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Multi-node TimescaleDB is now free

blog.timescale.com

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Re: Multi-node TimescaleDB is now free

#11

Post by zrail »

eloff wrote: post #4

This is an interesting window into their business model. This could be a purely an altruistic decision, which businesses sometimes do, contrary to popular belief. More likely it's a bet that wider adoption from making the clustered version free will drive more revenue through their managed database as a service offering. Which shows that their non-OSI open-source license is actually leading to more code and features…

> I think we're too hung up on OSI open source licenses.

Where "we" is defined as an extremely vocal minority on HN. I don't think most people take issue with licenses like this Timescale license or the BSL.

Re: Multi-node TimescaleDB is now free

#15

Post by CameronNemo »

eloff wrote: post #4

This is an interesting window into their business model. This could be a purely an altruistic decision, which businesses sometimes do, contrary to popular belief. More likely it's a bet that wider adoption from making the clustered version free will drive more revenue through their managed database as a service offering. Which shows that their non-OSI open-source license is actually leading to more code and features…

> I think we're too hung up on OSI open source licenses.

I disagree. The free software criteria were defined as they are for a reason. AWS and other cloud vendors are taking advantage, but that is not a good reason to give up on the ideals of the movement. I would be much more comfortable contributing to timescaledb if the license had a date at which it expired to AGPL or some other OSI/DFSG/fourfreedoms license.

Re: Multi-node TimescaleDB is now free

#16

Post by akulkarni »

eloff wrote: post #4

This is an interesting window into their business model. This could be a purely an altruistic decision, which businesses sometimes do, contrary to popular belief. More likely it's a bet that wider adoption from making the clustered version free will drive more revenue through their managed database as a service offering. Which shows that their non-OSI open-source license is actually leading to more code and features…

(Timescale CEO and post author)

You are spot on. Before the Timescale License, we were left with a tough decision: do we open-source a feature so that everyone can have it for free OR do we close a feature so that the mega-clouds don't have access to it?

We didn't like either of those options, which is why we created the Timescale License, which allows us to offer capabilities for free (and make the source code available) to everyone except the cloud providers (ie free for 99.9999% of all users).

We find that this has resulted in a mutually beneficial outcome for ourselves and our users.

  "I think we're too hung up on OSI open source licenses. The additional restriction in the timescaledb license
  that you can't run a paid database as a service offering affects hardly anyone negatively (AWS).
  It affects us all positively by providing a sustainable business model to support additional development
  and support of an open-source product we use. Win-win if ever there was one. I'd like to see more open-source
  and closed-source companies consider this model."
^ Really well put.

Re: Multi-node TimescaleDB is now free

#18

Post by gk1 »

speedgoose wrote: post #5

>All of these capabilities are being released under the Timescale License, our source-available license that permits broad usage, except for where organizations are providing TimescaleDB-as-a-service. So it's not open-source because AWS hasn't been nice with ElasticSearch and they don't want to be in the same situation?

Yes. ElasticSearch, Confluent, Redis, and Influx learned this too late.

Re: Multi-node TimescaleDB is now free

#19

Post by gautamdivgi »

akulkarni wrote: post #3

Hi, I authored this post, but the credit really goes to the Timescale database team. Multi-node TimescaleDB is the result of a massive amount of engineering effort over two years, as can be seen in this +67,000 line PR: https://github.com/timescale/timescaledb/pull/1923 We're thrilled to make this free so that more developers can use it.

I would add your GitHub org in the "community" link of your site/blog. I was trying to get to the code from there and couldn't find a link.

I'll be looking forward to playing around with this. thanks...

Re: Multi-node TimescaleDB is now free

#20

Post by eitland »

mrkurt wrote: post #10
speedgoose wrote: post #5

>All of these capabilities are being released under the Timescale License, our source-available license that permits broad usage, except for where organizations are providing TimescaleDB-as-a-service. So it's not open-source because AWS hasn't been nice with ElasticSearch and they don't want to be in the same situation?

That sounds like open source to me, I bet they're just being really conservative about saying "open source" because there's been so much backlash at MongoDB/Cockroach/etc for similar restrictions. It's restricted OSS because AWS takes things, runs them, and eats up all the potential revenue.

> That sounds like open source to me, I bet they're just being really conservative about saying "open source" because people there's been so much backlash at MongoDB/Cockroach/etc for similar restrictions.

Open Source has a very defined meaning. Please read up on the history of open source and source available licenses before saying it is all the same.

We've been defending it against a number of attacks and we will probably do it again, so please don't get on the wrong side of history ;-)

Note: this is not a criticism of Timescale. I can see what they did and respectfully did not pretend it was Open Source. Compared to a proprietary license their license opens a llt of possibilities.

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