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Grafana, Loki, and Tempo will be relicensed to AGPLv3

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

#271

Post by nine_k »

gen220 wrote: post #71
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…

SQLite, Vim/Emacs, Linux, everything in GNU coreutils. All of the Apache projects (some to more/less an extant than others). Most programming language implementations (e.g. CPython). Memcached. WireGuard. SQLAlchemy. Web Frameworks like Flask, Django, Rails, on and on. There are many open source technologies that do not seek to capture the value they create with licensing hijinks. I don’t think it’s an accident, that…

I did not mean to say that open-source software (broadly, MIT-licensed) and free software (broadly, GPL-licensed) don't do well! They do, and I'm happy about it. Some have commercial entities around them, but most don't.

What I was trying to say is that FOSS was never about capturing commercial value, and always about capturing the value of the freedom to inspect, share, and tweak.

In this regard, going AGPL is preferable to what Mongo or Elastic did. They basically turned to commercial "source-available" offerings, much like mainframe software from 1970s.

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

#272

Post by pritambaral »

mtmail wrote: post #108
tlynchpin wrote: post #62

RIP grafana ^^ this is not a good contribution to HN, not much substance. (edit) Many people who use Grafana will see this news and will stop planning on using Grafana and start planning on doing something else. That has nothing to do with Grafana, that is a common reaction to AGPL. In theory, AGPL is fine under circumstances blahblahblah. In common practice in commercial settings (in my experience), GPL is poison an…

I'd say a SaaS competitor build on top of graphana is more affected https://www.hostedgraphite.com/

Unless they were making money based on their proprietary modifications to Grafana, Loki, or Tempo, they aren't affected much beyond being required to publish links to the source code.

If, however, they _were_ making money off of proprietary modifications, and they wanted to keep such modifications proprietary, they now have the choice to fork Grafana (and Loki and Tempo respectively) as of a pre-AGPL version.

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

#273

Post by josephcsible »

sneak wrote: post #270
josephcsible wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is it debated whether AGPL is open source? Who says it isn't?

I feel that the AGPL actually reduces the software freedom in a misguided attempt to close the ASP "loophole", as if offering an API from a private fork is something to be prevented. I am a proponent of software freedom, and resultantly I view the AGPL as nonfree.

What's your definition of software freedom exactly?

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

#274

Post by cryptonector »

twic wrote: post #262
lacker wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Three of the four are in fact outliers: Kubernetes and Android are both financially backed by Google. Is that really "outlier" behavior? More and more important open source projects are prominently backed by a single large tech company. React, TensorFlow, TypeScript, Go, etc. If you just look at the last decade, there has been more important work done as "single-sponsor open source" than under the GPL.

You get it. Making lots of money cannot be a result of open source. But open source can be a result of making lots of money. The ultimate fate of the wave of companies switching to AGPL and similar licenses now will be the proof (or disproof!) of this.

Sometimes open source helps. SQLite3 is a good example. Being open source (and very good) helped it become one of the -if not the- single most-used pieces of software in the world, but having a closed-source 100% branch coverage test suite helped establish a monopoly on development of SQLite3 and prevented hard forks. End result: big tech had to sign up for the SQLite Consortium. It's... not a unicorn, and I've not idea how much D. R. Hipp and friends get paid -- certainly they get paid enough to continue doing their awesome work, and maybe they get paid like the rock stars that they are, but probably nothing like what they'd be worth if they could really monetize SQLite3 and IPO. The SQLite devs are probably very happy, is my guess.

But yes, on the whole it's true: most open source projects aren't SQLite, and most aren't going to many any money just because they are open source. Open source is a business tool.

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

#275

Post by ece »

zokier wrote: post #229
rustc wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mongo and ElasticSearch are completely different though. Related to those licenses: Has there been any clarification of what exactly you need to release for free if you use them to offer a SaaS? > If you make the functionality of the Program or a modified version available to third parties as a service, you must make the Service Source Code available via network download to everyone at no charge, under the terms of t…

> If I use S3 to store data for my Mongo SaaS, do I need to call Bezos and buy the complete source code of S3? Yes.

I have for a while now thought that the ethical source licenses are at least trying to do exactly what open source licenses are trying to do, just within a human rights framework.

The SSPL and other source available licenses on the other hand basically just take away the ability to make a meaningful fork, making the project proprietary. Sure it makes business sense, but someone might still feel the need to make an FOSS alternative.

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

#276

Post by the8472 »

jrv wrote: post #168
blendergeek wrote: post #38

I applaud this decision. I would like to see all major SaaSS projects be AGPLv3. End users still have freedom to user, modify, and distribute the software. Cloud providers must share contributions. This is how I like it.

That sounds nice in theory, but the reality is also that a lot of more permissively licensed (BSD / Apache) projects now cannot use (most) parts of Grafana / Loki / Tempo anymore, since realistically they won't be able to or want to switch to the AGPL as well (because of all the pain that would incur on others, in turn). That means that basically the whole free code sharing idea goes out of the window, at least in on…

> but the reality is also that a lot of more permissively licensed (BSD / Apache) projects now cannot use (most) parts of Grafana / Loki / Tempo anymore

Doesn't that depend on how they use it? They're only AGPLing their backends. The tools still follow open protocols, so the client libraries can be permissive. I.e. the rest of their project won't be "infected".

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

#277

Post by ankmathur96 »

tshaddox wrote: post #259
nopzor wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

do you think that earning money or having a viable business model is a bad thing? look at our actions since the inception of the company, as well as our "big tent" philosophy; i think they speak for ourselves. we built a sustainable business over the course of 4 years, prior to raising a dollar of VC money. we raised VC money to go even faster. most of our VC money goes to paying our employees. most of our employees…

> do you think that earning money or having a viable business model is a bad thing? Nope, but I kinda thought the whole idea behind open source is that no one company or group of companies/licensees gets privileged access to or control over the software, including any company that happens to have the same name as the piece of software. I realize that “open source” and “free software” and other related labels mean man…

I don't believe this is a realistic take on open-source. There's not a single successful modern OSS project that's not basically controlled by a single organization (or was not at some point in its conception). Control can take multiple forms: most of the time, it's directional to the project, since the roadmap of the company managing the project dictates what gets done. Sometimes, it's in the form of how you can use the project. The great thing is that you can always fork the project and create a version for which the new rules/direction does not apply. The challenging part is making that a project where active development is actually happening.

Certainly, there's things like the Linux Foundation that serve as places where projects can live without formal control by a single organization, but in practice, orgs that commit most of the code control things (for better or for worse - I'm not saying this is a good thing)

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

#278

Post by nine_k »

yarcob wrote: post #72
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…

Well, OpenSSH for example is an OpenBSD project, so it's not like nobody uses their stuff.

Everybody does! Some likely even publicly deploy modified versions without upstreaming them. But the authors don't mind, and don't ask for payment.

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

#279

Post by sneak »

josephcsible wrote: post #273
sneak wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel that the AGPL actually reduces the software freedom in a misguided attempt to close the ASP "loophole", as if offering an API from a private fork is something to be prevented. I am a proponent of software freedom, and resultantly I view the AGPL as nonfree.

What's your definition of software freedom exactly?

If I download some open source free software, and modify it so it does something differently on my computer, simply running "systemctl start httpd" should not potentially bring down the machinery of state copyright enforcement against me for not publishing my private patches.

Freedom includes freedom to have privacy. Not distributing any software, my privacy should not be violated.

Running an ASP off a private fork is not "loophole", any more than, say, using free software to make missiles or killing machines.

I feel like the AGPL is just anticapitalist fist-shaking.

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

#280

Post by zokier »

gpanders wrote: post #260
zokier wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem I have with AGPL is that you need to think about it, even if you just run the software and are not distributing it. Or rather AGPL forces you to distribute the software you run. This is in stark contrast to all other mainstream licenses where in general you don't need to think about the license at all if you are not distributing the software, which makes very worry free experience.

> Or rather AGPL forces you to distribute the software you run. No it does not. Using AGPL software does not suddenly make your own software a derived work.

If you run AGPL licensed software you must be prepared to distribute it to its users.
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