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The race to replace Redis

lwn.net

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Re: The race to replace Redis

#361

Post by ufocia »

Macha wrote: post #286
Tabular-Iceberg wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn’t that the deal we sign up for when we take VC money? I like free money as much as the next guy, but VC isn’t it.

Who's we though? The former Garantia data did, but redis users didn't. (And also I'd argue most of redis' value to users was already in place before the VC backed company got involved)

All the Redis users have is a license to use and an expectation. An expectation is a belief that Santa will bring presents, that's all.

Where the value is or was is pure sophistry. You don't have a crystal ball, just like everyone else.

All this discussion is envious bellyaching from those that are probably leeches themselves. They just want the free gravy train running for themselves.

Re: The race to replace Redis

#362

Post by BoorishBears »

wokwokwok wrote: post #333
BoorishBears wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How did you go from "It lacks so many improvements and advancements since the ancient version it was forked at" to "opensearch is some kind of unsafe abandonware"? Would love to learn the thought process here.

> Just use this pre-V1 public beta software I stumbled upon instead. …but I mean, I’m not really up for playing the “pedantically correct about what he/she said” game with you. Instead how about you comment on the point I’m actually making, which is: opensearch is perfectly fine for most people. For most people, there is no meaningful distinction between elastic and opensearch. Opensearch is a healthy project which r…

No one's asking you to play any games: I'll settle for reading before you comment.

> Also you can just keep your data in postgres and use paradedb and stop having to deal with dramatically more expensive infrastructure and the JVM.

That was the comment I replied to. If you thought OpenSource was pre-V1 public beta software I'm not sure why you're even opining on this.

Re: The race to replace Redis

#363

Post by struant »

tjpnz wrote: post #342
blackoil wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the main issue is bait and switch. You start with a license, get lots of external contributors who are working for free, get ecosystem built around it for free and then change because you want to be paid.

Bait and switch sounds wrong in this context. It's not like they planned this whole thing fifteen years in advance.

Does it matter if you intended to do something nefarious all along, or if you just now saw an opportunity to be nefarious? All that matters is that you are doing something nefarious.

Re: The race to replace Redis

#364

Post by ufocia »

mort96 wrote: post #304
brody_hamer wrote: post #48

It wasn’t clear to me until I read their blog, that redis will remain free to use in their “community edition”, which will continue to be supported and maintained (and improved!) So we as developers don’t have to scramble to replace redis in our SAAS apps and web based software. This is more about preventing AWS from eating their lunch by providing redis-as-a-service, without paying any sort of compensation to the re…

Whether it's gratis or not isn't the issue. Some people used Redis not only because it's free of cost, but also because it's open source. It's not anymore.

The copies that were created under BSD still are. Go fork and multiply. You can even make your contributions GPL or commercially licensed.

Re: The race to replace Redis

#365

Post by ufocia »

bramblerose wrote: post #174
ufocia wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is more about preventing AWS from eating their lunch by providing redis-as-a-service, without paying any sort of compensation to the redis developers. But the developers licensed the software at no charge. What kind of compensation are they entitled to then? Sounds like a case of sellers remorse/take-backsies one of the problems that open source was aiming to solve.

They are not entitled to compensation over their previous work, but you/me/AWS are also not entitled to their _future_ work.

Absolutely!

Re: The race to replace Redis

#366

Post by fastball »

mort96 wrote: post #304
brody_hamer wrote: post #48

It wasn’t clear to me until I read their blog, that redis will remain free to use in their “community edition”, which will continue to be supported and maintained (and improved!) So we as developers don’t have to scramble to replace redis in our SAAS apps and web based software. This is more about preventing AWS from eating their lunch by providing redis-as-a-service, without paying any sort of compensation to the re…

Whether it's gratis or not isn't the issue. Some people used Redis not only because it's free of cost, but also because it's open source. It's not anymore.

It is open source up until Redis 7.4. Why does it matter to you (someone that cares about it being open source) if future versions created by this specific company are not? You (or someone else) can fork it and continue the work in an open manner. AFAIAC that is the literal purpose of open source.

Re: The race to replace Redis

#367

Post by jzb »

lukaszwojtow wrote: post #206

All this outcry about license switch coming from "community" feels funny. After all, if there is the "community" then they can take the last open-source version and keep developing it themselves, right? But most "communities" are about "take, take, take", not "work, work, work". They often upset only because someone declared they aren't going to work for free any more.

Author of the article here. There may be some scenarios where there's a company just tossing code over the wall under a FOSS license and people complain when it stops. This scenario is not that.

The company now known as Redis did not invent Redis, it started as a company trying to make money hosting other peoples' work. After it finally hired the creator of Redis, it specifically promised not to do what it has just done (move away from three-clause BSD as the license for Redis core) at least twice.

In the development cycle from 7.0.0 until a few days ago, Redis isn't even the majority contributor to the codebase. The largest single contributor is from Tencent. (All of this is in the article.)

If Redis had been doing all the development, had not promised it wouldn't move away from the license, then I might agree that people have little to complain about.

But this situation isn't as you've suggested here where a community is all about "take, take, take" from a company that's been doing all the work. The company was founded on the idea of trying to do what it now complains about Amazon doing, and their claims that cloud companies do not contribute is clearly false -- just look at the code contributions.

Re: The race to replace Redis

#368

Post by vrtx0 »

Whoa, very biased article (especially for LWN). Only cites media coverage; no links supporting that Amazon, MSFT, Google, etc. were in fact EEE’ing (or at best, behaving unethically) with each of these projects.

It even suggests cloud providers did contribute, and uses bad data (git commits “by employer” w/o dataset) that basically contradicts their argument.

I may be biased, as I saw Amazon doing exactly what this article claims “maybe they weren’t”. But statements like this seem intentionally misleading, and easily disproven:

“Distributing a source-available version of MongoDB could be seen as a loss-leader strategy to reach developers that the company wagered did not care about open-source.”

MongoDB is still “source-available”, and on the same GitHub repo I’ve used since 2010. The SSPL only impacts cloud-providers, and has exceptions for cloud providers who release their source code.

The OSI doesn’t get to define open-source. Neither do I, but at least I was part of the community for ~20 years…

Re: The race to replace Redis

#369

Post by ufocia »

mahkeiro wrote: post #221
bramblerose wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are not entitled to compensation over their previous work, but you/me/AWS are also not entitled to their _future_ work.

But when you see that currently Redis is mainly developed by Chinese companies or AWS all of this is rather ironic.

Not sure what you meant. Is it wrong for Chinese companies or AWS to develop Redis or is it great, or something in-between?

I wonder how many bellyachers here contributed to Redis vs. just leeched. (Not a rhetorical question.) How many are just in the peanut gallery (just like I).

Re: The race to replace Redis

#370

Post by rad_gruchalski »

mythz wrote: post #320
rad_gruchalski wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> camouflage their predatory relationship with OSS vendors If you don't want others to monetize your work, don't license it under a license permitting them exactly that.

hence the relicensing

It’s hard to argue that a use permitted by the original license is „predatory”.
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