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Commons Clause

redislabs.com

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Re: Commons Clause

#241

Post by mful »

sgentle wrote: post #208

> Help! Companies are exploiting my open source software for profit! Uh, you told them they could. > Yeah, but they're doing it without contributing back! They're just taking what I wrote and building it into a proprietary product! You told them they could. > But how is it fair that they can make so much money off my code and I never see a cent? You. Told. Them. They. Could. Time and again I see the same sense of hel…

> Are you willing to release your code, both in the sense of putting it out into the world and emancipating it from your ownership? Do you accept that your code could be renamed, rebranded, repackaged, rented, traded or sold? Would you be happy if your code made someone else rich, famous or successful while you saw no benefit at all?

I suspect it's a lot easier to say "yes" to these questions when you're just starting out (and thus picking a license) than when you see a bunch of other co's profiting signficantly more than you are.

This seems to be an attempt to fix that mistake (I wonder if the Redis creators would call their license choice a mistake?). Like a train gone off the rails, there are probably only messy solutions that no one is super happy about at this point.

Re: Commons Clause

#242

Post by paulddraper »

mrep wrote: post #128
bodas wrote: post #68

What a lesson in unintended consequences. The license is vague enough that Amazon & co can just lawyer up and ignore it. What are they going to do, sue Amazon? Good luck. On the other hand, it will definitely scare away users of their software who will be concerned that their CRUD app derives "substantial" value from it and is thus infringing.

Big companies do not like vague licenses. I work at a big tech company and I was specifically told to not use any software under the WTFPL license (Do What the Fuck You Want To Public License) [0] because it is not explicit. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WTFPL

On the contrary, it is very explicit

;)

Re: Commons Clause

#243

Post by tannhaeuser »

MrBingley wrote: post #157
vmbrasseur wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi, Kevin. VM Brasseur from https://opensource.org here. It's disappointing to see FOSSA, which claims it exists to assist companies with open source management, publish and encourage use of a clause that very clearly removes projects from the pool of open source alternatives. To do so by using the word "Commons" in the title adds insult to injury and borders on wilful deception, removing software from the commons as…

> However, today’s cloud providers have repeatedly violated this ethos by taking advantage of successful open source projects and repackaging them into competitive, proprietary service offerings. Cloud providers contribute very little (if anything) to those open source projects. Instead, they use their monopolistic nature to derive hundreds of millions dollars in revenues from them. Already, this behavior has damaged…

Agree. There's a place for a commercial open-source license that can hold up in court, and OSI should consider it. Ignoring the economic realities (cloud providers making all the money, and projects starving off, or getting pittances) is hardly a solution.

Re: Commons Clause

#244

Post by greglindahl »

mrep wrote: post #128
bodas wrote: post #68

What a lesson in unintended consequences. The license is vague enough that Amazon & co can just lawyer up and ignore it. What are they going to do, sue Amazon? Good luck. On the other hand, it will definitely scare away users of their software who will be concerned that their CRUD app derives "substantial" value from it and is thus infringing.

Big companies do not like vague licenses. I work at a big tech company and I was specifically told to not use any software under the WTFPL license (Do What the Fuck You Want To Public License) [0] because it is not explicit. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WTFPL

WTFPL is acceptable to IBM, though.

I bet that this new license isn't. It's radioactive.

Re: Commons Clause

#245

Post by sonarlunar »

mindcrime wrote: post #55

This is pretty stupid. If you want to license your software under a proprietary license, just license it under a proprietary license. Or if you want to be "Shared Source"[1] use one of the old MS licenses for that. But don't try to put lipstick on a pig and add a veneer of "openness" by shipping something under an Open Source license + terms that make it very explicitly not Open Source. As much as I like Redis, and e…

Probably you don't have to. If one writes code and the other takes the money, there won't be no Redis software to use in the future.

When Salvatore was sponsored by Redis Labs back in 2015 I contacted them to ask them about their RLEC (Enterprise Cluster) software for my employer, a public multinational.

Had I wanted to use Redis in AWS I would have simply paid for EC2 AWS and paid for Redis Enterprise licenses. This way BOTH companies would make money, survive, and allow me to utilize what I need for my company to make profit.

Paying AWS for Redis service, knowing NOTHING, ABSOLUTELY NOTHING goes into Salvatore's pocket is, for me, plain stupid.

I want Salvatore, and the rest core contributors whichever they are, to be healthy, happy, motivated, has his financial problems solved and be focused on his amazing software.

I love Redis and I want it to be there forever.

Paying AWS (for Redis service) instead of Salvatore is as smart as being a parent and voting for Herod "for the prosperity of your newly born children".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacre_of_the_Innocents

Re: Commons Clause

#246

Post by kemitchell »

rectang wrote: post #209
dman wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dont think this is as cut and dry as you make it out to be. The emergence of cloud providers + hosted solutions and the ongoing disappearance of on premise computing means its increasingly hard to figure out a business model for infrastructure tech. Multiple database companies with excellent products (Rethinkdb et al) have faced significant challenges commercializing software that is open source. We need credible mon…

I would very much like to see those companies succeed. But when a company forces me to choose between their survival and the survival of Open Source as an institution, my choice is made.

Hyperbole for hyperbole: When an institution can't respond to urgent needs, or privileges one side of a balance over the other until it tips, there is nothing you can do for it.

I've read messages on OSI's mailing list that if you have to ask how your're going to make money making open source, you're the wrong person to make open source, and ought to make proprietary software, instead.

Re: Commons Clause

#247

Post by carlsborg »

Cursuviam wrote: post #212

Just dual license with AGPL, instead of this proprietary crap.

Agree, the Affero GPL works for the cloud scenario:

"It provides the same restrictions and freedoms as the GPLv3 but with an additional clause which makes it so that source code must be distributed along with web publication."

Re: Commons Clause

#248

Post by mdpopescu »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #150
jen20 wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not even dark-ages Microsoft tried to prevent users exchanging knowledge about their products for money ("consulting", or frankly, "employment"). Such a suggestion is preposterous and should kill any company adopting it immediately.

At it's core, this is fundamentally about property rights. The owners of the Redis copyright are well within their right to license their property in any way they see fit. It's preposterous to you , but you're not the one who has spent the time creating Redis. It's preposterous to me that they wouldn't have the rights to govern their creation's use. You could go build your own infrastructure software, of course , tha…

> At it's core, this is fundamentally about property rights

Imaginary property has nothing to do with property rights. Those are about real property.

Re: Commons Clause

#249

Post by kemitchell »

pvg wrote: post #188
DannyBee wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(the FAQ was added after I posted) That's worse because Heather would have certainly warned them of these issues, and it means they did it anyway.

I'm guessing she's a well-known practitioner in this field. Why would one be involved in such a thing, given it's so problematic? The whole thing seems super-confusing and half-baked.

> Why would one be involved in such a thing, given it's so problematic?

That is when you hire the lawyer!

Re: Commons Clause

#250

Post by zepolen »

mbrumlow wrote: post #94
tschellenbach wrote: post #71

This seems aimed at cloud hosting provider that currently get the tech for free. Makes sense in a way.

Yeah, but its not like they are "getting it for free". It is a ecosystem, and cloud providers have provided many nice things back to the ecosystems. Including jobs to many prominent OSS developers. Not to mention cloud providers do the most important sort of work on any project. That is running it reporting bugs and often submitting patches to those bugs. Larger cloud providers even hire people for the sole purpose t…

I get what you're saying but Redis found popularity way before clouds started offering it.

Clouds later further contribute (and profit) to the ecosystem, but make no mistake they didn't help create or spend any resources for that ecosystem.

Redis is probably the number one kv store atm, not sure what the number two is, and for sure no clouds are offering it right now; but if this licensing thing goes sour with the community - you can be sure that

a) a fork will happen or the number two will gain popularity b) that replacement once enough customers ask for it will get added to the clouds c) the clouds again - with no initial investment will derive value

Basically the moral of the story is, be a cloud provider.

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