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

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

#311

Post by shawnz » Tue, Apr 20, 2021, 9:56 PM UTC

the_duke wrote: post #5

"Amazon Announces Grafana Fork , Promises Amazing Things for the Community" (2021/05/08) [1] On a more serious note: there is a bit of a trend in the licensing world. Mongo or ElasticSearch changes, or cool new projects like redpanda [2] launching with BSL. Open source is still a very young business model. One that has provided a tremendous amount of value over the past decades, but we still need to figure out how to…

Just to be clear, had Elastic chosen to relicense Elasticsearch under AGPL, there would likely be no issue with Amazon's usage of it and I doubt Amazon would have forked it in that case.

The problem for Amazon was strictly due to SSPL, not copyleft licenses in general.

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

#312

Post by pritambaral » Tue, Apr 20, 2021, 9:57 PM UTC

sneak wrote: post #279

josephcsible wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 i…

> Freedom includes freedom to have privacy.

You have that. The AGPL provides rights to _users_ of your software; that's it, no one else. If _you don't provide_ the modified software to someone, they can't demand your private patches. No one can "bring down the machinery of state copyright enforcement" against you, unless you interact with them first and provide them your modified software and they use it.

And even when you do that — when you provide your software to someone — they still can't demand that you "publish" your private patches. Only that you give to _them_ the modified software under the same rights that you received the original software. Only to _them_, not the public. No publishing required. _They_ are free to publish the software they received, of course, as were you when you first received the original software; but you aren't obligated to publish it.

----

The only difference between AGPL and GPL is that the definition of what constitutes "distribution" of software is extended. The AGPL changes only "distribution" and nothing else in the GPL.

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

#313

Post by lunfard00 » Tue, Apr 20, 2021, 9:57 PM UTC

the_duke wrote: post #5

"Amazon Announces Grafana Fork , Promises Amazing Things for the Community" (2021/05/08) [1] On a more serious note: there is a bit of a trend in the licensing world. Mongo or ElasticSearch changes, or cool new projects like redpanda [2] launching with BSL. Open source is still a very young business model. One that has provided a tremendous amount of value over the past decades, but we still need to figure out how to…

Amazon is the biggest leecher in the industry. They haven't open-sourced any meaningful project back to the community and they even prevent its employees to work in any of them[1] on their free-time.

[1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/comments/3axbeh/i...

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

#314

Post by ocdtrekkie » Tue, Apr 20, 2021, 9:58 PM UTC

josephcsible wrote: post #295

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This would've been nice. I think we are not far from the OSI having to recognize that SSPL is the future whether they like it or not, and possibly moving from obstructionist to a more constructive point, where they help evolve the SSPL to address their concerns, while recognizing that it is a copyleft open source license.

A license doesn't get to be called open source just because it's popular. Look how popular Windows is. Is it open source too?

The only thing that differs between SSPL and the AGPL in terms of being open source or not is that one particular group of people has decided one is Open Source(TM) and one is not.

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

#315

Post by sangnoir » Tue, Apr 20, 2021, 9:59 PM UTC

pvorb wrote: post #195

josephcsible wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO, the ideal end-state from a software freedom perspective is that all software becomes AGPL. This change is a step in that direction, not only with the directly affected products, but for the reasons you mentioned, an additional pressure for more things to switch to it. Do you not like that end goal, or do you just think the side effects of the change outweigh the benefits of getting closer to it?

I think that by putting your software under AGPL the only effect you'll see is that it will be used less.

Unless you are using your software as a resume and need more Github stars to land you interviews, this is a fine result if it gets you more money. Companies like money more than they like clout - and it won't help them to have a billion users and then be undermined by "AWS Grafana" and slowly go out of business. I much prefer companies choosing the AGPL over going proprietary, using a franken-license or going out of business because Amazon sucked out all the oxygen.

Edit: it just occurred to me that opting for popularity over money is "paying" yourself with exposure.

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

#316

Post by soenkeliebau » Tue, Apr 20, 2021, 9:59 PM UTC

platz wrote: post #250

soenkeliebau wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Yes; if you're going to do this, then using AGPL is so much better than flavor-of-the-week license. I'm not sure I agree. Yes, standardization is a good thing and AGPL is the "known evil", but having read it I do think that it is a very very complex piece of text - personally I'd go so far as to say that it is close to incomprehensible and would prefer pretty much anything else. But even aside from that the sheer nu…

If companies want to ban AGPL, well that's their perogative. Alternatively, catering to those companies wouldn't bring relevant benefits to the project anyway

Arguably selling support/services to a company using that product would help pay for developers that work on the product, which to me sounds like a benefit.

With the AGPL that would require dual licensing, and that draws flak as well.

I think the notion that OSS means there cannot be any money involved simply cannot hold true anymore these days. Software has become extremely complex and requires dedicated developers working on it - and they need to eat.

We are currently seeing a lot of companies changing their licensing model for a reason - because there is not currently a middle ground between OSS and a working business modell that the OSS crowd doesn't hate.

That being said, I'd love to be proven wrong here!

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

#317

Post by JackFr » Tue, Apr 20, 2021, 10:03 PM UTC

cardanome wrote: post #162

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.

A few monopolistic corporations having dictatorial power over key technologies is a dystopian nightmare. Those projects have ultimately the interests of the corporations in mind not of the users. Ever wonder why overcomplicated technical solutions are hyped so much? Why does everyone and their dog need to run Kubernetes? Why is it all Maschine Learning instead of good old fashioned methods that would do much better?…

> A few monopolistic corporations having dictatorial power over key technologies is a dystopian nightmare.

I think "dystopian nightmare" overstates it. Monopoly control over particular technology is also a working definition of the the patent system. Hey, wait a minute ...

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

#318

Post by josephcsible » Tue, Apr 20, 2021, 10:05 PM UTC

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #314

josephcsible wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A license doesn't get to be called open source just because it's popular. Look how popular Windows is. Is it open source too?

The only thing that differs between SSPL and the AGPL in terms of being open source or not is that one particular group of people has decided one is Open Source(TM) and one is not.

> one particular group of people

I assume you mean the OSI. But it's not just them with a problem with the SSPL. Debian and Fedora both reject it too, independently, for being non-free.

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

#319

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Apr 20, 2021, 10:06 PM UTC

bosswipe wrote: post #216

klelatti wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Proprietary infrastructure = All infrastructure essentially. So you're fine with a license that can't be used for SaaS. So basically you're happy for the commercial internet to be powered by proprietary software - with all that would mean for free software.

That's pretty much the same as AGPL. A tell about OSI's biases is that AGPL and SSPL are basically the same but since Amazon's propaganda engine ramped up against SSPL it was labeled as somehow completely out of bounds.

[deleted]

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

#320

Post by DetroitThrow » Tue, Apr 20, 2021, 10:07 PM UTC

cevian wrote: post #257

SAI_Peregrinus wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a company like AWS offering TimescaleDB purely as a DBaaS offering (not allowed). That restriction makes the license not Open Source. Open Source licenses MUST allow anyone to run the software, for any reason, by definition. Even "as-a-Service". It's a perfectly fine restriction to have, but it shouldn't be called an Open Source license.

And we never call it Open Source! (Timescale engineer here)

For what it's worth, TSL is a great source-available/restrictive-for-clouds license in my opinion, and I'm glad Timescale went the direction of moving from a more restrictive license to a more permissive license rather than the other way around.

While AGPL is a value-add for many, TSL isn't as ambiguous in some regards and provides a lot of nice "we won't sue you for this" clauses for users. Clear communication regarding its FOSS status will only help!