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Redis is open source again

antirez.com

41–50 of 815 posts

Re: Redis is open source again

#41
,,for companies rooted in open source, it has posed a fundamental challenge: how do you keep innovating and investing in OSS projects when cloud providers reap the profits and control the infrastructure without proportional contributions back to the projects that they exploit?''

I don't see any exploitation happening. As DHH said, the main reason engineers open source their work is to give a gift to the world.

Re: Redis is open source again

#42
post #6

Of course it's the AGPL, which is essentially the SSPL in practice.

The difference is how compliance is handled for cloud providers. Complying with the AGPL requires releasing the source code for the program you're hosting as a service. Complying with the SSPL requires releasing the source code for "all programs that you use to make the Program or modified version available as a service, including, without limitation, management software, user interfaces, application program interfaces, automation software, monitoring software, backup software, storage software and hosting software" under the terms of the SSPL. This is effectively impossible for any cloud provider to comply with (it would require a massive engineering effort to rewrite every single piece of software used to convey the service), which is why the OSI didn't approve it as an open source license.

Re: Redis is open source again

#44
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that it’s actually open source.

In word, but not in deed. I'll say it over and over again: COSS startups don't adopt the AGPL because they want to prioritize user freedom, they adopt it as a means of defense.

Absolutely in deed.

Just because they don't have the same motives as you, doesn't stop it being a user freedom. Anything that shares the changes and improvements is a user improvement.

Re: Redis is open source again

#46

This will be very relevant when Valkey decides to go closed source. It's better than the previous state of course, but it would have been even better if the previous license change didn't happen. As the french people say: fool me once, shame on you...

fool me can't get fooled again

But in seriousness, the chances of valkey going closed source are low. It's run by Linux Foundation. It would be like suggesting that Node.js might go closed source...

Re: Redis is open source again

#47

AGPL is cancer. Valkey already exists, people already switched, it's already landed in a bunch of distros. I don't see anyone moving back, especially when Valkey has some big corporate support. And for my personal usage, Rails 8 has moved Redis functionality into the database by default, which works fine.

RMS was enough of a genius to understand the potential of open source software, and basically gave us, with GPL and his evangelism (and his code! plenty of it), and the free software movement, the software world we are living now. AGPL reflects the fact that he understood before everybody else that something was happening with software as a service.

I love the BSD license, but now who says that AGPL is a cancer is making a big favor to the few huge companies that want to abuse the original dream that spawned modern and open software. Times changes, the best license to use change with times.

Re: Redis is open source again

#48
post #33

I contributed a minor (but imho still neat :p) improvement to Redis under its original license, and personally moved to using redict when the unexpected license change to SSPL was announced - and I was feeling betrayed as a contributor to a properly-FOSS-codebase. (Had they switched to AGPL right away, I'd have been perfectly fine with that change from a moral perspective, ftr.) I have a great deal of respect for ant…

The only real reason to use non-copyleft licenses for these kinds of projects is to be able to do the rug pull, so you should have expected it instead of feeling betrayed.

I imagine they will now require copyright assignment or something like that for external contributors to be able to relicense new code under a commercial license.

Re: Redis is open source again

#49
Here's the play: Open source with AGPL, then offer an enterprise license. You get two wins. The OSS community applauds your adoption of an agressive OSS license. Enterprise customers can't use software under AGPL because it risks infecting their IP, so they're forced to buy an enterprise license.

Re: Redis is open source again

#50

Our company made the switch over to Valkey, and we've invested hundreds of engineering hours into it already. I don't see us switching back at this point especially when it's clear Redis could easily pull the bait-and-switch again.

Your company invested hundreds of engineering hours switching from Redis to a clean fork of Redis?

By switch I mean that all new projects use Valkey instead of Redis, and we've invested hundreds of hours into those new projects.
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