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CockroachDB license change

cockroachlabs.com

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Re: CockroachDB license change

#231

Post by hollerith »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #230
arp242 wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most GNU projects require a copyright assignment. For example, GNU coreutils: "note that non trivial changes require copyright assignment to the FSF as detailed in the “Copyright Assignment” section of the Coreutils HACKING notes." (from: https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/coreutils ). As far as I know, this is case for most GNU projects. Linux only requires a confirmation that you wrote the patch; previous poste…

That might be true for the GNU foundation. But they don't actually control/host the vast majority of software licensed under the many GPL variants. None of the GPL licenses actually cover any form of copyright transfers. Including the AGPL. That's done via separate contributor agreements typically. The GNU foundation doesn't control the licenses either. That's a job done by the free software foundation. Which doesn't…

There is a Gnu Foundation, but it has nothing to do with computing: http://www.gnufoundation.org/who-we-are

You mean the GNU Project.

Re: CockroachDB license change

#232

Post by ghshephard »

graemep wrote: post #227
ghshephard wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GPL is actually a great license for this scenario. The software advances to a particular level of development, inertia, market penetration - then the company that owns the software dual licenses with GPLv3 - which no company can risk to have on their premise, distribute, or use/touch, etc... - ergo you then have to pay for a commercial license to avoid the GPLv3 taint.

Why can companies not use GPL3 software? I cannot see how its so different from GPL 2 for companies that are users. I can see it has some disadvantages for companies incorporating GPL software in their products, but none for companies merely using GPL 3 software.

I can't say for certain why they can't use GPLv3 - just that no company I've ever worked for (n=4 since GPLv3 came out) - will allow it on premise. It's probably why Apple stopped updating all their GNU binaries, and you have to sideload stuff with brew to use anything released in the last 10 years.

If I had to guess - The patent rights clause weirds out a lot of lawyers. Obviously anyone who works with hardware doesn't like the anti-tivoization clause. Another possibility is the AGPL (which IS lethal for obvious reasons) is often conflated with GPLv3.

All I know is GPLv2 is fine, GPLv3 is usually not, and AGPL is never possible in corporations that I've worked for.

Re: CockroachDB license change

#234

Post by F3nd0 »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #230
arp242 wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most GNU projects require a copyright assignment. For example, GNU coreutils: "note that non trivial changes require copyright assignment to the FSF as detailed in the “Copyright Assignment” section of the Coreutils HACKING notes." (from: https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/coreutils ). As far as I know, this is case for most GNU projects. Linux only requires a confirmation that you wrote the patch; previous poste…

That might be true for the GNU foundation. But they don't actually control/host the vast majority of software licensed under the many GPL variants. None of the GPL licenses actually cover any form of copyright transfers. Including the AGPL. That's done via separate contributor agreements typically. The GNU foundation doesn't control the licenses either. That's a job done by the free software foundation. Which doesn't…

I don't think either of the comments you replied to has stated the opposite. They both spoke of GNU, not the overall GPL licensed software ecosystem.

Re: CockroachDB license change

#235

Post by dathinab »

brianwawok wrote: post #88
dathinab wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

through cash strapped startups can now use the "free" enterprise version until they reach 10M$ annual revenue weather it's a good idea to commit to it if you might not want to afford it once your revenue went up is another matter and 10M$ annually is not little but also no absurdly huge, I mean a ~80 person company probably will struggle to be profitable with that revenue (if it's 80 good paying jobs like software de…

For a US startup I would divide annual revenue by aprox 200k for reasonable bootstrapped employee max size. So maybe 50 max? This is assuming standard software startup with most cost being employees.

It's not that much different in the EU. Through due to higher sales/revenue tax etc. a bit less employees. Also the additional cost above neto salary for epmploying someone is higher, but AFIK (especially as a startup) you can get away with a paying a bit less. Through in general it's less viable to scam your employees by doing stuff like goading them with non voting shares and then diluting them massively before selling. Like it's still possible but with much more limits. So this is comparison is limited to ethical company operation.

Re: CockroachDB license change

#236

Post by jwr »

ddorian43 wrote: post #100
sidewndr46 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What? FoundationDB disappeared down the memory hole whenever Apple acquired them.

It re-appeared after 10 or so years though.

Apple acquired the company in 2015 and 3 years later open-sourced the database.

(so much misinformation in this thread, this isn't hard to check)

Re: CockroachDB license change

#237

Post by Vespasian »

jpgvm wrote: post #220
bonzini wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Props for calling it source available and not hiding behind "you can't police the meaning of open source", though.

I actually think source available software is great. Not every piece of software can survive as OSS but source available eliminates most the downsides of closed-source software from a technical perspective. In my daily life I use a lot of essentially source-available software that I pay for. I spend like 4+ hours a day every day in IntelliJ IDEA etc. I don't have a problem paying for software, I have huge problems pa…

I certainly agree.

And it makes sense (for Enterprise "tech stack" software). A license violator would just crack your software anyway and legitimate paying users pay for it and want less hassle.

You probably will save on some support calls if their engineers can take a quick look themselves.

Same goes for any "secret Sauce" in the Code. Most Software of that Type isn't algorithmically novel enough to warrant drm and obfuscation.

And again a serious criminal comoetitor would spend the money to reverse it

Re: CockroachDB license change

#238

Post by ezekg »

Yasuraka wrote: post #204
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.

Per their announcement, it sounds like a free user will have to get an annual Enterprise Free license key to use it.

I'd hope that'd be automated, but could also be a "contact us" tier to audit revenue. Time will tell.

Re: CockroachDB license change

#239

Post by zachmu »

bityard wrote: post #167
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…

CockroachDB hasn't been an open source project in more than 5 years. They took down the blog post (I'd be curious to know why), but here is the announcement: https://web.archive.org/web/20190604173131/https://www.cockr... What started as a neat project with a vibrant and enthusiastic community is now just another dull beige enterprise vendor.

The BSL doesn't make it closed source, it prevents a competitor from running their own DBaaS business using Cockroach as the backend. This has happened to various open source projects, AWS started selling their technology and ate their lunch.

BSL is a totally fair compromise for commercial open source licensing imho.

If you see BSL as the first step to an announcement like today's, that's a fair criticism. Not sure how often that happens. But BSL doesn't disqualify software from being open source.

Re: CockroachDB license change

#240

Post by arp242 »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #230
arp242 wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most GNU projects require a copyright assignment. For example, GNU coreutils: "note that non trivial changes require copyright assignment to the FSF as detailed in the “Copyright Assignment” section of the Coreutils HACKING notes." (from: https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/coreutils ). As far as I know, this is case for most GNU projects. Linux only requires a confirmation that you wrote the patch; previous poste…

That might be true for the GNU foundation. But they don't actually control/host the vast majority of software licensed under the many GPL variants. None of the GPL licenses actually cover any form of copyright transfers. Including the AGPL. That's done via separate contributor agreements typically. The GNU foundation doesn't control the licenses either. That's a job done by the free software foundation. Which doesn't…

> But they don't actually control/host the vast majority of software licensed under the many GPL variants. None of the GPL licenses actually cover any form of copyright transfers.

No one claimed this is the case. The only person conflating "GNU" with "GPL" is you.

You said projects with copyright assignments should be distrusted. Someone pointed out that GNU projects require this, which you promptly denied, and I just wanted to correct the record on that. Nothing more, nothing less.

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