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From where I left

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Re: From where I left

#231

Post by PeterZaitsev »

strbean wrote: post #177
PeterZaitsev wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 i…

This argument about "evil megacorp" is problematic because you can't really isolate those from the small and wonderful startups.

Specifically I've been directly involved in MongoDB ecosystem with FerretDB and there are so many small indie providers worldwide would love to offer MongoDB Atlas alternative to their customers, but can't because of SSPL license.

I know, for many it is hard to make piece with it - Open Source, for real means EVERYONE can use it for ANY PURPOSE, and this means for good and for evil, both "good guys" and "bad guys"

Re: From where I left

#232

Post by snoman »

strbean wrote: post #177
PeterZaitsev wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 i…

Meanwhile, it’s wild to me that you seem to think open source means “free for everyone… except them - they make too much money.”

Re: From where I left

#233

Post by jcgrillo »

ac29 wrote: post #219
jart wrote: 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…

If a company's survival is threatened by people using its open-source software, then maybe it shouldn't be open source. Open source software (to me) says I should be able use the software for any purpose, including commercial ones.

I agree. It seems that "open core"[1] is a failed experiment. I'm hopeful the idea will be replaced either by governments being smarter about the computers, or companies agreeing to sponsor foundations, or... something. But clearly taking venture investment to build OSS and turn it into a profitable enterprise is an idea that has been thoroughly shown to be flawed.

[1] aptly named if you think about the nuclear power analogy :)

Re: From where I left

#234

Post by TrueDuality »

ac29 wrote: post #219
jart wrote: 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…

If a company's survival is threatened by people using its open-source software, then maybe it shouldn't be open source. Open source software (to me) says I should be able use the software for any purpose, including commercial ones.

That isn't really the case here. It didn't start with a company. The company came along independently, effectively took control of an open source project that was already well established. They found that support alone wasn't enough to be profitable on and have been lashing out at the community that built around the original project, including independent opensource clients.

It's not that the company shouldn't have the code as open source. The company shouldn't exist in the first place and we're all suffering for it.

Re: From where I left

#235

Post by benatkin »

jonny_eh wrote: post #105
simonw wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the Redis fork with the most resources and the most backing. It's well funded and it sits under the Linux foundation: https://www.linuxfoundation.org/press/linux-foundation-launc...

and remains truly open-source, unlike Redis.

Redis from Redis Labs, available under a choice of its own license or the SSPL, is pretty close to truly open-source, IMO closer to it than the BUSL, which is another source-available license. It is pretty similar to the AGPLv3, and they even credibly applied to get it OSI-approved.

https://blog.tidelift.com/what-i-learned-from-the-server-sid... https://opensource.stackexchange.com/questions/11291/how-to-...

What it isn't close to is the original license, which is a permissive open source license.

The license switch-up is why a fork was needed. Matrix did a similar thing with the AGPL which alas, doesn't have a major fork. https://element.io/blog/element-to-adopt-agplv3/ Although it's technically still open source, they didn't do right by the contributors to it.

Re: From where I left

#236

Post by impoppy »

It’s really sad that antitez and other people involved with Redis have to deal with all that backlash and what’s even more sad is that people are going for Valkey now. All this breach of trust bullshit imo comes from blind purism that ignores the real reason behind the license change. Valkey is largely sponsored by AWS and other big tech companies so they can have community maintained storage because they cannot use Redis anymore. I hope people will open their fucking eyes for a moment and see that Redis is trying to prevent the big tech to make enormous profits from what people were thanklessly building and maintaining together for many years.

Re: From where I left

#237

Post by [deleted] »

homebrewer wrote: post #220
weinzierl wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Folk ask themselves, why contribute to this thing (MIT/GPL licenses) if there some for-profit entity involved?" You put MIT or GPL in the same bucket here, but really shouldn't because the difference is all that matters. There is no "rug-pull" as you call it. What happened with Redis is what the BSD license allows and what people should expect to happen. The combination of GPL (or AGPL) with a large enough and diver…

> The combination of GPL (or AGPL) with a large enough and diverse set of contributors who keep their rights in their contributions is a proven way to prevent what happened with Redis. Also the lack of a CLA (and/or copyright assignment) because many "modern" projects under the GPL ask you to waive your rights away, thus nullifying the license. Do not contribute to them if you have any self-respect. https://drewdevau…

[deleted]

Re: From where I left

#238

Post by BizarroLand »

sangnoir wrote: post #174
jart wrote: 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…

They're also stealing the name of the community.

I feel like once a software is open sourced the name of that software should also be required to remain open sourced as well, and any closing of the source must come with a requirement of forking the software and changing the name.

It's honestly pretty horrible that a group of people can take centuries of man hours away from the community and tell the community to kick rocks when the software they're stealing would NEVER NEVER NEVER have had the traction it has if it were not OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE TO BEGIN WITH.

There is a rash of thefts going on in broad daylight, and I think people need to start litigating. Its obscene and soulless and doesn't belong as an acceptable thing to do in society.

Re: From where I left

#239

Post by weinzierl »

homebrewer wrote: post #220
weinzierl wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Folk ask themselves, why contribute to this thing (MIT/GPL licenses) if there some for-profit entity involved?" You put MIT or GPL in the same bucket here, but really shouldn't because the difference is all that matters. There is no "rug-pull" as you call it. What happened with Redis is what the BSD license allows and what people should expect to happen. The combination of GPL (or AGPL) with a large enough and diver…

> The combination of GPL (or AGPL) with a large enough and diverse set of contributors who keep their rights in their contributions is a proven way to prevent what happened with Redis. Also the lack of a CLA (and/or copyright assignment) because many "modern" projects under the GPL ask you to waive your rights away, thus nullifying the license. Do not contribute to them if you have any self-respect. https://drewdevau…

Good to point out CLAs and thanks for the link. It is a good read.

Re: From where I left

#240

Post by titanomachy »

Thanks for sharing a bit of your internal thought process on career and life decisions. It’s very interesting for me to see how people at different stages of their career think of these things.

I think this licensing fracture that’s happening across the industry is unfortunate, there’s a been a lot of broken trust. The SSPL is on the face of it more reasonable than the BSL. It clearly states that it only becomes viral when “offering a service the value of which entirely or primarily derives from the value of the Program”. So it seems it should be pretty safe to use Redis as a cache or session store within a larger system. Contrast with hashicorp, which forbids use in any product they consider a competitor. But I also empathize with people who are scared of using any license that’s untested in court.

Tangential: I love Inconsolata as a terminal font (and I appreciate the “hacker” aesthetic of a monospaced blog) but perhaps consider using a body font for your longer articles. Although I’m sure most of your readers know how to change the font if they want to, one of the great things about plain HTML :)

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