Live data from Hacker News

Grafana, Loki, and Tempo will be relicensed to AGPLv3

grafana.com

181–190 of 578 posts

Re: Grafana, Loki, and Tempo will be relicensed to AGPLv3

#181
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SQLite, Vim/Emacs, Linux, everything in GNU coreutils. All of the Apache projects (some to more/less an extant than others). Most programming language implementations (e.g. CPython). Memcached. WireGuard. SQLAlchemy. Web Frameworks like Flask, Django, Rails, on and on. There are many open source technologies that do not seek to capture the value they create with licensing hijinks. I don’t think it’s an accident, that…

> From your example, K8s will definitely outlive Google. Hard to say about Android. What leads you to say that? I wouldn't be surprised if kubernetes is dead in 20 years. I would be very surprised if google is dead in 20 years.

Frankly I'd be surprised if Kubernetes wasn't dead in 20 years.

Re: Grafana, Loki, and Tempo will be relicensed to AGPLv3

#182

I applaud this decision. I would like to see all major SaaSS projects be AGPLv3. End users still have freedom to user, modify, and distribute the software. Cloud providers must share contributions. This is how I like it.

I have a question regarding AGPL, that I couldn't answer by Googling or reading the license. Let's say that Postgres server is licensed under AGPL, and I modify it to my needs. I have a closed source web application, that is publicly accessible, and uses Postgres for storing data. a) Do I need to publish source code of my version of Postgres? b) Does my application (which relies on Postgres, and my patches) need to a…

IANAL, but as I understand it:

a) Yes, if Postgres is exposed to users for some reason. Your changes to Postgres are a derivative work of the original, and thus covered under the AGPL.

b) No. Your application is not a derivative work of Postgres, any more than it's a derivative work of whatever OS you're using.

Re: Grafana, Loki, and Tempo will be relicensed to AGPLv3

#183
post #158

What I don't like about changes like this is that it makes it impossible to reuse any Grafana/Loki/Tempo pieces or libraries in any more permissively-licensed code without forcing that whole project into the AGPL as well. That doesn't only hinder competitors (which seems to be the legitimate goal), but also hinders interoperability and an open ecosystem evolving where people freely exchange bits and pieces of code to…

IMO, the ideal end-state from a software freedom perspective is that all software becomes AGPL. This change is a step in that direction, not only with the directly affected products, but for the reasons you mentioned, an additional pressure for more things to switch to it. Do you not like that end goal, or do you just think the side effects of the change outweigh the benefits of getting closer to it?

I think it's both a completely unrealistic end goal (we live in the real world), and I also think that the AGPL puts you into a hole where you can never get out of again if you decided that you now need different constraints. So I really much more prefer permissive licenses.

Funnily just before you wrote this comment, I also tweeted just that :) : https://twitter.com/juliusvolz/status/1384599249082626052

Re: Grafana, Loki, and Tempo will be relicensed to AGPLv3

#184
post #32

Those who have reservations about the terms of AGPLv3 - would any of you prefer if it was licensed under BUSL1.1 (i.e., source-available or eventually-open-source) instead? I'm curious to see the perspectives of businesses as to whether AGPLv3 or BUSL-1.1 is a "bigger risk" when compared to the previous Apache 2.0 license. My gut feeling is that those passionate about open source on the whole will tend to prefer AGPL…

> My gut feeling is that those passionate about open source on the whole will tend to prefer AGPLv3, while businesses or those making decisions on the behalf of a business, may prefer BUSL-1.1.

Your gut is onto something. People who care about something bigger than themselves prefer AGPL, while those who only care about their own profits prefer BUSL.

Re: Grafana, Loki, and Tempo will be relicensed to AGPLv3

#185
When we released our server product under GNU AGPL v3 license, we have received a rather negative reaction from other participants in our field.

The general sentiment was, "this license makes a useless curiosity".

I wonder where does this hostility come from. Jealosy? FUD? Frustration that they can't take the source and not share own improvements??

Re: Grafana, Loki, and Tempo will be relicensed to AGPLv3

#186
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Hopefully over time rather than having everyone choose their own licenses we end up with some form of standardisation. Yes; if you're going to do this, then using AGPL is so much better than flavor-of-the-week license. > If the core companies maintaining them did not do this they would eventually die and these projects would slowly rot. It sounds like you're suggesting that anything but hard-copyleft is doomed to d…

Your choice of counterexamples highlights an important aspect. Three of the four are in fact outliers: Kubernetes and Android are both financially backed by Google. Android as a strategic advantage across a global market, Kubernetes as a plumbing layer enabling more businesses operate logically like Google. Sure, it's a CNCF product since 2016 or so, but it still enjoys Google's backing. Postgres? They have a very sp…

Also, the CNCF is essentially Google by another name.

Re: Grafana, Loki, and Tempo will be relicensed to AGPLv3

#187
post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A lot of the flavor of the week licenses exist for this reason, as well as to address some of the weak corner cases of the AGPL. I'm interested in what the 'weak corner cases' of AGPL are considering it was pretty much made to correct some weaknesses in the GPL.

It doesn't adequately handle the SaaSification case, which is when someone hosts the software behind a paywall. It only handles the "Tivoization" case when someone ships the software inside a closed source box.

Isn't the purpose of GPLv3 to handle Tivoization and AGPL was made to handle server-side sort of use-cases?

If I use AGPL-licensed software in a SaaS type of environment, I still need to release the source-code even if I'm not distributing the software directly, correct?

Re: Grafana, Loki, and Tempo will be relicensed to AGPLv3

#188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> From your example, K8s will definitely outlive Google. Hard to say about Android. What leads you to say that? I wouldn't be surprised if kubernetes is dead in 20 years. I would be very surprised if google is dead in 20 years.

Frankly I'd be surprised if Kubernetes wasn't dead in 20 years.

Imho, K8s eventually evolves into an OS for running K8s, then gets productized on {non-x86-64}

Re: Grafana, Loki, and Tempo will be relicensed to AGPLv3

#189
post #186
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your choice of counterexamples highlights an important aspect. Three of the four are in fact outliers: Kubernetes and Android are both financially backed by Google. Android as a strategic advantage across a global market, Kubernetes as a plumbing layer enabling more businesses operate logically like Google. Sure, it's a CNCF product since 2016 or so, but it still enjoys Google's backing. Postgres? They have a very sp…

Also, the CNCF is essentially Google by another name.

Far from it. looks what happen with istio.

Re: Grafana, Loki, and Tempo will be relicensed to AGPLv3

#190
post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO, the ideal end-state from a software freedom perspective is that all software becomes AGPL. This change is a step in that direction, not only with the directly affected products, but for the reasons you mentioned, an additional pressure for more things to switch to it. Do you not like that end goal, or do you just think the side effects of the change outweigh the benefits of getting closer to it?

I think it's both a completely unrealistic end goal (we live in the real world), and I also think that the AGPL puts you into a hole where you can never get out of again if you decided that you now need different constraints. So I really much more prefer permissive licenses. Funnily just before you wrote this comment, I also tweeted just that :) : https://twitter.com/juliusvolz/status/1384599249082626052

> I think it's both a completely unrealistic end goal

I know :( I just meant it's the ideal we should strive towards, even if we never fully reach it.

Post reply on HN