We Are Changing the License for Akka • Hacker News Board

Re: We Are Changing the License for Akka

#61

Post by avalys » Wed, Sep 07, 2022, 7:34 AM UTC

capableweb wrote: post #25

MrBuddyCasino wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But if you decide to open source something, keep your promises, no matter what. I don't understand the sentiment of "once something is OSS, it has to be so forever". They owe you what exactly? More of their free time & money to hold up something you call a "promise" but is just their choice of license made many years ago? They are being reasonable about it, you still get the source, you can still use it for free on…

> I don't understand the sentiment of "once something is OSS, it has to be so forever". They owe you what exactly? If I contributed to the project, I did so under the premise of the LICENSE that was active when I contributed. If I didn't like OSS, I wouldn't have contributed to a OSS project. Them changing the license is a middle-finger to me as a contributor. > Its fine to spend your nights and weekends on passions…

You contributed under the Apache “LICENSE”, which allows them to do exactly what they did. This is hardly a subtle detail, it’s one of the major characteristics of the Apache license.

If you did not like this, you could have chosen to only contribute to projects whose licenses do not permit this, e.g. those licensed under GPL.

Were you unaware of this?

Re: We Are Changing the License for Akka

#62

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Sep 07, 2022, 7:35 AM UTC

keewee7 wrote: post #17

Isn't Akka an important component in various Scala projects like Apache Spark? What are they supposed to do?

[deleted]

Re: We Are Changing the License for Akka

#63

Post by Dylan16807 » Wed, Sep 07, 2022, 7:36 AM UTC

tus666 wrote: post #2

> Production use of the software requires a commercial license from Lightbend I.e. it's not free anymore. That's what the title should say, instead we get an history lesson.

It's not free any more for companies >$25M in annual revenue.

Re: We Are Changing the License for Akka

#64

Post by miragecraft » Wed, Sep 07, 2022, 7:36 AM UTC

hedora wrote: post #10

I hope this works out well for them. One issue with the BSL is that old versions of the software are open source. So, with this change, you can still use a 3 year old version of Akka for free. Does akka change rapidly enough these days to justify the price?

That’s the benefit of BSL license - it forces the developer to continuously deliver value in each release because they are competing with themselves from 3 years ago.

Re: We Are Changing the License for Akka

#65

Post by ramchip » Wed, Sep 07, 2022, 7:38 AM UTC

braingenious wrote: post #35

I’ve never quite understood the amount of rancor that changes like this elicit here. It seems like people come out of the woodworks acting like they have been personally affronted by this, or that this is somehow directly affecting their lives. Is everybody here (planning on?) using this software to build companies with more than $25 million in revenue… and they can’t use something else with a more permissible licens…

It's a problem for people who use Akka already, not those who won't adopt it. The choices are to rewrite the service, pay a massive licensing cost ($2k _per core_!), or live with 3-year old releases with no security updates. It's very disruptive.

Re: We Are Changing the License for Akka

#66

Post by Dylan16807 » Wed, Sep 07, 2022, 7:38 AM UTC

capableweb wrote: post #16

chsreekar wrote: post #13

It's not just about revenue generation. I bet they are doing this to prevent Amazon from deploying a version of Akka as a service on AWS.

> I bet they are doing this to prevent Amazon from deploying a version of Akka as a service on AWS. Yes, it's pretty clear they no longer want to participate in the Open Source ecosystem, as allowing people to run the software however you see fit is a integral part of Open Source, together with being able to modify and reshare said software.

They're releasing everything as Apache on a delay. That's definitely participating.

> allowing people to run the software however you see fit is a integral part of Open Source

Does that depend on whether you consider corporations to be people?

Re: We Are Changing the License for Akka

#67

Post by kryptiskt » Wed, Sep 07, 2022, 7:40 AM UTC

braingenious wrote: post #35

I’ve never quite understood the amount of rancor that changes like this elicit here. It seems like people come out of the woodworks acting like they have been personally affronted by this, or that this is somehow directly affecting their lives. Is everybody here (planning on?) using this software to build companies with more than $25 million in revenue… and they can’t use something else with a more permissible licens…

Bait and switch is never nice, whether Google does it or putative open source projects. A lot of developers work for companies that has more than $25M in revenue, and now a ton of them is going to get shit from management because they added this cuckoo egg dependency back when it used an open source license.

I have no problem with companies using whatever license, I do have trouble with them getting traction being open and then turning around as soon as they can squeeze a little money out of the people who were fooled.

I don't use Akka, but I feel the pain of the people who did that and now has to tear the thing out. Because I don't see how anyone would want to use it, that pricing is completely ridiculous. No one should pay per vCPU, much less those extortionate amounts.

Re: We Are Changing the License for Akka

#68

Post by KingOfCoders » Wed, Sep 07, 2022, 7:41 AM UTC

braingenious wrote: post #35

I’ve never quite understood the amount of rancor that changes like this elicit here. It seems like people come out of the woodworks acting like they have been personally affronted by this, or that this is somehow directly affecting their lives. Is everybody here (planning on?) using this software to build companies with more than $25 million in revenue… and they can’t use something else with a more permissible licens…

I was once working for a company who had stellar growth to $100M+ revenue and millions of users, started with a "open source" framework for distributed caching, needed to buy the enterprise version for support, the vendor got bought up by a large evil enterprise and the licensing costs got 10x without pre-warning, and it was a very complicated task to get that core technology pulled (mostly because it was too complicated, but also because it was to expensive) out over years, replaced by Redis.

I would be very careful to use "open source" technology from companies that depend on sales from this piece of technology. Did this particular piece help get the company to $100M+? Yes, and people too often forget where technology got them to, when blaming said technology. Could something other have work too? (Yes, see Redis)

Re: We Are Changing the License for Akka

#69

Post by arinlen » Wed, Sep 07, 2022, 7:43 AM UTC

cardanome wrote: post #57

capableweb wrote: post #14

It seems like Lightbend have decided themselves to redefine what "Open Source" means for them, a slight warning sign of whats to come. > Sadly, open source is prone to the infamous “Tragedy of the commons”, [...] This situation is not sustainable and one in which everyone eventually loses. > So what does sustainable open source look like? I believe it’s where everyone—users and developers—contributes and are in it to…

It is open source for me as I will never earn more than US $25 million in annual revenue. If I ever do, I will gladly pay them. I disagree with the idea that the only correct definition of open source is the one that favors big tech monopolists. Times have changed compared to when the open source movement started. Not many people would have imagined that the monopolists would weaponize open source like they do now. T…

> Not many people would have imagined that the monopolists would weaponize open source like they do now.

What do you think "weaponize open source" means? It doesn't look like it means a thing, and lounds like a poor attempt at shoehorning "weapon" in a discussion on how a potential user's income is something noteworthy.

Re: We Are Changing the License for Akka

#70

Post by bb1298 » Wed, Sep 07, 2022, 7:43 AM UTC

kryptiskt wrote: post #67

braingenious wrote: post #35

I’ve never quite understood the amount of rancor that changes like this elicit here. It seems like people come out of the woodworks acting like they have been personally affronted by this, or that this is somehow directly affecting their lives. Is everybody here (planning on?) using this software to build companies with more than $25 million in revenue… and they can’t use something else with a more permissible licens…

Bait and switch is never nice, whether Google does it or putative open source projects. A lot of developers work for companies that has more than $25M in revenue, and now a ton of them is going to get shit from management because they added this cuckoo egg dependency back when it used an open source license. I have no problem with companies using whatever license, I do have trouble with them getting traction being op…

$2k per vCPU is 16k for a pretty standard 8 core ec2. The ec2 itself might cost ~$300 a month or $3600 a year. Where the hell did they come up with this pricing model lol.