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Nutanix Objects violates MinIO’s open source license

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Re: Nutanix Objects violates MinIO’s open source license

#101

Post by debarshri »

bad416f1f5a2 wrote: post #97
debarshri wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For instance, let say there is a platform xyz platform that is an abstraction on rancher to deploy kubernetes, that also deploys the grafana, prometheus, loki, cilium etc. But now, the owners of platform xyz says it is 5k a month for enterprise license of this abstraction. But users may or may not realise that they are using all the tools I have listed. Does that mean, the owners of the platform to have to pay the ot…

I think ghaff gave a pretty good answer as well, but here's some more nuance: > Does that mean, the owners of the platform to have to pay the other platforms? No. Tons of "value-add platforms" exist like this: wrap a bunch of open source up, add a UX layer on top and offer support. As long as you comply with the terms of the license, you can do just that. And many licenses (MIT/BSD/friends) are often complied with by…

Thanks for such an elaborate and informative answer. This is really helpful.

Re: Nutanix Objects violates MinIO’s open source license

#102

Post by ahepp »

mananaysiempre wrote: post #80
bad416f1f5a2 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“By selecting this license I give anyone permission to do X, Y, and Z with my software - provided they do A as well.” “I’m going to chose to do Z and A with your software.” “Moral hazard! Moral hazard!” Picking a license indicates what you are willing to have others do with your work. If you don’t want people to be able to monetize it, pick a different license.

> Picking a license indicates what you are willing to have others do with your work. Picking a license indicates what you are willing to have others do with your work without going after them with a threat of handcuffs and prison bars. I might not be willing to do or threaten (government-mediated) violence to someone for being an arsehole, and yet consider them an arsehole.

This seems pretty silly. It's a civil matter, isn't it? Has anyone ever gone to jail for violating an open source license?

You could simply choose to not pursue legal action against license violators. Choosing a permissive license and then complaining when people do what you gave them permission to do is just ridiculous.

Re: Nutanix Objects violates MinIO’s open source license

#103

Post by moochmooch »

vlovich123 wrote: post #56
CarVac wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's only not welcoming to those who wish to close the source. It's the paradox of tolerance: you must not tolerate those who find others intolerable.

That’s one perspective and while I understand it it’s not one I’ve agreed with. An alternate view is that it forces all parts of your tech stack to be open sourced even things that have nothing to do with, or at most ancillary relation to the relevant service. OSS software is valuable but AGPL steps (in my view anyway) waaaay outside of what’s reasonable to try to prevent servicifying OSS. I think most companies woul…

it stops low effort grifting of network-enabled open source for cash.

Re: Nutanix Objects violates MinIO’s open source license

#104

Post by justinclift »

y4m4b4 wrote: post #90
manictothemax wrote: post #84

Nutanix Objects does not use minio in the core data path. The presence of a binary in a kubernetes pod doesn't necessarily mean that the binary is being used or the fact that nutanix objects is nothing but a wrapper over minio. Earlier implementations did use minio purely as a S3 protocol adapter, i.e a protocol translator from S3 API to Nutanix internal storage protocol. This was something that was publicly acknowle…

Nutanix does not carry EULA or reference even today while continuing to use it. Read Apache v2 attribution clauses.

> while continuing to use it.

But the parent to your comment says they don't use it (any more)???

Re: Nutanix Objects violates MinIO’s open source license

#105

Post by merb »

acatton wrote: post #29
henvic wrote: post #9

Any recommendations on MinIO forks or open-source alternatives with more welcoming licenses? They changed their license from Apache recently. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MinIO#Re-licensing

How is the AGPL not welcoming?[1] [1] https://drewdevault.com/2020/07/27/Anti-AGPL-propaganda.html

well the problem is that some companies who use the AGPL do actually write some fud about it. i.e. if I use min.io agpl and the user never interacts with it, just my program, but I never even modified min.io and I just use the binary interface, I would never be subjected to the release my program's code, I would just need to give a link to the min.io source code that I used.

however every company thinks in its own way:

https://itextpdf.com/how-buy/agpl-license

> You may not deploy it on a network without disclosing the full source code of your own applications under the AGPL license. You must distribute all source code, including your own product and web-based applications.

and they also kinda fork the license with this text:

> When using iText 7 Community under AGPL, you must prominently mention iText and include the iText copyright and AGPL license in output file metadata, and also retain the producer line in every PDF that is created or manipulated using iText.

I mean this makes it really hard to trust the license at all, what would happen if I build a sever that can modify/create/convert pdfs and release the source code and than I have another program that calls this server internally with a http client, is that still some kind of linking or is it more like mongodb?

I would happily build something with agpl when I could use itext/ghostscript and build something like minio which could than be used behind the scenes, but if that is not possible or if it is a grey zone than I'm not sure if agpl is a cool license at all. every company who uses the agpl writes something different about it, thats why an "official" clarification would be really really cool.

Re: Nutanix Objects violates MinIO’s open source license

#106

Post by flatsix »

manictothemax wrote: post #84

Nutanix Objects does not use minio in the core data path. The presence of a binary in a kubernetes pod doesn't necessarily mean that the binary is being used or the fact that nutanix objects is nothing but a wrapper over minio. Earlier implementations did use minio purely as a S3 protocol adapter, i.e a protocol translator from S3 API to Nutanix internal storage protocol. This was something that was publicly acknowle…

I recently left Nutanix, but I worked on Objects for the past 12 months. The MinIO path was deprecated by the time that I joined. I don't have enough information to confidently side with either Nutanix or MinIO, but I'll clarify and confirm a few things:

- As you said, MinIO was used to translate S3 REST API requests to internal RPCs.

- MinIO was replaced with an in-house S3 API server.

- I distinctly remember seeing a patch 6-12 months ago where MinIO was removed from the build.

Re: Nutanix Objects violates MinIO’s open source license

#107

Post by manictothemax »

jonhohle wrote: post #89
manictothemax wrote: post #84

Nutanix Objects does not use minio in the core data path. The presence of a binary in a kubernetes pod doesn't necessarily mean that the binary is being used or the fact that nutanix objects is nothing but a wrapper over minio. Earlier implementations did use minio purely as a S3 protocol adapter, i.e a protocol translator from S3 API to Nutanix internal storage protocol. This was something that was publicly acknowle…

Whether they use it or not is irrelevant if they are distributing it.

Seems like an oversight that the binary got shipped with the pods

Re: Nutanix Objects violates MinIO’s open source license

#108

Post by ghaff »

debarshri wrote: post #101
bad416f1f5a2 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think ghaff gave a pretty good answer as well, but here's some more nuance: > Does that mean, the owners of the platform to have to pay the other platforms? No. Tons of "value-add platforms" exist like this: wrap a bunch of open source up, add a UX layer on top and offer support. As long as you comply with the terms of the license, you can do just that. And many licenses (MIT/BSD/friends) are often complied with by…

Thanks for such an elaborate and informative answer. This is really helpful.

Just one last nuance I'll add to what the parent wrote.

It wasn't actually the intent of the AGPL to keep a cloud service from setting up a competitor to your on-prem software. Rather it was to address what some felt was a loophole in the GPL's treatment of copyleft. (Namely that operating software as a service isn't considered distribution in the eyes of the GPL and therefore a cloud provider could add some secret sauce to your open source software without contributing back to the commons.)

That said, as a practical matter it seems to be pretty effective because most cloud providers won't use AGPL software (and a lot of other companies won't either).

But, because it doesn't actually prevent a cloud provider from competing with you with your own software, there have been a few (non-open source according to the open source definition) licenses created that specifically bar this sort of use.

Re: Nutanix Objects violates MinIO’s open source license

#109

Post by jaywalk »

manictothemax wrote: post #107
jonhohle wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whether they use it or not is irrelevant if they are distributing it.

Seems like an oversight that the binary got shipped with the pods

It could have been an oversight initially. But three years later? Impossible to claim ignorance now.
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