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Redict 7.3.0, a copyleft fork of Redis, is now available

redict.io

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Re: Redict 7.3.0, a copyleft fork of Redis, is now available

#21

Post by drewdevault »

zwaps wrote: post #16
drewdevault wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LGPL is a pretty weak copyleft license and was chosen specifically because it is amenable to almost all present-day commercial use-cases for Redis. You don't have to publish your changes to Redict in most situations, commercial or not. Check out the FAQ here: https://redict.io/docs/license/

"Tip: Commercial and non-commercial users of Redict are not required to publish or otherwise “open source” the source code of Redict, including any private modifications they make to the source code" And very next section: "If you compile Redict’s source code into an executable form and distribute this executable form to others you are required to include a copy of the Redict source code and any modifications to it l…

Note the careful use of private modifications as not requiring disclosure of the source code. You only have to include source in the very specific situation of building Redict and providing it in compiled form to customers directly. Like, if you give someone the ELF file. If you run it on their behalf as a cloud service or something you have no obligation to provide source, which is the most common commercial use-case of Redis.

LGPL is a very well understood license, even in the EU, and is already in use for many projects that are widely depended on commercially. Consider ffmpeg as one prominent example, which is used by virtually all multimedia software in the industry. It is very easy to comply with the LGPL, and your legal department works for you, not the other way around.

Re: Redict 7.3.0, a copyleft fork of Redis, is now available

#22

Post by sotillan »

drewdevault wrote: post #7
gadders wrote: post #6

I don't get the point of this - people are upset that Redis is trying to make money from companies like AWS and Google?

Substantial portions of Redis were written by AWS and Google. People are upset because Redis is a collaborative project with many people working on it and Redis Ltd wants the sole right to commercialize the work of an entire community. LWN has a good overview: https://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/966631/8bc9d155d4e2afb3/ Redis Ltd is only responsible for about 20% of the work.

Yeah, I think a key point is that Salvatore Sanfilippo, the original developer, maintainer and principle contributor[1] for 11 years, was not a founder of Redis Labs. He joined as an employee in 2015 but resigned in 2020. Perhaps he has equity in Redis Labs, but it's not clear he stands to profit at all from this switch.

[1] https://github.com/redis/redis/graphs/contributors

Re: Redict 7.3.0, a copyleft fork of Redis, is now available

#23

Post by sanxiyn »

drewdevault wrote: post #7
gadders wrote: post #6

I don't get the point of this - people are upset that Redis is trying to make money from companies like AWS and Google?

Substantial portions of Redis were written by AWS and Google. People are upset because Redis is a collaborative project with many people working on it and Redis Ltd wants the sole right to commercialize the work of an entire community. LWN has a good overview: https://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/966631/8bc9d155d4e2afb3/ Redis Ltd is only responsible for about 20% of the work.

AWS and Google contributed those under BSD license, being fully informed that Redis Ltd can commercialize like this.

It makes perfect sense for AWS and Google to fork immediately after the switch, but for contributions before the switch, there is no basis for AWS and Google to complain Redis Ltd, either legally or morally.

Re: Redict 7.3.0, a copyleft fork of Redis, is now available

#24

Post by gadders »

drewdevault wrote: post #7
gadders wrote: post #6

I don't get the point of this - people are upset that Redis is trying to make money from companies like AWS and Google?

Substantial portions of Redis were written by AWS and Google. People are upset because Redis is a collaborative project with many people working on it and Redis Ltd wants the sole right to commercialize the work of an entire community. LWN has a good overview: https://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/966631/8bc9d155d4e2afb3/ Redis Ltd is only responsible for about 20% of the work.

>>Substantial portions of Redis were written by AWS and Google

Employees on their own time, or paid to do it?

So I'm clear though - if I wrote a SAAS product tomorrow that under the covers used Redis, I'm OK, but if I spun up a bunch of servers and offered managed Redis as a product, I would need to pay?

Re: Redict 7.3.0, a copyleft fork of Redis, is now available

#25

Post by tormeh »

zwaps wrote: post #16
drewdevault wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LGPL is a pretty weak copyleft license and was chosen specifically because it is amenable to almost all present-day commercial use-cases for Redis. You don't have to publish your changes to Redict in most situations, commercial or not. Check out the FAQ here: https://redict.io/docs/license/

"Tip: Commercial and non-commercial users of Redict are not required to publish or otherwise “open source” the source code of Redict, including any private modifications they make to the source code" And very next section: "If you compile Redict’s source code into an executable form and distribute this executable form to others you are required to include a copy of the Redict source code and any modifications to it l…

> Especially in the EU, the definition of distribution of derivative works is typically so strong

Maybe I'm naive but how strong can it be? And is there anything that can't be solved by liberally decorating your software with links to the git repo of Redict?

Re: Redict 7.3.0, a copyleft fork of Redis, is now available

#26

Post by gadders »

prmoustache wrote: post #10
gadders wrote: post #6

I don't get the point of this - people are upset that Redis is trying to make money from companies like AWS and Google?

People are upset because Redis is not open source anymore. That is all.

Is this like a Richard Stallman ideological thing?

(EDIT: Genuine question - I'm trying to understand if this is a license purity issue or something else).

Re: Redict 7.3.0, a copyleft fork of Redis, is now available

#27

Post by gadders »

kryptiskt wrote: post #12
gadders wrote: post #6

I don't get the point of this - people are upset that Redis is trying to make money from companies like AWS and Google?

Redis Labs didn't start Redis, they didn't contribute most of the code. They just own the trademark. They have about as much right to extract money from AWS and Google for Redis as I have, all they are doing is that they are hijacking an open source project to make themselves rich. They're not a victim of the cloud providers, they are a leech trying to make a score while fucking over all the other contributors to Red…

This makes more sense as an explanation.

Are there any instances where an SSPL license or similar is warranted?

Re: Redict 7.3.0, a copyleft fork of Redis, is now available

#28

Post by dkdbejwi383 »

kryptiskt wrote: post #12
gadders wrote: post #6

I don't get the point of this - people are upset that Redis is trying to make money from companies like AWS and Google?

Redis Labs didn't start Redis, they didn't contribute most of the code. They just own the trademark. They have about as much right to extract money from AWS and Google for Redis as I have, all they are doing is that they are hijacking an open source project to make themselves rich. They're not a victim of the cloud providers, they are a leech trying to make a score while fucking over all the other contributors to Red…

Hmm, so anyone can just start a company with the name of an open source project and try to monetise it? Like someone could start e.g. "Rust Labs" and sell a commercial version of Rust?

I don't know much about the genesis of Redis or Redis Labs, who key people and dates are, etc. I guess this obfuscation is part of the problem.

Re: Redict 7.3.0, a copyleft fork of Redis, is now available

#29

Post by dwheeler »

zwaps wrote: post #16
drewdevault wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LGPL is a pretty weak copyleft license and was chosen specifically because it is amenable to almost all present-day commercial use-cases for Redis. You don't have to publish your changes to Redict in most situations, commercial or not. Check out the FAQ here: https://redict.io/docs/license/

"Tip: Commercial and non-commercial users of Redict are not required to publish or otherwise “open source” the source code of Redict, including any private modifications they make to the source code" And very next section: "If you compile Redict’s source code into an executable form and distribute this executable form to others you are required to include a copy of the Redict source code and any modifications to it l…

That is absurd. LGPL is widely understood. Compliance is generally pretty easy. The Linux kernel has many users, and it is GPL.

Re: Redict 7.3.0, a copyleft fork of Redis, is now available

#30

Post by JoshTriplett »

yurytom wrote: post #8

What about Valkey? We have 2 big forks now

Valkey has the support of various Redis developers who moved over, keeps the same license as the original Redis did, and stayed on GitHub to keep the workflow that Redis developers and contributors are used to, so I expect it'll end up winning out.

GitHub is proprietary and not ideal, but when trying to get developers on board after a fork, using GitHub and using the same license as the original avoids spending innovation tokens / weirdness budget unnecessarily.

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