Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is easily searchable.
I'm not asking for lack of knowledge, but I was asking the parent as they needed to make the distinction.
Why? The FSF and the OSD make the distinction.
Homebrew removes MongoDB from core formulas
271–280 of 291 posts
Re: Homebrew removes MongoDB from core formulas
#272Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Open source is about contributing to the commons, such that your competitors can make a profit from your work. If your competitors aren't able to do that, then the software is not open source. Period. This kind of first order reasoning is nice, but the reality of software economics is a tad bit more complex. The assumption that the market is large, that the commons helps everybody sort of equally are not true in a…
> " The assumption that the market is large, that the commons helps everybody sort of equally are not true in a lot of sectors. " Not sure what we are talking about, personally I don't make that assumption, although I recognize that others might. Yes, roads and highways help big companies more than they help small companies. That doesn't mean that smaller companies don't benefit from the existence of roads and highwa…
I think companies experimenting with licenses like the AGPL are trying to suss out what open source means in the cloud age. When the GPL came to be and software ran on people's computers, there was no way to distribute software that didn't trigger the distribution clause and require modifications to be available under the same license. With the cloud, there is: cloud companies can and do host all sorts of GPL'd software, make modifications, do whatever they want and are under no obligation to release any of that because running a service was not accounted for at the time the GPL was created.
MongoDB Inc's license switch may earn them some hate but I think the bigger issue is what license terms will open source contributors be comfortable with? What license captures the same spirit as the GPL, should that spirit still be desired, as software moves to the cloud? When every piece of functionality, no matter how trivial, can be used by a cloud provider to bolster their closed ecosystem, are the developers that created that software comfortable with a license that allows providers to do so without giving back?
AWS et al. are committing no violation here of course, they are taking advantage of a market opportunity to offer hosted software, some open source and some not. The market is overwhelmingly saying that they value the convenience of having all of these services available at the click of a button and that the closed source nature and potential for Oracle-style vendor lock-in is not a concern.
There's certainly value there and some folks may feel perfectly comfortable contributing to such an ecosystem, as is their right. Others may desire a more reciprocating agreement, and perhaps the AGPL is a first step towards such a license. I think we as software engineers need to recognize just how high we're standing on the giant's shoulders and put some thought towards helping a community that is trying to adjust to the new cloud reality. "Fuck you give me your stuff for free" is unwarranted and not likely to encourage contribution.
Re: Homebrew removes MongoDB from core formulas
#273Earlier quoted context omitted.
I worked on a project with similar requirements. I just serialized the data with protobufs, encrypted it, and stashed it in S3. It was sensitive data so this also had the advantage of being easy to secure and audit. No point using a relational db for that kind of thing.
And then when you need to do reports on the data and query it?
Due to the sensitive nature of the data and the need to keep it encrypted, breaking it down by columns into a schema we could query was a non goal.
Re: Homebrew removes MongoDB from core formulas
#274Earlier quoted context omitted.
HTTP 3 isn't even in production yet.
Define production and define HTTP3. The beauty of open source is that you can be already serving pages using QUIC and TLS1.3 while the standard is being finalised.
A finalised standard was what I had in mind. QUIC, much like SPDY was, isn't more than a Google protocol for only Chrome right now.
Re: Homebrew removes MongoDB from core formulas
#275Earlier quoted context omitted.
Software is only free to infinitely distribute so long as people are willing and able to make it. That's where the money comes in. There is zero marginal cost of production but there is very real upfront cost that must be recouped. It's not magic. You'll notice that quite a lot of software has historically been sold for actual money, and still is. So I think the mug comparison is quite apt, even if we'd rather it wer…
I don't think this is a consistent argument. In your first paragraph you say there's an upfront cost to developing software that must be recouped, whereas in the second you say that MongoDB's use of Linux is okay because it's not adversarial to Google. But how does that help Google recoup the upfront cost? They’re taking advantage of Google’s upfront investment without compensating them for it. Cloud vendors' use of…
>I don't think this is a consistent argument. In your first paragraph you say there's an upfront cost to developing software that must be recouped, whereas in the second you say that MongoDB's use of Linux is okay because it's not adversarial to Google. But how does that help Google recoup the upfront cost?
Nothing helps them recoup this. Open source is a public good, IMO. It doesn't benefit the creator nearly as much as those who can consume it. I'm not trying to say I think it's okay one way or another that Google isn't making money on its Linux contributions. I'm saying Google is okay with their position because no one is using their contribution to the public good against them, and they would have made those contributions to the Linux codebase anyway (because it benefits them to do so) so why not help everyone? Again, rising tide lifts all boats kind of thing. That's the difference here. Google wants Linux to be better because it makes their platform better. But Linux being better is not the product they offer. And the world having a better Linux doesn't undermine their product. At least, not in the same way that offering MongoDB managed infra for cheaper than Mongo can undermines Mongo's product.
I think you're trying to say fair is fair, and the license must be applied evenly and consistently or your reneging on the deal. Which I think we can all agree on. Where we differ is that I think it's okay to change your license if it's killing you.
Re: Homebrew removes MongoDB from core formulas
#276Earlier quoted context omitted.
But what's the difference between open source, free, and "source available" for inspection?
I can really recommend you to look at Free Software Foundation website[1]. In a nutshell: free software is like "free will", not "free lunch". It gives users four essential freedoms: to run it any way one wants, to study and modify source code, to redistribute copies and particulary redistribute modified copies[2]. As you can see, "open source" give s only half of those freedoms: to study code, it is not mandadory th…
You're wrong and as a matter of fact the definition for Open Source is more clear and a little more restrictive than that of Free Software:
Re: Homebrew removes MongoDB from core formulas
#277Earlier quoted context omitted.
> " The assumption that the market is large, that the commons helps everybody sort of equally are not true in a lot of sectors. " Not sure what we are talking about, personally I don't make that assumption, although I recognize that others might. Yes, roads and highways help big companies more than they help small companies. That doesn't mean that smaller companies don't benefit from the existence of roads and highwa…
I think companies experimenting with licenses like the AGPL are trying to suss out what open source means in the cloud age. When the GPL came to be and software ran on people's computers, there was no way to distribute software that didn't trigger the distribution clause and require modifications to be available under the same license. With the cloud, there is: cloud companies can and do host all sorts of GPL'd softw…
The "spirit of the GPL" is invoked a lot here, however you have to consider that...
MongoDB Inc does NOT play by the same rules as everyone else because they own the copyright.
When a piece of software is useful on its own and survives, without dual licensing from the copyright holder, then and only then we can talk about the spirit of the GPL.
Also people here seem to be confused. The GPL is a super permissive license because it allows you to use it for whatever purpose. You can use it for commercial purposes, you can use it for controlling sharks with lasers to conquer the world, you can use it in combination with any other software or hardware package, doesn't matter. This was by design.
The GPL is just a copyright license, not an EULA and that's part of its genius.
Now you can say that this company or that have been circumventing GPL, but I think that AGPL licenses have been an abomination, a scurge on this industry, only used to lure developers into dual licensing deals and having nothing to do with actual Free Software.
And now we are seeing the effect of allowing AGPL. For one I see an entire forum of really smart individuals that don't really know what the spirit of GPL is, yet we talk about it.
Re: Homebrew removes MongoDB from core formulas
#278Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not only that, MongoDB accepted code contributions from the community under the pretense that their software was open source. They then used the copyright assignment that they required from all contributors to make it non-open-source when they did this license change.
And anyone that sent in patches benefited from it. What's your point? Cloud providers are now barred from using new MongoDB versions. Is that fair? Well, the developers (a company) made a choice. They want the revenue from the support/monitoring business, AWS is eating their lunch. So either they completely change their business or try to somehow stop AWS et al. from doing that. Since MongoDB just recently released 4…
People invest in open source when they believe in its continuity.
No, people sending patches are not necessarily benefiting from it. Patches can be very expensive and it can be cheaper to pay for actual support with a proprietary solution that's at least honest about its nature and won't pull a bait and switch on you.
Re: Homebrew removes MongoDB from core formulas
#279Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think this is a consistent argument. In your first paragraph you say there's an upfront cost to developing software that must be recouped, whereas in the second you say that MongoDB's use of Linux is okay because it's not adversarial to Google. But how does that help Google recoup the upfront cost? They’re taking advantage of Google’s upfront investment without compensating them for it. Cloud vendors' use of…
>I don't think this is a consistent argument. In your first paragraph you say there's an upfront cost to developing software that must be recouped, whereas in the second you say that MongoDB's use of Linux is okay because it's not adversarial to Google. But how does that help Google recoup the upfront cost? Nothing helps them recoup this. Open source is a public good, IMO. It doesn't benefit the creator nearly as muc…
I'm even okay with changing your license (although I understand why people who made contributions to what they thought would continue to be an open source project would be mad). All I'm saying is, MongoDB is no longer "open source" in the same sense that Linux/nginx/MySQL/etc are. It's not a slight against MongoDB that — for example — Homebrew would remove them from their core package repository, which only includes software with OSI-approved licenses.
The other sticking point for me is the idea that it's "exploitative" for cloud vendors to run managed MongoDB instances without paying them. MongoDB has existed for over a decade, but their own managed service only came out in 2016 — before that, they offered an enterprise version and support. So were cloud vendors offering a managed MongoDB before still exploiting them? Or did it only become exploitative once MongoDB decided to enter that market, too?
Re: Homebrew removes MongoDB from core formulas
#280Earlier quoted context omitted.
The idea of free software is that user can (and have the right to) modify it in any way one wants. If I found a bug in free software, I can fix it by myself or wait for someone else to fix it, or pay someone to make a fix. That's the way it works. (edit: typo)
You can do all that with Mongo's new license. It's an AGPL + AWS-is-killing-our-support/monitoring/ops-business license.
How do you know?
The license is no longer OSI approved, so how do you know what you're allowed or not allowed to do?
How do you know that what's keeping AWS from using it isn't also creating a problem from you?
Have you consulted with a lawyer?
That's one benefit of using actual Open Source. You have a definition that all licenses have to comply with, such that developers know exactly the set of freedoms that's common between all of them.
Once you step out of that definition, you're on your own. So you know, I wouldn't take legal advice from random people on HN, you might run into problems.