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We Are Changing the License for Akka

lightbend.com

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Re: We Are Changing the License for Akka

#171

Post by PeterZaitsev »

nine_k wrote: post #42
capableweb wrote: post #14

It seems like Lightbend have decided themselves to redefine what "Open Source" means for them, a slight warning sign of whats to come. > Sadly, open source is prone to the infamous “Tragedy of the commons”, [...] This situation is not sustainable and one in which everyone eventually loses. > So what does sustainable open source look like? I believe it’s where everyone—users and developers—contributes and are in it to…

I think they clearly state that the fresh versions are not open source, they are "source available". After 3 years since release the code automatically gets relicensed under Apache 2.0 and becomes open source. This is a nice provision that prevents the code from being completely lost if the company loses interest in it.

Yes but also they claim "We Believe In A Model Of Sustainable Open Source" where their actions say what they believe what you can't built Sustainable Business around Open Source and Source Available License is required.

I've seen companies claiming "but you can use our buggy unsecure code after 3 years" but reality I'm yet to see actually anyone using this with BSL software.

Re: We Are Changing the License for Akka

#172

Post by PeterZaitsev »

cardanome wrote: post #57
capableweb wrote: post #14

It seems like Lightbend have decided themselves to redefine what "Open Source" means for them, a slight warning sign of whats to come. > Sadly, open source is prone to the infamous “Tragedy of the commons”, [...] This situation is not sustainable and one in which everyone eventually loses. > So what does sustainable open source look like? I believe it’s where everyone—users and developers—contributes and are in it to…

It is open source for me as I will never earn more than US $25 million in annual revenue. If I ever do, I will gladly pay them. I disagree with the idea that the only correct definition of open source is the one that favors big tech monopolists. Times have changed compared to when the open source movement started. Not many people would have imagined that the monopolists would weaponize open source like they do now. T…

Time have changed and it is well possible there is a need and room for source available licenses.

Open Source is established term which offers specific freedoms which brings specific benefits (and challenges) to businesses.

While many Venture funded companies might want you to believe they are being unfairly taken advantage by the clouds it is not the full story.

Elastic for example relies on A LOT of code contributed by community, which were contributing because they could use end result under Open Source License.

Elastic changing the license changed relations here to you contribute to create the product BUT you do not get all the rights to use it any more.

In Elastic case in particular large number of cloud solutions were build which embed their solution (arguably same as Elastic embedds Lucene) who could not use Elastic after license change.

Re: We Are Changing the License for Akka

#173

Post by anonymoushn »

cardanome wrote: post #57
capableweb wrote: post #14

It seems like Lightbend have decided themselves to redefine what "Open Source" means for them, a slight warning sign of whats to come. > Sadly, open source is prone to the infamous “Tragedy of the commons”, [...] This situation is not sustainable and one in which everyone eventually loses. > So what does sustainable open source look like? I believe it’s where everyone—users and developers—contributes and are in it to…

It is open source for me as I will never earn more than US $25 million in annual revenue. If I ever do, I will gladly pay them. I disagree with the idea that the only correct definition of open source is the one that favors big tech monopolists. Times have changed compared to when the open source movement started. Not many people would have imagined that the monopolists would weaponize open source like they do now. T…

If you earn $25 million in annual revenue and have tiny margins or many cores, you may not be capable of paying $2000/year/core.

Re: We Are Changing the License for Akka

#174

Post by scarface74 »

piaste wrote: post #123
arinlen wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not many people would have imagined that the monopolists would weaponize open source like they do now. What do you think "weaponize open source" means? It doesn't look like it means a thing, and lounds like a poor attempt at shoehorning "weapon" in a discussion on how a potential user's income is something noteworthy.

The cloud giants have gigantic moats in terms of infrastructure, marketing, process, and so on. Traditionally, one of the best paths for an upstart company to challenge an established giant was to develop superior technology. Indeed, this is how some of the cloud giants themselves got their start against the dinosaurs of the day. But in a tech culture where open source is not just common but expected , this path is s…

First let’s put things in perspective. According to public statements last year by the former CEO of AWS and the current CEO of Amazon [1][2], only 5% of all IT spend is directed toward any cloud provider. There are plenty of opportunities with businesses that don’t host infrastructure in the cloud.

Also, when was the last time an “upstart” challenged a giant successfully?

- Microsoft has been a “giant” since 2000

- Apple became the worlds most valuable company in 2011.

- Google has been the go to search engine at least since the early 2000s

- Amazon has been dominant in its field at least since around 2000.

[1] Jassy is my skip^9 manager

[2] https://accelerationeconomy.com/cloud/amazon-shocker-ceo-jas...

Re: We Are Changing the License for Akka

#175

Post by pbz »

bmitc wrote: post #15

Does Akka.NET have any licensing dependencies on Akka? I wonder if this will push people there (please go to F#) or Elixir and Erlang.

My understanding is that the .NET version is a port and only related in the style/approach. However, if I was them I'd consider renaming the lib. Looks like the name "Akka" is tainted at this point.

Re: We Are Changing the License for Akka

#176

Post by JGailor »

that_guy_iain wrote: post #162
kryptiskt wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bait and switch is never nice, whether Google does it or putative open source projects. A lot of developers work for companies that has more than $25M in revenue, and now a ton of them is going to get shit from management because they added this cuckoo egg dependency back when it used an open source license. I have no problem with companies using whatever license, I do have trouble with them getting traction being op…

> I don't use Akka, but I feel the pain of the people who did that and now has to tear the thing out. I highly suspect very few will ahve to tear it out. It'll cost more money to replace than it would to pay license fees for many companies. Developer time costs money. > Because I don't see how anyone would want to use it, that pricing is completely ridiculous. No one should pay per vCPU, much less those extortionate…

> I highly suspect very few will ahve to tear it out. It'll cost more money to replace than it would to pay license fees for many companies. Developer time costs money.

That is the strategy companies are using to monetize these sort of projects. Give it away for free and then charge when a company has to make the choice of spending money to get rid of it and to replace it or to just pay for it. The lesson to take away is that any open source supported by a company will potentially become something that will have to be licensed commercially, so if anything will create an incentive to not use open source.

Re: We Are Changing the License for Akka

#177

Post by haspok »

morsch wrote: post #121
perceptronas wrote: post #104

I wonder if this is mainly aimed at Java Akka use. In my humble opinion, Akka is becoming less relevant in Scala community. I don't see new projects picking it up as there are better alternatives.

What are the alternatives?

If you want Scala-specific and production grade... hmmm...

So there is Loom comig from one side, and effect libraries like cats and zio from the other side... great promises, but would I trust them with production code?... Hmmm...

But there is always the option to lean back on Java and Spring and JEE - the old and boring but tried and tested ways on the JVM.

Re: We Are Changing the License for Akka

#178

Post by haspok »

Can someone explain how this sudden change of license is even possible (legally)?

I mean, what if I contributed to the project back when it was Apache licensed, in good faith that my changes would be freely available (as in free beer)? Now they decide that they ask money for something that includes my contribution? Don't they have to ask for the contributors permissions to be able to do that?

(Just a hypothetical example, I am not an Akka contributor.)

Re: We Are Changing the License for Akka

#179

Post by fatherzine »

haspok wrote: post #178

Can someone explain how this sudden change of license is even possible (legally)? I mean, what if I contributed to the project back when it was Apache licensed, in good faith that my changes would be freely available (as in free beer)? Now they decide that they ask money for something that includes my contribution? Don't they have to ask for the contributors permissions to be able to do that? (Just a hypothetical exa…

[Not a lawyer] That's what CLAs are for. As a prerequisite of having your PR accepted, you grant the mothership corporate entity the rights to do whatever they want with your contribution, including asking money.

https://opensource.google/documentation/reference/cla

https://cla.opensource.microsoft.com

Re: We Are Changing the License for Akka

#180

Post by NobodyNada »

haspok wrote: post #178

Can someone explain how this sudden change of license is even possible (legally)? I mean, what if I contributed to the project back when it was Apache licensed, in good faith that my changes would be freely available (as in free beer)? Now they decide that they ask money for something that includes my contribution? Don't they have to ask for the contributors permissions to be able to do that? (Just a hypothetical exa…

Apache 2.0 is a permissive license, so if you contributed to the project under the Apache license you gave them permission to use your code in closed-source projects (as long as they follow the terms of the license, such as giving you credit).

Of course, they can't un-license code that they've already released, but they can re-release the old code under a new license, and ship all new code under that new license going forward.

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