Amazing read, thanks for sharing.
And thanks for building redis! It's an amazing piece of software, no idea how we managed to do without it.
From where I left
371–380 of 472 posts
Re: From where I left
#372This piece, while providing context, makes me question basically everything about Redis, despite it's lovely API. Antirez extolling the virtue of the current LLM wave of hype coupled with his bizarre apologism for Redis Labs behavior is less strange than "why is this guy not 1)personally extremely wealthy 2)having reserved some key powers and control from Redis Labs from day1 such that he could have steered this, aka…
Why do you think they would be extremely wealthy, given it's a product they're giving away for free, and it was everyone else (like cloud providers) making money off of it?
Redis is valued at roughly $2 billion. The author owned all of it at some point. It is not strange to assume they would be wealthy.
Re: From where I left
#373Were these cloud companies, their product managers and execs were not ethical enough to contribute let's say just 2% of the revenue to the base open source projects and even directly label it as "Open Source Sustainability Surcharge (OSSS) in the invoices and UIs?
That would have been enough to stop forks and license switches. May be a little less wines, watches, women and yatches for the execs though.
Re: From where I left
#374Earlier quoted context omitted.
For somebody, like you and many others, it was very important to retain an OSI license. But I feel that in general given that the new license is IMHO good for almost every user, from the POV of what they can do with the code, and that the cloud situation was quite self evident, I believe that with better communication, and immediate developments/merges in the core, to counter balance the license switch, many people w…
> But I feel that in general given that the new license is IMHO good for almost every user That is the nub of the sticking point. The new is OK for people who only care about getting things done. But for people interested in building and being part of a community, giving as well as taking, not so much This: You may not make the functionality of the Software or a Modified version available to third parties as a servic…
I care about getting things done but don't want to take on the risk of an encumbered license and the volatility that comes with license changes.
To me, these products are booby traps that are more likely to need replaced in the future when something changes again.
Put another way, it's a sign of an unhealthy ecosystem.
There's so much gray area in these terms you have to keep the lawyers involved not only in the initial indentation but product features in the future to make sure you don't accidentally cross a very poorly defined line.
Re: From where I left
#375I'm really interested in this bit: "the fracture with the community is not about licensing, or at least it’s not mainly about licensing" I wish he'd elaborated a bit more on what he thought it was about. My understanding is that it's 100% about the license. That's certainly why I'll reach for valkey instead of redis next time I need it. That's also what I've heard from everyone else in a similar position. What else w…
Techbros and large corporations still have the original source code they built their business on. What they want is free community updates and support forever while they give almost nothing back. So it's not a licensing problem. It's not a free software problem. It's a "free as in beer" support problem. AGPL only slightly prevents this by forcing them to share their changes to the source. And usually this is not very…
That's not been my experience. My limited experience at a large corporation was "throw money at vendors for enterprise support"
The bigger issue was startups and small/medium sized companies with limited technical support and limited money to buy enterprise support or in-house experts. These are the same companies heavily leaning on managed services from vendors like AWS.
Re: From where I left
#376Earlier quoted context omitted.
Where did you get the hardcopy? (I already have the paperback for "Crafting Interpreters", but I prefer to buy hardcopies if available) As far as I was aware, there are only paperbacks.
There are only paperbacks. By "hardcopy", they meant "printed". I sell print editions through Amazon KDP and IngramSpark. Amazon is the lion's share, so I designed the print edition based on the formats they offer. At the time I started working on it, KDP only supported soft covers. They added hard covers right as I was finishing the book, and I didn't want to have to go back and redo everything. I have to admit that…
I love Crafting Interpreters, it's a fantastic book, and is on my desk beside me right now. Everything about it is just so well...crafted!
I know Amazon is a must for authors, but as an Amazon avoider, I was delighted to able to order it through my local bookshop.
Re: From where I left
#377Were these cloud companies, their product managers and execs were not ethical enough to contribute let's say just 2% of the revenue to the base open source projects and even directly label it as "Open Source Sustainability Surcharge (OSSS) in the invoices and UIs? That would have been enough to stop forks and license switches. May be a little less wines, watches, women and yatches for the execs though.
I think this is much less straight forward when the OSS is glued to a commercial company.
Giving money to a competitor is different than giving money to an open initiative.
Does Redis Labs give back to the Linux Foundation and OpenSSL?
Re: From where I left
#378Were these cloud companies, their product managers and execs were not ethical enough to contribute let's say just 2% of the revenue to the base open source projects and even directly label it as "Open Source Sustainability Surcharge (OSSS) in the invoices and UIs? That would have been enough to stop forks and license switches. May be a little less wines, watches, women and yatches for the execs though.
I think this is much less straight forward when the OSS is glued to a commercial company. Giving money to a competitor is different than giving money to an open initiative. Does Redis Labs give back to the Linux Foundation and OpenSSL?
Good question. But I still believe a percentage based revenue share would have been a far greater deal than none at all.
Re: From where I left
#379Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
> seems that "open core"[1] is a failed experiment.
I don't think the jury is out. If you look at nginx, you won't see a lot of complains over nginx plus. The nginx brand still has a lot of goodwill and a few open source projects seem to be peacefully building upon it without any issue.
Re: From where I left
#380It's too late for Redis, IMO.
We loved it at the start, but it's really hard to get it to scale.
The official client library for C/C++ is missing Cluster support.
The cloud offerings (MemoryStore) are a rip-off.