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Homebrew removes MongoDB from core formulas

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Re: Homebrew removes MongoDB from core formulas

#81

Post by floatingatoll »

threeseed wrote: post #70
floatingatoll wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Monsanto provides you genetic code packed into a seed and forbids you from profiting from new seeds derived from it by your own work. Is this ethical? Mongo provides you computer code packed into a tarball and forbids you from profiting from new code derived from it by your own work. Is this ethical? Is either example more or less ethical if the price is, or is not, $0? That’s the debate in a nutshell. (I declare no…

Is the GPL ethical ? It also gives you source code but attaches some pretty significant conditions that in most cases would prevent you from profiting from new code derived from it.

You’re asking one of the right questions for this Mongo post’s debates. I can’t say what the right answer is, as it’s an ethics and beliefs debate, but you’re definitely asking a relevant question.

Re: Homebrew removes MongoDB from core formulas

#82

Post by jakelazaroff »

trpc wrote: post #61
jakelazaroff wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Software licensed under the SSPL is not “free” in either sense of the word. It’s not free as in beer, because I must pay to use it. It’s not free as in speech, because it violates Freedom 0 of the four fundamental freedoms [1]: I can’t run it as I wish, for any purpose. More practically, MongoDB offers their own managed hosting service. Are they paying the Linux Foundation for the OS they’re almost certainly running?…

afaik the user doesn't pay for MongoDB, you can use it freely, read the code, modify; if I understand correctly SSPL is basically AGPL/GPL but with clause that cloud vendors that want to use this product to provide a SaaS version must pay to the maker. I don't think this is any unfair esepcially if this project was made from scratch by the maker and not a fork off another OSS project.

Cloud vendors are "users", too. I'm not saying it's fair or unfair, just that it's not free. MongoDB is of course within their rights to charge to use their software, but they're not somehow being exploited by those who profit from it without paying — after they offered it for free! — when they themselves profit off the labor of the same people without compensating them.

Put another way: Amazon is a corporate member of the Linux Foundation. Why is it okay for MongoDB to profit off Amazon's labor without paying, but not vice versa?

Re: Homebrew removes MongoDB from core formulas

#83

Post by danShumway »

chrisseaton wrote: post #26
zucker42 wrote: post #20

Serious question: can someone explain why the server side public license is not an open source license, with specific reference to AGPL? Is it because of the provision forcing the source code release of auxillary software used to run the software as a service? As far as I can tell, it meets the FSF's free software definition and the only that seems questionable in the OSI's open source definition is point 9.

> can someone explain why the server side public license is not an open source license Depends on what you think 'open source' licence means. The source is literally openly available. There are just some extra restrictions on what you can do with it. The FSF and the OSI don't own what 'open source' means, of course - the term predates them and comes from intelligence.

What you're describing is source-available. If that was the only criteria for an open source license, then there would be tons of additional proprietary software we'd have to classify as open source -- Unreal Engine, for example.

Regardless, the word isn't really the important part of Homebrew's decision. Whatever you want to call it, Homebrew has decided it can't include MongoDB in its repository while guaranteeing the freedoms of its users. A semantic debate over the meaning of 'open source' won't change that.

That doesn't mean the semantic debate is useless, but regardless of where you fall on that debate, MongoDB's license does not guarantee freedom 0 of the FSF's definition, and that's going to effect which open source organizations are willing to distribute or build on top of MongoDB. You should expect platforms like Homebrew that care about freedom 0 to continue to abandon MongoDB.

Re: Homebrew removes MongoDB from core formulas

#84

Post by marknadal »

Thorrez wrote: post #28
thiscatis wrote: post #3

Would love to see an overview of companies that fell into the mongoDB trap and have / are migrating to another DB store.

What you do mean by the "mongoDB trap"? Are you saying companies are hurt by the license, or are you saying companies are hurt by software's behavior (e.g. consistency model)?

I used to build drivers for MongoDB because it was so easy.

MongoDB had a good run, I enjoyed it before migrating away. This license definitely hurts companies.

What to? I built my own Open Source solution (MIT/Zlib/Apache2).

Around same time Firebase was getting popular, and Graph databases were the way forward.

Combined them all together, now have Internet Archive and HackerNoon running it (https://github.com/amark/gun) in production!

Re: Homebrew removes MongoDB from core formulas

#85

Post by mfer »

zucker42 wrote: post #20

Serious question: can someone explain why the server side public license is not an open source license, with specific reference to AGPL? Is it because of the provision forcing the source code release of auxillary software used to run the software as a service? As far as I can tell, it meets the FSF's free software definition and the only that seems questionable in the OSI's open source definition is point 9.

IANAL but...

Section 13 of the mongodb license notes that all supporting software must use that license. That impacts everything in your stack. Consider kernel drivers, javascript libraries in your UI, and everything in between. Use Ansible to manage you stuff? That won't work with this license.

The goal of this license isn't to get all the "Service Source Code" under the license. They know that the people who would run a service don't have that within their power.

Instead, the goal of the license is to force many folks to have to purchase a separate license from the SSPL. The whole point of the license is to limit freedoms.

Re: Homebrew removes MongoDB from core formulas

#86

Post by scarface74 »

zxcvbn4038 wrote: post #74
Thorrez wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you do mean by the "mongoDB trap"? Are you saying companies are hurt by the license, or are you saying companies are hurt by software's behavior (e.g. consistency model)?

A lot of companies got lured into using mongodb because it was so developer friendly. It cost nothing and it was easy bring in the back door and alleviated the need for thought. Then their sales people started coming around and asking for insane sums of money (like $10,000 per instance per year plus 100% markup on hardware to run in AWS - support is extra). They were worried about amazon and others offering a better…

But Mongodb is so different from anything else that you need a major rewrite to get away from it.

Well actually....

One corner case. If you are using Mongo with the Mongo Linq driver in C#, you can switch it out for an RDMS without changing too much code with just a little foresight.

Re: Homebrew removes MongoDB from core formulas

#87

Post by cj »

nailer wrote: post #15
mikeryan wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Over the last few Months we’ve switched over to amazons document db just to have a managed service. We don’t regret it.

DocumentDB is still really expensive as there's no pay what you use option. I stored about 2KB of data for 72 hours and got charged fifteen dollars before I realised the mistake. They really need to come up with a per mb per hour option.

I spend somewhere around $30-40k / yr on AWS (EC2) for a 3 member replica set.

I evaluated DocumentDB and price wasn’t the issue (at our scale, the price is OK).

Main blocker is that it’s locked at Mongo 3.4 API compatibility, which is several major versions behind. But worse, their implementation of the 3.4 API is incomplete, so while they advertise “Mongo Compatible”, it really isn’t a drop in replacement.

Re: Homebrew removes MongoDB from core formulas

#88

Post by oaththrowaway »

marknadal wrote: post #84
Thorrez wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you do mean by the "mongoDB trap"? Are you saying companies are hurt by the license, or are you saying companies are hurt by software's behavior (e.g. consistency model)?

I used to build drivers for MongoDB because it was so easy. MongoDB had a good run, I enjoyed it before migrating away. This license definitely hurts companies. What to? I built my own Open Source solution (MIT/Zlib/Apache2). Around same time Firebase was getting popular, and Graph databases were the way forward. Combined them all together, now have Internet Archive and HackerNoon running it ( https://github.com/amar…

I believe I saw you present at UtahJS a few years back. I was very impressed with your presentation about JavaScript performance. I think think about that talk every once in a while.

Re: Homebrew removes MongoDB from core formulas

#89

Post by SamReidHughes »

tedivm wrote: post #50
elamje wrote: post #30

What’s the executive summary of what’s going on with Mongo, and why other commenters are referring to using mongo as a mistake?

MongoDB changed their licensed from an open source license to one that has restrictions specifically aimed at busting up Mongo (the company)'s competitors who offer managed MongoDB services. These restrictions mean it is no longer an open source project. It is also worrying for a lot of people that mongo was willing to change license terms like this, as it means they may be willing to do so in the future if it brings…

> It is also worrying for a lot of people that mongo was willing to change license terms like this, as it means they may be willing to do so in the future if it brings them more money.

Ultimately this is only a worry for people who choose software that is apparently not good enough right now, but hope it will become good enough in the future.

Re: Homebrew removes MongoDB from core formulas

#90

Post by danShumway »

trpc wrote: post #24

Can somebody tell me what is wrong is SSPL? I just don't understand what this hostility is all about. A company creates a crucial infrastructure component which is a database, open sources it, everybody can use it for free, cloud vendors started just installing it on their servers or making clones of it and making profit off it, everybody is using a component that took years and millions of dollars to develop but the…

The only hostility is because people are trying to continue to push MongoDB as Open Source. It's fine for MongoDB to be proprietary, lots of good software is proprietary. It's just not Open Source.

To your baker analogy, I don't have any objection to a baker withholding their recipe. But if a bunch of bakers want to share recipes, and they form a special supermarket where only these recipe-included products will be sold, why is it considered hostility for them to exclude a product that doesn't make its recipe freely available?

Nobody's being mean to MongoDB. Even with Homebrew, MongoDB can still distribute its own source. It's just that MonboDB doesn't belong in the same store aisle that they used to be in. People are only getting ticked that MongoDB is trying to position itself as some kind of open source savior, that its advocating that MongoDB should still be allowed into the recipe-included bakery chain, even though it's not following the same rules.

If I run a vegan bakery and I don't include sausages, that's not me being mean to the meat industry. If I run an Open Source repository and I don't include proprietary software, then what part of that is hostile?

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