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Pgbackrest is no longer being maintained

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Re: Pgbackrest is no longer being maintained

#181

Post by bartread »

j1elo wrote: post #179
bartread wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could dual license as well, so it’s GPL or AGPL for personal, OSS, or academic use, but requires a paid for commercial license for commercial use. I suggest GPL or AGPL because their copyleft clauses make them hostile towards platform providers who might otherwise seek to profit from your work without paying.

Platform providers can take (A)GPL code as-is and totally profit from it without paying. As long as they keep releasing sources of their own modifications -if they ever do any-, the rest is fair play.

Yeah, but the copyleft makes anything they build around it a derivative work that they also have to release sources for - especially with AGPL. Most don’t want to do that because that’s where their IP lives.

Not all open source licenses are copyleft licenses (e.g., MIT very much isn’t), but at the very least copyleft licenses make it much harder to exploit open source code commercially without giving back in some way, whether that’s code, or cash for a commercial license.

Not perfect, by any means, but definitely an improvement over more permissive licenses.

I am aware of how much I’m starting to sound a bit like RMS in my old age.

Re: Pgbackrest is no longer being maintained

#182

Post by Matl »

rowanG077 wrote: post #169
Matl wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it's a single file you can back up like any other?

I interpreted it as the problem being that the technology may end up unsupported. I mean you can also keep using pgbackrest now. It's not like the code is gone.

Well, yes, I meant that you don't need any 'special' tooling for Sqlite, whereas you do for pg.

Re: Pgbackrest is no longer being maintained

#183

Post by cortesoft »

didgetmaster wrote: post #175
cortesoft wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An alternative reading is that after 13 years dedicated to a single project, the original author is simply burnt out on it, but a new maintainer can start with fresh passion that will last a number of years. Just because someone gets tired of working on something eventually doesn't mean everyone else will immediately feel the same way.

Did you read the notice on the git hub site? I think he clearly states that he wanted to continue to work on the project, but could not justify it after sources of funding failed to materialize.

Sure, but a new maintainer might have different needs. The original maintainer doesn’t have the time now to do the work for free, since they have to also have a job to pay the bills. A new maintainer might have more free time, at least for a while…

Re: Pgbackrest is no longer being maintained

#184

Post by tracker1 »

bartread wrote: post #162
tracker1 wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been working on a software package I'm hoping to release in a few months... I'm really torn on either split FLOSS with commercial extensions, or just going fully private... I was planning on a pretty generous free tier, but hoping to make a bit on the side from commercial customers. It's a bit of a niche as it is, so that's going to be rough in any kind of pricing model, as a large part of that niche is either h…

You could dual license as well, so it’s GPL or AGPL for personal, OSS, or academic use, but requires a paid for commercial license for commercial use. I suggest GPL or AGPL because their copyleft clauses make them hostile towards platform providers who might otherwise seek to profit from your work without paying.

It would be dual license effectively... the base version AGPL and the Commercial version with additional functionality. Though I'd considered BSL and alternatives... and as mentioned, just closed/commercial only.

Re: Pgbackrest is no longer being maintained

#185

Post by victorbjorklund »

SoftTalker wrote: post #111
victorbjorklund wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alright, take a park closing then. Can you be sad about that if you haven't personally raised money to finance the park?

I pay taxes. I pay for every park in my city. I pay for state and national parks too. I rarely/never use them. I have no choice. That makes me sad. I wish I could direct where my personal tax dollars were spent, but that kind of defeats the point of taxes, which are to fund the things that nobody wants to pay for (or are impractical to pay for, individually).

There are parks that are not owned by the govt.

Re: Pgbackrest is no longer being maintained

#186

Post by victorbjorklund »

esafak wrote: post #71
victorbjorklund wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alright, take a park closing then. Can you be sad about that if you haven't personally raised money to finance the park?

Yes, I can't finance every park. I can feel sad about people suffering throughout the world without personally supporting them all. I am an active open source contributor.

I can’t finance every single open source project in the world either (I am also an open source contributor but with very small libs).

Re: Pgbackrest is no longer being maintained

#187

Post by j1elo »

bartread wrote: post #181
j1elo wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Platform providers can take (A)GPL code as-is and totally profit from it without paying. As long as they keep releasing sources of their own modifications -if they ever do any-, the rest is fair play.

Yeah, but the copyleft makes anything they build around it a derivative work that they also have to release sources for - especially with AGPL. Most don’t want to do that because that’s where their IP lives. Not all open source licenses are copyleft licenses (e.g., MIT very much isn’t), but at the very least copyleft licenses make it much harder to exploit open source code commercially without giving back in some way…

I wholeheartedly agree. Licensing is a complex topic of which I've read a good deal, and even within the Open Source communities there are usually a lot of misconceptions, so I like chiming in with less commonly pointed but very practical effects of it all, in case it helps someone to learn a tiny bit that day.

In this case the provider would of course have to comply with the AGPL and release their modifications as you mention, but it's important to note that No FOSS license protects at all against, for example, just offering the code as a service. It's the exact reason why Mongodb changed licenses and then a stream of commercial products started to change into "Source-Available" licenses in the recent past.

Re: Pgbackrest is no longer being maintained

#188

Post by infinet »

joshmn wrote: post #25

I have a moderately sized 2TB production database I have enjoyed using pgBackRest on, and was—this week—going to set it up on another 8TB database we have. What's the next-closest thing? wal-g? barman? databasus? I only get to cosplay as a DBA.

Anyone put the standby on ZFS or other filesystems that can take snapshots for backup?

Re: Pgbackrest is no longer being maintained

#189

Post by cornstalks »

rowanG077 wrote: post #173
cornstalks wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SQLite doesn’t depend on donations. They have a consortium, sell licenses (it is open source but some companies like the explicit CYA), sell support contracts, sell an aviation-grade test harness, and sell extensions. Of course there is always the risk it goes out of business like any other company, but it’s not funded like your typical small open source project and doesn’t even allow open contributions (not necessar…

pgbackrest also was part of an organization from what I understood from the post. The organization got acquired. I don't see how sqlite is shielded (or any project really). They could get acquired. They could not have enough customers. They could go the wrong directions and lose customers. They might have a few high profile bugs so that customers lose faith in them.

PGBackRest was sponsored by some specific organizations, but not owned by them, and PGBackRest was not their product.

SQLite is in a whole different league when it comes to funding, corporate support, etc. There are commercial contracts directly tied to its ongoing support and development. As far as I understand SQLite is Hwaci’s bread and butter.

Re: Pgbackrest is no longer being maintained

#190

Post by matkoniecz »

Aeolun wrote: post #127

Is it really that much effort to maintain something? I’ll admit I haven’t the foggiest, my most maintained thing having like 200 stars or something, but if I leave it alone for half a year it doesn’t suddenly combust into flame.

> Is it really that much effort to maintain something?

yes

see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47921198 for start

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