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Aerospike goes Open Source

aerospike.com

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Re: Aerospike goes Open Source

#21

Post by _delirium »

yeukhon wrote: post #15
ZenoArrow wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't see it being an issue. As mentioned in the useful MongoDB link you shared, the licence will require sharing only when modifying the database code, but not require automatic sharing of the rest of the software stack. Have there been any court cases involving AGPL violations? I wonder if some of Gil Yehuda's fears are partly out of lack of clarity on where the reach of the AGPL ends? For example claiming the Mo…

Well in the case of companies like Google or Facebook, they might actually modify the database for various of reasons (e.g. internal policy, speed, etc). I don't have first hand experience with modifying databases so I thought I would ask :)

If someone modified the database and deployed it publicly (or as part of a webapp that was deployed publicly), they'd need to share the modified source, yes. AGPL is roughly GPL but where the traditional definition of "shipping software" is expanded to include deploying on a network.

My guess is that they have two motivations, both of which are fairly traditional GPL motivations: 1) sell AGPL exceptions to commercial licensees; and 2) prevent a competitor from making a private commercial fork, where the competitor improve the DB and licenses their version to clients, without sharing the source to their improvements.

Re: Aerospike goes Open Source

#22

Post by e12e »

ZenoArrow wrote: post #4
yeukhon wrote: post #3

The APGL license caught my eyes. Does anyone take this license into account (deciding between an Apache/MIT/BSD DB vs APGL DB) when they use it in their service / software stack. For example, this openstack thread always keeps me alert using APGL when I am developing a solution. http://lists.openstack.org/pipermail/openstack-dev/2014-Marc... and here is MongoDB's FAQ explaining APGL in plain English: http://blog.mong…

I can't see it being an issue. As mentioned in the useful MongoDB link you shared, the licence will require sharing only when modifying the database code, but not require automatic sharing of the rest of the software stack. Have there been any court cases involving AGPL violations? I wonder if some of Gil Yehuda's fears are partly out of lack of clarity on where the reach of the AGPL ends? For example claiming the Mo…

I seem to recall neo4j (could be it was another nosql db/company) had some strange ideas about the agpl. Of course if the drivers are covered by agpl and linked into your application, then you might have to create a new api "border" (eg:HTTP REST) between whatever code you want to license differently and the agpl server. I don't think the agpl should be a problem in most cases - at any rate you don't have to contribute patches up-stream, only to those of your users that ask for the code (if any). Unless upstream is also using your service, that is.

A perhaps more interesting question is how they manage contributions and pull requests - if i'm using the server under agpl, it seems natural to contribute code under agpl. But now that code can't be used in the commercially licensed upstream "fork" unless that fork is sold under the agpl... So either contributors will have to donate code, or sell code to upstream for use in the "closed" project.

I could see that get a bit hairy with user-contributed bug fixes?

Re: Aerospike goes Open Source

#23

Post by ZenoArrow »

nlavezzo wrote: post #17
ZenoArrow wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The core code is written in C, but they're definitely using Lua in places, I believe they've incorporated some code from AlchemyDB... https://code.google.com/p/alchemydatabase/ From what I've read it could easily surpass Mongo, just look at the cost savings... http://www.datanami.com/2013/09/06/aerospike_says_secret_to_... "The second comparison (a video ad serving platform) had much bigger requirements, including a…

They don't have ACID transactions. We had to put up a page to dispel some of the misuse of the term ACID. Aerospike's excerpt: "Aerospike does not provide true ACID transactions. Just like Cassandra 2.0, Aerospike only provides compare and set, and misleadingly labels it as ACID." https://foundationdb.com/acid-claims

That's interesting, thank you. In practical terms, what does ACID provide that compare and set does not?

Re: Aerospike goes Open Source

#24

Post by e12e »

_delirium wrote: post #21
yeukhon wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well in the case of companies like Google or Facebook, they might actually modify the database for various of reasons (e.g. internal policy, speed, etc). I don't have first hand experience with modifying databases so I thought I would ask :)

If someone modified the database and deployed it publicly (or as part of a webapp that was deployed publicly), they'd need to share the modified source, yes. AGPL is roughly GPL but where the traditional definition of "shipping software" is expanded to include deploying on a network. My guess is that they have two motivations, both of which are fairly traditional GPL motivations: 1) sell AGPL exceptions to commercial…

To be pedantic: deployed it a an external service, not necessarily a public service (I suppose to a legal entity that would not normally share license rights, such as an inividual not part of the organisation or to another organisation). Those external users would have to be given an option to access the full source with modifications.

As for the "part of a web service"-bit, I'm not sure what the agpl's actual "reach" is. My understanding is that with a (modified) db under agpl powering eg a web app runing in php, the end users (accessing only the web server) would not be entitled to the db source. If the agpl covered the web srrver itself or a php library on the other hand, the users would be entitled to that code?

Similarly if one sold a modified db-as-a-service, modifications would be covered by the agpl.

Re: Aerospike goes Open Source

#25

Post by theossuary »

ZenoArrow wrote: post #23
nlavezzo wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't have ACID transactions. We had to put up a page to dispel some of the misuse of the term ACID. Aerospike's excerpt: "Aerospike does not provide true ACID transactions. Just like Cassandra 2.0, Aerospike only provides compare and set, and misleadingly labels it as ACID." https://foundationdb.com/acid-claims

That's interesting, thank you. In practical terms, what does ACID provide that compare and set does not?

I'm not going to comment on whether or not Aerospike is ACID, I have no idea, but I can give a bit of info on CAS vs ACID.

CaS (Compare and Swap, or Compare and Set; they're almost identical, and don't really have a clear distinction) is the process of validating a record's value before performing an update. This helps a lot with Consistency (the C in ACID), but doesn't guarantee the other three (Atomicity, Isolation, and Durability).

Aerospike might have systems in place to address all of ACID, but if they're claiming CaS is ACID then they're just lying.

Look at the Wiki page on ACID ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACID ), it's actually pretty good.

Re: Aerospike goes Open Source

#26

Post by nlavezzo »

ZenoArrow wrote: post #23
nlavezzo wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't have ACID transactions. We had to put up a page to dispel some of the misuse of the term ACID. Aerospike's excerpt: "Aerospike does not provide true ACID transactions. Just like Cassandra 2.0, Aerospike only provides compare and set, and misleadingly labels it as ACID." https://foundationdb.com/acid-claims

That's interesting, thank you. In practical terms, what does ACID provide that compare and set does not?

The page linked goes into more detail, but among other things, Compare and Set operations are only concerning one data element at a time - meaning you cannot do Atomic updates to multiple keys. The ability to do multiple key updates atomically makes it possible to build higher level abstractions by reliably combining data from multiple keys under concurrent workloads.

Basically, transactions that can span an arbitrary number and set of keys are what makes it possible to build rich data models from simple ones. SQL databases are a perfect example of this - most use a simple transactional data store on the bottom to store complex relational data structures. A single SQL operation may require many key-level updates - but this is OK if you can wrap them all in ACID transactions.Without ACID transactions you can't guarantee data consistency because keys will be getting updated at different times, allowing for a mix of old and new values.

It's a shame to see vendors trying to change the meaning of ACID to fit the limitations of their databases. It means more confusion and bad decisions in a market that needs clarity and honesty for people to make the right decisions for their applications.

Re: Aerospike goes Open Source

#27

Post by deschutes »

ZenoArrow wrote: post #23
nlavezzo wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't have ACID transactions. We had to put up a page to dispel some of the misuse of the term ACID. Aerospike's excerpt: "Aerospike does not provide true ACID transactions. Just like Cassandra 2.0, Aerospike only provides compare and set, and misleadingly labels it as ACID." https://foundationdb.com/acid-claims

That's interesting, thank you. In practical terms, what does ACID provide that compare and set does not?

A straightforward usage of CAS doesn't provide transactions. In other words, there is no way to update multiple records atomically.* For instance, perhaps you wish to update two balances to reflect the result of the transaction. Using CAS, a reader may observe that only one balance has been updated -- the reader sees inconsistent data.

* no sane (or performant) way.

Re: Aerospike goes Open Source

#28

Post by [deleted] »

ZenoArrow wrote: post #4
yeukhon wrote: post #3

The APGL license caught my eyes. Does anyone take this license into account (deciding between an Apache/MIT/BSD DB vs APGL DB) when they use it in their service / software stack. For example, this openstack thread always keeps me alert using APGL when I am developing a solution. http://lists.openstack.org/pipermail/openstack-dev/2014-Marc... and here is MongoDB's FAQ explaining APGL in plain English: http://blog.mong…

I can't see it being an issue. As mentioned in the useful MongoDB link you shared, the licence will require sharing only when modifying the database code, but not require automatic sharing of the rest of the software stack. Have there been any court cases involving AGPL violations? I wonder if some of Gil Yehuda's fears are partly out of lack of clarity on where the reach of the AGPL ends? For example claiming the Mo…

[deleted]

Re: Aerospike goes Open Source

#29

Post by throwaway6829 »

yeukhon wrote: post #3

The APGL license caught my eyes. Does anyone take this license into account (deciding between an Apache/MIT/BSD DB vs APGL DB) when they use it in their service / software stack. For example, this openstack thread always keeps me alert using APGL when I am developing a solution. http://lists.openstack.org/pipermail/openstack-dev/2014-Marc... and here is MongoDB's FAQ explaining APGL in plain English: http://blog.mong…

Where I work[1], AGPL software is strictly and unconditionally forbidden to use for anything, even things that are completely internal and will never see a public user.

The fear that our lawyers have is that, since putting up the software in a service counts as a derived work, our whole software stack (including the stuff we don't open source) will have to be opened along with it. There have to be clear service boundaries between the AGPL software and the stuff we write ourselves, and the lawyers don't trust us to write in appropriate boundaries.

It's really kinda tragic, because we actually do submit source code upstream when we make changes to open source software that we run internally. As in, if it's an OSS product that we just use for some dumb internal automation thing, we'll submit patches if the license is BSD or MIT, but as soon as GPL (especially AGPL) hits anything suddenly the lawyers get paranoid because of what constitutes a "derived work", which can be interpreted as anything that links against the software to make a complete product.

The upshot of this is, if the OSS software is on an unrestrictive license like BSD or apache, we contribute upstream. If it's GPL or especially AGPL, we simply don't touch it, ever.

[1] A very, very well known technology company.

Re: Aerospike goes Open Source

#30

Post by arrryarr »

seiji wrote: post #5
yeukhon wrote: post #3

The APGL license caught my eyes. Does anyone take this license into account (deciding between an Apache/MIT/BSD DB vs APGL DB) when they use it in their service / software stack. For example, this openstack thread always keeps me alert using APGL when I am developing a solution. http://lists.openstack.org/pipermail/openstack-dev/2014-Marc... and here is MongoDB's FAQ explaining APGL in plain English: http://blog.mong…

AGPL is essentially the "corporate coward" license. They want to capture all of your private changes to basically get free (legally mandated, zero "community good will") development resources. Companies think it's "safer" than BSD or straight up GPL because lawyers feel "omgz, source codes, zero cost IP copies, instant competition!" The next step after AGPL will probably be BrainGPL requiring you to publish all thoug…

You could just pay for a license if you're that paranoid. It's remarkable to what extent people will complain about free not being "free enough". I assume you haven't contributed a line of code to the project, so it's a bit presumptuous to knock it.
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