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The race to replace Redis

lwn.net

391–400 of 520 posts

Re: The race to replace Redis

#391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean I love redis, but Amazon Google and Microsoft all probably have readily available in memory key/value stores at hand. Throw a little money and they can make it redis compatible, so we wouldn't have to re-write any code. Redis is great as an off-the shelf component, but it's not exactly rocket science to re-implement for a big corporation. So redis doesn't really have any leverage in my opinion.

It's all about branding and name recognition: they all profit from Redis via their cloud offerings. They have a strong incentive to support it and to have it as a viable open source project. Similar to other key opensource infrastructure. Then their cloud-specific solutions are the up-sell (and lock-in).

Not just that - there's a significant ecosystem around Redis. A huge number of client libraries and tools.

Which is why Microsoft's new drop-in replacement works with all those things. It could gain traction - who knows.

Re: The race to replace Redis

#392
post #220

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.

Yeah, it is incredible how the whole free software movement turned into a bunch of entitled folks that want to be paid for their work, while refusing to put down any penny for the folks that make their tooling possible in first place. At the same time big corps use it as carte blanche to basically pirate software in a legal way, while following the letter of the licence. Going back to the open core/demo versions (aka…

If it's legal, it's not piracy. It is merely availing oneself of an opportunity. If the authors meant to license the software differently, they should've done so.

I'm sure that (FL)OSS core/demo versions is not the ONLY sustainable way to make a living. There is no need for hyperboles.

You don't even need to author software to sustainably make a living. Don't limit yourself.

Re: The race to replace Redis

#393
post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And requires a CLA, see the same link

I think the point BartjeD wants to make is that due to the nature of MIT licensing, they could run away with your contributions anyway, even without a CLA. Furthermore, Redis didn't have a CLA if I remember correctly and the relicensing is solely based on the what the previously used BSD license allows.

Is that true? If I contribute to a MIT-licensed project without a CLA, my contributions can't just be re-licensed to some proprietary license, can it? Wouldn't my contributions remain MIT, even if they re-license all other parts of the project to some proprietary license?

Isn't the point of CLAs that you can re-license contributors' contributions?

Re: The race to replace Redis

#394
post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>As I've said before, the story of what's happened to Redis (and HashiCorp stuff) is likely to become a warning to the tech community in general: if an OSS project you rely on transfers control from it's founder(s) to a company, you probably need to consider continuing with a fork from the last open version, because apparently "(try to) monetise popular open source" is the newest way to win the douchebag villain awar…

Contributing to a foundation may be a trap too. If you assign your copyrights to a foundation, in many jurisdictions you no longer have control of the code you wrote. That means they could license the code in a way that you wouldn't do.

Yes, but that's where the "foundation" part comes in. If it's one whose charter explicitly states that it exists to support open-source software development, it is legally unable to do otherwise.

Re: The race to replace Redis

#395
post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Err, after this license change Redis Inc will be the biggest leechers considering they didn't contribute the majority of the code. > Yep still the biggest leachers Redis was literally licensed for people to do whatever they want. That's not leeching.

Redis Labs was a long time sponsor for the full-time development of Redis then later compensated the creator of Redis for their rights to Redis Technology and branding who was ended up retiring from technology to write Sci-Fi books. By contrast AWS takes most of the profits whilst contributing relatively nothing back, making them the biggest leacher and the primary motivation for the relicensing to prevent mega corps…

How does one buy rights to an open source technology?

Re: The race to replace Redis

#396
post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it’s built using the .NET stack most Linux users won’t touch with a 20-ft pole.

You must be confusing .NET (formerly .NET Core) with .NET Framework. Which is forgivable, because MS is terrible at naming things. The former stack is a joy to work with since some QoL changes a few years ago—as long as you don't need both a GUI framework and Linux support, in which case you're pretty screwed. (Our app is still on .NET Framework for that reason.) I don't know if you were referring to the total instal…

AvaloniaUI and Uno are pretty great! There is also new actively maintained fork of GtkSharp as well as many other bindings. Honestly, it's as good as it gets in many other alternatives which don't have the advantages of .NET.

It's an important disclaimer as someone might read this and go write another tool in Python + Tkinter (with terrible results).

Re: The race to replace Redis

#397
post #274
post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, it is incredible how the whole free software movement turned into a bunch of entitled folks that want to be paid for their work, while refusing to put down any penny for the folks that make their tooling possible in first place. At the same time big corps use it as carte blanche to basically pirate software in a legal way, while following the letter of the licence. Going back to the open core/demo versions (aka…

> Going back to the open core/demo versions aka, just sell software, rather than make it open source. What is being balked at is the idea that you can use open-source as a foot-in-the-door marketing and growth hack, which you then reap after some level of popularity/network effect is reached. Some call it bait and switch. Blaming big corps for "leeching" is just self-serving. They are doing exactly what the license a…

Or perhaps open source it in exchange for being paid, something that developers working for corpos which contribute to (FL)OSS already do.

Re: The race to replace Redis

#398
post #172
post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AWS leeches as much as Garantia Data no?

AWS are the largest leeches of OSS, syphoning off most the profits and contribute relatively nothing back towards the OSS projects they rent seek from. The "Free for all except mega cloud corps" license changes are to disrupt this status quo which currently sees the mega cloud corps with impenetrable moats from capturing most of the value of OSS products others spend their resources into building, AWS are then able t…

I think you are right about AWS leeching OSS.

Re: The race to replace Redis

#399
post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, it is incredible how the whole free software movement turned into a bunch of entitled folks that want to be paid for their work, while refusing to put down any penny for the folks that make their tooling possible in first place. At the same time big corps use it as carte blanche to basically pirate software in a legal way, while following the letter of the licence. Going back to the open core/demo versions (aka…

None of what you say is happenening in this case. Unless by "entitled folks" you mean Redis Inc. The community has been doing the heavy lifting over the years and Redis Inc has been trying to reap the benefits off of that by providing the software as a service. Which the community was fine with. Turns out other companies with deeper pockets for infrastructure can do the same. Now Redis Inc is trying to save their bro…

Who is the community?

Re: The race to replace Redis

#400
post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think everybody here understand that you legally can fork bsd code under a new license. I think you and them differ in what you think is morally correct to do for an open source maintainer in the specific context of the redis project. (I don’t know enough to be in either camp.)

When I chose BSD for Redis, I did it exactly for these reasons. Before Redis, I mostly used the GPL license. Then my beliefs about licensing changed, so I picked the BSD, since it's an "open field" license, everything can happen. One of the things I absolutely wanted, when I started Redis, was: to avoid that I needed some piece of paper from every contributor to give me the copyright and, at the same time, the abilit…

I totally agree. Still I hope that many great projects under BSD and MIT will keep being actively developed under that very license, but I also enjoy the freedom of knowing that I can do more or less what I please with the code.
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