Grafana, Loki, and Tempo will be relicensed to AGPLv3 • Hacker News Board

Re: Grafana, Loki, and Tempo will be relicensed to AGPLv3

#91

Post by PeterisP » Tue, Apr 20, 2021, 6:41 PM UTC

akulkarni wrote: post #73

jchw wrote: post #7

I don't want to weigh in here with a huge value judgement on whether this is the right decision. However, I do want to say that what they're saying regarding SSPL vs AGPL is totally right. One of the biggest sticking points with SSPL is that it's not even really plausibly open source, and it tries to create restrictions that implicate software that is not even "linked" with the program that is licensed under it, whic…

(Timescale founder) We actually designed the Timescale License to be _less_ restrictive than AGPL. It contains no virality. It just prevents public clouds from offering TimescaleDB-aaS.

The freedom to run the software for any purpose is #1 on the list of software freedoms that would be called open source. No ifs, no buts, no checking whether you qualify - software is free if and only if you can run it for any purpose, everything else comes only after that basic freedom. Various viral conditions only affect the licensing of developer changes (while still not restricting the developers right to make and use these changes), but violations of this condition impose restrictions also on non-developer users on non-modified code.

Timescale license does not provide that, so obviously it's more restrictive than even the most viral of open source licences.

To be specific, the sentence "the customer is prohibited, either contractually or technically, from defining, redefining, or modifying the database schema or other structural aspects of database objects," spits in the face of all the ideals of open source. I can respect your decision to choose such a license, there are understandable practical arguments for that, but I can't respect you calling that open source - if you consider that users should be restricted with what they can do with their data schemas, if you include an explicit anti-user-freedom clause, legally mandating software developers to be hostile to their own users - then at least have the guts to openly say that you are against open source (because of all the valid reasons you have, I'm not denying that, you don't have a duty to be pro-open-source), instead of misleadingly labeling your license as such.

Re: Grafana, Loki, and Tempo will be relicensed to AGPLv3

#92

Post by aulin » Tue, Apr 20, 2021, 6:41 PM UTC

klintcho wrote: post #37

188201 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's misunderstanding of AGPL. For internal use, AGPL does not require to share the proprietary part. If a company develop an proprietary UI and use Loki as backend, this is not serving Loki directly to customer, so that does not require company to release their code. It is similar to GPL. Dynamic linking to a GPL software does not require the developer releasing their code. Only provider serving Loki insta…

This might be the case. However there is an additional risk and process component: - you might not want to risk because you don't have lawyers etc in your company. - even if you have lawyers etc in your company, if there are 2 alternatives one which is just an MIT license, you'll probably go for that one because you don't want to have a 1.5 month review of the use of this AGPL licensed alternative. In general things…

did not follow the events of openvslam, wouldn't they be required to still release the source code of the previously public version as GPL? also once the doubt is there, why not rerelease as GPL?

Re: Grafana, Loki, and Tempo will be relicensed to AGPLv3

#93

Post by whimsicalism » Tue, Apr 20, 2021, 6:42 PM UTC

atat7024 wrote: post #83

nine_k wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Postgres looks like the only interesting entry here. K8s and Android have a major corporation backing them, which extracts value from them in its internal operation anyway. They are such products that using them by competition commoditizes said competition. Android on like 95% of phones outside China has very important proprietary parts, making it hardly compatible with a bunch of top-tier apps. BSD OSes don't do exc…

"What people want" is not what I want. Market share/mindshare is almost an inverse measure of quality at this point!

This is what might be described as the 'hipster' sentiment distilled to its base axiom.

Not necessarily knocking it, though!

Re: Grafana, Loki, and Tempo will be relicensed to AGPLv3

#94

Post by josephcsible » Tue, Apr 20, 2021, 6:42 PM UTC

asim wrote: post #3

All of the most important software of our lifetime is going through this relicensing effort as the creators attempt to capture the value of what it enables. This is not some nefarious plan to screw over the community. It's a very measured and thoughtful way to ensure the long term progress and continuity of these projects. If the core companies maintaining them did not do this they would eventually die and these proj…

This seems to lump relicensing to better FOSS licenses like AGPL in with relicensing to bad non-FOSS licenses like the Commons Clause, SSPL, BSL, Redis Source Available License, and Anti-996 License. You're right about the former, but the latter is screwing over the community.

Re: Grafana, Loki, and Tempo will be relicensed to AGPLv3

#95

Post by swyx » Tue, Apr 20, 2021, 6:43 PM UTC

yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #24

asim wrote: post #3

All of the most important software of our lifetime is going through this relicensing effort as the creators attempt to capture the value of what it enables. This is not some nefarious plan to screw over the community. It's a very measured and thoughtful way to ensure the long term progress and continuity of these projects. If the core companies maintaining them did not do this they would eventually die and these proj…

> Hopefully over time rather than having everyone choose their own licenses we end up with some form of standardisation. Yes; if you're going to do this, then using AGPL is so much better than flavor-of-the-week license. > If the core companies maintaining them did not do this they would eventually die and these projects would slowly rot. It sounds like you're suggesting that anything but hard-copyleft is doomed to d…

> using AGPL is so much better than flavor-of-the-week license

license noob here - can you elaborate on why exactly it is so much better?

Re: Grafana, Loki, and Tempo will be relicensed to AGPLv3

#96

Post by natas » Tue, Apr 20, 2021, 6:44 PM UTC

this is good, even if loki can't scale well it's still good for the community.

Re: Grafana, Loki, and Tempo will be relicensed to AGPLv3

#97

Post by jchw » Tue, Apr 20, 2021, 6:45 PM UTC

jabiko wrote: post #9

Even though we use Grafana only internally and there would be no problem with AGPLv3 in theory I see big meetings with legal coming up which might result in us not being able to use it anymore. I could image that its the same with other corporations. In the end that might hurt the popularity of Grafana quite a lot.

While many are dismissing your concerns, I do think this is a valid point, at least to some degree. For example, Google institutes a blanket ban on all AGPL code:

https://opensource.google/docs/using/agpl-policy/

Now, one can read into why exactly this may be, though I have a strong feeling it is simply due to the fact that enforcing correct use of the license is harder than usual. Even if you use it alongside only compatible licenses, like GPLv3, it presumably would make the entire distribution subject to AGPLv3 restrictions. GPLv3 virility is a little easier to deal with, and of interesting note the Bazel build system contains some awareness of licenses.

https://docs.bazel.build/versions/0.24.0/be/functions.html#l...

On the other hand, one might view this as a benefit. So, I guess it depends on who you ask, really. It's not clear that big corporations would necessarily have an easier time with SSPL or TSL either.

Note: IANAL, please do not take my understanding of how these software licenses work as fact :)

Re: Grafana, Loki, and Tempo will be relicensed to AGPLv3

#98

Post by macnale » Tue, Apr 20, 2021, 6:49 PM UTC

1) We distribute Grafana as docker container along with our product to customers. What is the impact for us and our customers? 2) We build Grafana on a platform which is not supported by out of the box. What is the impact for us and our customers?

Re: Grafana, Loki, and Tempo will be relicensed to AGPLv3

#99

Post by josephcsible » Tue, Apr 20, 2021, 6:50 PM UTC

hutrdvnj wrote: post #89

josephcsible wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon forking ElasticSearch to keep its old license is a good thing, since ElasticSearch's new license is a proprietary visible-source license. Grafana's new license is still FOSS, so it's really not a fair comparison.

While it is true that Grafana's new license is still FOSS not every company, public cloud provider is willing to accept the AGPLv3 license[1]. Hence a fork with the old license is not unlikely. [1] https://opensource.google/docs/using/agpl-policy/

True, but my point wasn't so much about the likelihood of a fork as whether or not it would be a good thing.

Re: Grafana, Loki, and Tempo will be relicensed to AGPLv3

#100

Post by natas » Tue, Apr 20, 2021, 6:51 PM UTC

bonetruck wrote: post #59

I wonder how many companies will choose to kill off Grafana use as a result of this change. Two companies I've worked for have simply banned the use of anything having a GPL type license.

only red star os allowed?