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CockroachDB license change

cockroachlabs.com

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Re: CockroachDB license change

#201

Post by dilyevsky »

orra wrote: post #151
jillesvangurp wrote: post #138

That's another company that feels like they don't want to be an OSS company after all. After Elastic, I pay more attention to contributor agreements. Basically I consider any project that requires transfer of copyright for OSS contributions as likely to change their license at some point. It's fine; I'm not against that sort of thing and I sometimes pay for software. But I like to know what I'm getting into before an…

> That's another company that feels like they don't want to be an OSS company after all TBH that's nothing new for Cockroach. Even back when they were open core, the core was so restricted it didn't include backup & restore. I think that may have changed, but only when they changed the license of the core to BSL, that is making the core non open source for three years.

Correction - backup and restore was there, just not incremental backups. Which, yes, on very large DBs = no backup.

Re: CockroachDB license change

#202

Post by jen20 »

mdasen wrote: post #177
hansihe wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's still open source and actively maintained by Apple, they use it internally. https://github.com/apple/foundationdb

It is now. There were a few years where it had basically disappeared (2015-2018). When Apple eventually put it back in the open-source world, it was done with little fanfare so it could be easy to miss.

> put it back in the open-source world

Just to clarify - FoundationDB was never open source before 2018. Binaries were available under certain conditions, but no source.

Re: CockroachDB license change

#203

Post by paxys »

I get wanting large companies and cloud providers to pay, but mandatory telemetry collection in the self-hosted version of the product is an absolute non starter.

Re: CockroachDB license change

#204

Post by Yasuraka »

alexvitkov wrote: post #160

I'm not even going to read this, we all know what it is and we all know it's just the first step in a long series of very shitty changes, expect all new development to be in the "contact us" tier. Ignorance was maybe excusable the first 15 times, but if you keep falling for corporate owned rug-pull OSS packages in 2024, you deserve what's coming for you. Weird databases are NFTs for startup founders. You're not too c…

This actually moves stuff out of the "contact us" tier, where it used to be, and makes everything available to all.

There are new hooks, but paywalling capabilities was not the point here.

Re: CockroachDB license change

#205

Post by paxys »

steeeeeve wrote: post #195

I'm really not a big fan of holding backups and DR behind licensing. That's base level functionality. That and row level security, but at least with row level, I get that there has been a lot of time and energy expended on that feature. Cluster optimization, and enhanced security sure. And responsive support, absolutely.

The ability to turn off telemetry collection is missing from the free version as well. No thanks.

Re: CockroachDB license change

#206

Post by bcantrill »

turtle_heck wrote: post #27
Icathian wrote: post #13

So the obvious question is, which big shops were using the Core version that ended up prompting this change? I know of one or two but I'm curious if there are some obvious big fish.

Weren't Oxide using CockroachDB?

Yes, we are -- and it's worked well for us! (The most acute issue we hit was actually a gnarly OS issue[0][1].) That said, we are not currently a Cockroach Labs customer and we will not be becoming one for purposes of licensing CockroachDB. We are abiding by the terms of the BSL, and the version that we are on (22.1) will be Apache licensed in May 2025; by that point, we will maintain our own Apache-licensed fork for purposes of being the database for the control plane included in the Oxide rack.

We will be outlining our current direction in an RFD[2] that we will make public -- and we will also make public our RFDs that pertain to our selection of CockroachDB and the other alternatives that we evaluated; stay tuned!

[0] https://www.illumos.org/issues/15254

[1] https://oxide-and-friends.transistor.fm/episodes/a-debugging...

[2] https://rfd.shared.oxide.computer/rfd/0001

Re: CockroachDB license change

#207

Post by gerwim »

karmakaze wrote: post #181
geenat wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kind of... Certain extensions such as basic backups are closed source and have never been in the OSS version. Many things would have to be re-added from scratch in a fork.

I'm having trouble parsing/making sense of this. Was basic backup in Core? If you were running anything more than Core you weren't running an OSS version and had already crossed that line before this announcement. If you were running an OSS version there's nothing to add, just fork, no?

Core only has the "full backup". Incremental and other types are available to enterprise. I run the Core edition (with full backups) for my personal projects.

Re: CockroachDB license change

#209

Post by ElijahLynn »

nsm wrote: post #166
andrewmutz wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems that whenever an open source project is run by a VC-backed company, it sooner or later ends up like this. Increasingly it seems that "open source" is just the teaser to get people interested and then when investors want revenue growth, the rug gets pulled. IMO, it's not really open source if its run by a company that will eventually use its position to squeeze its users for cash.

Yep! I actually far prefer closed source software, made by non-VC funded companies, where there business is to create good software that actually adds value for the license I'm paying for. Something like Sublime Text or JetBrains. Sure can have people spend years of their life working on something, but release it as open source because VCs are paying for it, and that leads to more mindshare, but it leaves a bad taste…

I'm imagining that those closed source softwares wouldn't be possible without open source libraries and tools...

Re: CockroachDB license change

#210

Post by purpleblue »

I guess I don't get it. CockroachDB is decidedly an enterprise product. There's no need for even a medium sized company to require distributed database the likes of CockroachDB. If you're a small company using it, you're just using it for fun, and you're probably not paying.

If you're using it and paying for it, then this doesn't seem like a problem. If you're not using it, then it shouldn't matter. If you're using it but not paying for it, then maybe it's okay that you have to start paying for it.

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