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From where I left

antirez.com

171–180 of 472 posts

Re: From where I left

#171
post #152

Can we please just move to using OSS licenses with a clause namely targeting cloud providers? e.g this MIT license is applicable to everyone except for the following companies: Amazon, Microsoft, Google. Leave the rest of us poor folk alone so we don’t have to seek expensive legal counsel.

What if they had named Facebook in that list, and then Facebook became Meta?

I don't know anything about the legal side of things, but although I can see the appeal of a short blacklist, I think it would be a can of worms.

Re: From where I left

#172
post #134
post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Many people had contributed their efforts to the Redis project for free - both in terms of code but also in advocacy, writing tutorials, publishing example code etc" I can understand that, but the thing about the BSD license is that such value never gets lost. People are able to fork, and after a fork for the original project to still lead will be require to put something more on the table. Inside Redis it was tried…

With open-source software, a license is as much a social contract as it is a legal one. People contribute because they want to be part of a community building something which is beneficial to everyone . Everyone contributes where they can, and in turn takes what they need. Redis Ltd. broke the social contract. They decided that the short-term profitability of the company was more important than the project as a whole…

> With open-source software, a license is as much a social contract as it is a legal one

Funny how when these license changes started happening people said the exact opposite - that the license is the license and if they didn’t want to be Jeff’d they should have used a difference license.

Re: From where I left

#173
I don't have any involvement in OSS besides using it at my job, but I still enjoyed the post because of the notes on AI. I have noticed a similar disconnect in technical discussions between those who see the use of AI as a multiplier and those who don't yet see the value in it.

The company I work for has embraced Copilot heavily and its been an absolute game changer in terms of productivity. When you have a clear problem, it is quite amazing at producing working code that then can be modified. I've really enjoyed the edit in place feature as well. Yeah, I could go through and do all the work manually, but why waste the time? AI is a big time saver.

Re: From where I left

#174
post #155
post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With open-source software, a license is as much a social contract as it is a legal one. People contribute because they want to be part of a community building something which is beneficial to everyone . Everyone contributes where they can, and in turn takes what they need. Redis Ltd. broke the social contract. They decided that the short-term profitability of the company was more important than the project as a whole…

Open source is a gift economy. Receiving a gift does not form a social contract that entitles you to future gifts. It is not a "rug pull" for someone to stop giving you gifts. The old versions of Redis are yours for all time. No one can take that away from you. In fact, Redis is still giving you gifts to this day, just with a different wrapping. The new license seems perfectly reasonable, given how much companies lik…

> Open source is a gift economy. Receiving a gift does not form a social contract that entitles you to future gifts

I think op was talking about contributors, who essentially gifted back. One might take offense if they were exchanging gifts with someone, and they open a pop-up store and sell what was gifted.

Also, it's also a tiny bit hypocritical to expect revenue sharing with Amazon without doing the same for contributors.

Re: From where I left

#175

I've never had a use for Redis, but I was very happy to read this, and sincerely wish him the very best of luck. He seems to have his priorities straight. I am 62, and write more software, now, than I ever did. This time, though, it's for free. I make it a point to treat my projects as "top-shelf" professional-grade shipping software, as opposed to the "hobby-grade" that I see from many folks I know that write non-co…

> I make it a point to treat my projects as "top-shelf" professional-grade shipping software, as opposed to the "hobby-grade" that I see from many folks I know that write non-commercial software. What are the practical differences in the end result? My mind leapt to documentation, but I bet you meant more than that.

That's part of it, but then, there's architectural integrity, code quality, testing, testing, and more testing, then there's testing, and some more testing, then, there's taking care of all the "boring" release stuff, like testing. Then, of course, you can't have a release without testing.

Getting an idea of what I mean? Finding a pattern in there?

I generally don't have a ticket system, beyond the GitHub Issues, and I have yet to go over one digit.

That's not because I write perfect code. In fact, I'm constantly finding problems. It's just that I never stop looking, and fix issues -comprehensively- when I find them. Usually, the finding and fixing is so fast, that it isn't even worth it to log the issue. The changelog has what I need, as does the checkin history.

Just because I release something, doesn't mean that I stop testing, documenting, or maintaining it.

In January, we released an app (which I won't link, here). It is currently up to version 1.7.0 (I've been busy), and I'm working on a 1.8.0 version. This will be a basically "behind the scenes" release that won't result in any real user interface changes, but will set the stage for adding a fairly considerable upgrade, down the road (maybe a 2.0 version, but we'll see).

I write code that can have a fairly significant impact on the lives of the folks that use it. It's a Responsibility. I take that fairly seriously.

Re: From where I left

#176

All the conversations about SSPL seem to go the same way: - Someone complains about the extra restrictions imposed on AWS (lets be real, it's basically just about AWS) - People point out that SSPL is basically AGPL+, and that for the vast vast majority of people it doesn't make any difference - People counter that the SSPL is written ambiguously/untested in court, and so while it might seem like it's AGPL+ and doesn'…

Problem comes down to, what is cloud provider? My company has a piece of software we will sell you that requires Redis/PostGres. For fee, we also offer hosting of said software. Are we now a service provider? Our software does come with ability to manipulate the data in Redis so do we have open source our entire code base? Would we get stuck in lawyer battle royale? We have resellers coming on board so interface is b…

I agree with your analysis and I sympathize with Redis in some way.

It seems to me that it's painfully obvious what a cloud provider is, but that everyone is afraid of what a lawyer could convince a judge in the Eastern District of Texas to think a cloud provider is.

The technical definition should be something akin to offering raw R/W connectivity to redis databases for arbitrary purposes.

Offering a redis-backed SaaS should not be covered.

Re: From where I left

#177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except this is not true: I mean, I asked to rejoin, not because I evaluated the situation of the company, but since I wanted to do more hacking / community stuff. So you see what happens trying to read too much between the lines? That you invent what satisfies your needs as a reader, but drives you away from what actually happened. P.S. at Redis they didn't expected this at all and were really surprised. And about sw…

Perhaps. I've seen people seen/write all kind of stuff when serious money are involved, and I also was offered to just just that on number of occasions. I appreciate your honesty in disclosing what you still have Redis Labs stock, and assuming it is anything reasonable their value at future IPO would be much larger than any cash compensation which you might be getting as the part of the deal. Reality is you did not f…

It's wild to me that the prevailing opinion seems to be "It is only TRUE Open Source if megacorps can modify the software and resell it without sharing their modifications".

The hosted vs. distributed loophole is just that, a loophole. If, when the GPL was first published, the world was cloud-hosted and SaaS-ful, the GPL would either have included some provision like the SSPL, or it would have had relatively little impact on the world.

I understand complaints about a lack of clear boundaries or overreach in these licenses. But acting like these aren't attempting to close a loophole being abused seems crazy to me.

Re: From where I left

#178

> However, during the “writing years” (I’m still writing, by the way), I often returned to coding, as a way to take breaks from intense writing sessions (writing is the only mental activity I found to be a great deal more taxing than coding) This has been my experience too. With both "Game Programming Patterns" and "Crafting Interpreters", writing the code was a joy while writing the prose was hard work. Gratifying,…

Does it have something to do with the ambiguity of our language (english, spanish, _et cetera_) in contrast with formal languages? Like, it would require more mental effort to describe something in the English language, compared to describe an algorithm using language constructs: you know the constructs, and you know your restrictions in the programming language; in the English language, you don't know in advance what can you say and what you cannot, and you have to imagine what is your message going to get across in reader's minds. Well, who knows?

Anyway, absolutely love your books, have the Crafting Interpreters print copy (which has been inadvertently unboxed by my friend; did want it to be still in the plastic) despite using only the website version, and looking forward to buy the Game Programming Patterns. I hope you continue to be successful in your endeavours (especially if they result in legendary books like these :D). Also, could we be looking forward to a version of yours of a CPU architecture book, a la Nand2Tetris ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)?

Re: From where I left

#179
Really enjoyed the Salvatore's write up. Two things grabbed my attention: 1. He is also an admirer of the Claude! I can't emphasize this enough but coding has almost always been an isolating state for me. But now, you can feel some support with some intelligence! This is sci-fi! it's much more efficient than Google Search and docs. Not sure about the value added here, but when Salvatore explains how he's using the Gen AI for writing software, I really get to grips with my impostor syndrome. 2. Second: "One thing I particularly liked about the article was that Salvatore explained how he is using the Claude (any Gen AI) in his work. Salvatore is one of the programming figures for me (started professional programming in 2016~2017) and I am feeling really relived that these people confess using the Gen AI trick for writing software." this is were SWE ends and product starts!

Re: From where I left

#180
post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Open source is a gift economy. Receiving a gift does not form a social contract that entitles you to future gifts. It is not a "rug pull" for someone to stop giving you gifts. The old versions of Redis are yours for all time. No one can take that away from you. In fact, Redis is still giving you gifts to this day, just with a different wrapping. The new license seems perfectly reasonable, given how much companies lik…

> Open source is a gift economy. Receiving a gift does not form a social contract that entitles you to future gifts I think op was talking about contributors, who essentially gifted back. One might take offense if they were exchanging gifts with someone, and they open a pop-up store and sell what was gifted. Also, it's also a tiny bit hypocritical to expect revenue sharing with Amazon without doing the same for contr…

Redis has a CLA so contributors can't use their gifts as leverage to control others.

https://redis.io/legal/redis-software-grant-and-contributor-...

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