point. The point isn't to stop AWS from integrating. The point is to get a slice of the pie if AWS does decide to do an integration because now, with the new license, AWS needs to come to them first and ask for a license, which I'm sure they would give with reasonable terms.

This fantasy of getting the VCs their money from Amazon rather than non-existent customers is not going to play out as they want. If we assume Amazon are evil, they won't hand over a slice of the pie they'll just write a replacement. So no integration, no money, and no users. But at least it's not the fault of "Open Source" I guess.

Yep. The warning shot was GCP for these startups, not AWS.
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