MinIO is now in maintenance-mode • Hacker News Board

Re: MinIO is now in maintenance-mode

#251

Post by kstrauser » Thu, Dec 04, 2025, 2:38 AM UTC

_cenw wrote: post #244

kstrauser wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's exactly how that license works. Basically, the license is the only thing that grants you rights to redistribute the licensed work. Copyright law otherwise forbids it. And the license itself only grants you the right to redistribute the work as long as you comply with its terms. If you violate them, the license no longer applies, and you no longer have any legal right to distribute the work or any deriv…

MinIO the corporation is not the sole licencor of MinIO the source code. They could sue and probably enforce compliance, but they can't just revoke the license like it is an overly restrictive commercial EULA.

They absolutely can revoke the license on all their own code, or any code signed over to them with a CLA. But really, they don’t have to revoke anything. The license does that automatically: you’re only allowed to redistribute GPL/AGPL licensed software as long as you comply with the terms. If you stop complying, the license ceases granting you permission automatically.

Re: MinIO is now in maintenance-mode

#252

Post by peterashford » Thu, Dec 04, 2025, 2:47 AM UTC

victormy wrote: post #233

Big thanks to MinIO, RustFS, and Garage for their contributions. That said, MinIO closing the door on open source so abruptly definitely spooked the community. But honestly, fair play to them—open source projects eventually need a path to monetization. I’ve evaluated both RustFS and Garage, and here’s the breakdown: Release Cadence: Garage feels a bit slower, while RustFS is shipping updates almost weekly. Licensing:…

"open source projects eventually need a path to monetization"

Why?

Re: MinIO is now in maintenance-mode

#253

Post by pabs3 » Thu, Dec 04, 2025, 3:21 AM UTC

Anyone know if MinIO AIStor is legal? AFAICT MinIO didn't have a CLA and there are 559 non-@minio.io commit authors in the git history, which could be an AGPL violation if they didn't get contributor approval for the license change. Or is AIStor a fresh codebase written from scratch?

Edit: some discussion of this here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46136871

Re: MinIO is now in maintenance-mode

#254

Post by pabs3 » Thu, Dec 04, 2025, 3:21 AM UTC

spicymaki wrote: post #219

Stallman was right. When will the developer community learn not to contribute to these projects with awful CLAs. The rug has been pulled.

MinIO doesn't seem to have had a CLA though?

Re: MinIO is now in maintenance-mode

#255

Post by elzbardico » Thu, Dec 04, 2025, 3:43 AM UTC

ahepp wrote: post #243

victormy wrote: post #233

Big thanks to MinIO, RustFS, and Garage for their contributions. That said, MinIO closing the door on open source so abruptly definitely spooked the community. But honestly, fair play to them—open source projects eventually need a path to monetization. I’ve evaluated both RustFS and Garage, and here’s the breakdown: Release Cadence: Garage feels a bit slower, while RustFS is shipping updates almost weekly. Licensing:…

> open source projects eventually need a path to monetization I guess I'm curious if I'm understanding what you mean here, because it seems like there's a huge number of counterexamples. GNU coreutils. The linux kernel. FreeBSD. NFS and iSCSI drivers for either of those kernels. Cgroups in the Linux kernel. If anything, it seems strange to expect to be able to monetize free-as-in-freedom software. GNU freedom number…

I don't think there's still someone actively working on the Linux kernel without receiving a salary, and this for the last two decades more or less.

Re: MinIO is now in maintenance-mode

#256

Post by elzbardico » Thu, Dec 04, 2025, 3:45 AM UTC

peterashford wrote: post #252

victormy wrote: post #233

Big thanks to MinIO, RustFS, and Garage for their contributions. That said, MinIO closing the door on open source so abruptly definitely spooked the community. But honestly, fair play to them—open source projects eventually need a path to monetization. I’ve evaluated both RustFS and Garage, and here’s the breakdown: Release Cadence: Garage feels a bit slower, while RustFS is shipping updates almost weekly. Licensing:…

"open source projects eventually need a path to monetization" Why?

Human beings have this strange desire to be fed, have shelter and other such mundane stuff, all of those clearly less important than software in the big scheme of things, of course.

Re: MinIO is now in maintenance-mode

#257

Post by colesantiago » Thu, Dec 04, 2025, 3:47 AM UTC

prmoustache wrote: post #177

colesantiago wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you sustain yourselves while developing this project? What if the sponsorships run out?

What if a company change license, drop the project or goes bankrupt? You shouldn't expect guarantee of any kind.

> What if a company change license, drop the project or goes bankrupt?

You can always fork the project, then the questions of sponsorships still remains.

Recently Ghostty is a non profit, which means that it is guaranteed not to turn into a for profit and rugpull like what MinIO has done.

Re: MinIO is now in maintenance-mode

#258

Post by victormy » Thu, Dec 04, 2025, 3:51 AM UTC

peterashford wrote: post #252

victormy wrote: post #233

Big thanks to MinIO, RustFS, and Garage for their contributions. That said, MinIO closing the door on open source so abruptly definitely spooked the community. But honestly, fair play to them—open source projects eventually need a path to monetization. I’ve evaluated both RustFS and Garage, and here’s the breakdown: Release Cadence: Garage feels a bit slower, while RustFS is shipping updates almost weekly. Licensing:…

"open source projects eventually need a path to monetization" Why?

I believe that, at the end of the day, open source enthusiasts still need to make a living.

Re: MinIO is now in maintenance-mode

#259

Post by lynn_xx » Thu, Dec 04, 2025, 3:55 AM UTC

MinIO is a great open-source project. I’m familiar with it because I previously worked with Longhorn. But for any project to sustain long-term development, it needs a viable business model to support ongoing investment and growth.

Re: MinIO is now in maintenance-mode

#260

Post by EgoIncarnate » Thu, Dec 04, 2025, 4:26 AM UTC

pabs3 wrote: post #254

spicymaki wrote: post #219

Stallman was right. When will the developer community learn not to contribute to these projects with awful CLAs. The rug has been pulled.

MinIO doesn't seem to have had a CLA though?

MinIO had a de facto CLA. MinIO required contributors to license their code to the project maintainers (only) under Apache 2. Not as bad as copyright assignment, but still asymmetric (they can relicense for commercial use, but you only get AGPL). https://github.com/minio/minio/blob/master/.github/PULL_REQU...