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Redis Inc seeks control over future of Rust redis-rs client library

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Re: Redis Inc seeks control over future of Rust redis-rs client library

#31

Post by doctorpangloss »

Redis Ltd. probably parent of Redis Inc. owns the trademark. It isn't complicated, they can go around and ask people to change the names of their stuff away from Redis.

Is this in bad form? What does the guy have to do to convince you that he has to rename the library? It's tough cookies, but if he renames it, and the Redis Ltd. people fork the library and put the fork on crates.io under the redis name, that's what happens. The way it works just isn't whoever gets the name on crates.io first, irrespective of copyright.

I'd think that if the situation were reversed - Random Guy On GitHub Complains About Distasteful Actor Taking Over His Trademark - you'd root for the guy no?

Re: Redis Inc seeks control over future of Rust redis-rs client library

#32

Post by the_mitsuhiko »

tayo42 wrote: post #27
gpm wrote: post #23

Seems like this was resolved with Redis Inc backing off prior to the HN post. From @mortensi roughly 4 hours prior to the post: https://github.com/redis-rs/redis-rs/issues/1419#issuecommen... > Thanks everybody for the feedback. Speaking on behalf of Redis Inc., we want to find a way to collaborate to best support the community and our customers. The objective is to ensure predictable releases for a Rust client libra…

Comments are all reasonable and there was no reason for the drama in the first place... Rust seems to just attract drama sometimes, the other client library owners dealt with the company without blowing up?

> Comments are all reasonable and there was no reason for the drama in the first place...

As the author of that issue I'm assuming if there was drama, then it was up to me. However I did not intend on causing one, but to discuss this issue with active maintainers of the crate as well as to understand to which degree valkey support is needed by users for the crate.

That this has created a discourse that goes beyond that was not intended.

Re: Redis Inc seeks control over future of Rust redis-rs client library

#33

Post by wongarsu »

tayo42 wrote: post #27
gpm wrote: post #23

Seems like this was resolved with Redis Inc backing off prior to the HN post. From @mortensi roughly 4 hours prior to the post: https://github.com/redis-rs/redis-rs/issues/1419#issuecommen... > Thanks everybody for the feedback. Speaking on behalf of Redis Inc., we want to find a way to collaborate to best support the community and our customers. The objective is to ensure predictable releases for a Rust client libra…

Comments are all reasonable and there was no reason for the drama in the first place... Rust seems to just attract drama sometimes, the other client library owners dealt with the company without blowing up?

If we take the maintainer by his word (and I don't see why we shouldn't) then this was very necessary drama that caused Redis Inc to back off.

> the other client library owners dealt with the company without blowing up

A lot of the other client libraries are already under the control of Redis Inc. The Python client, one of the popular Java clients, the Go client and the nodejs package all live in the Redis Inc Github organization.

Re: Redis Inc seeks control over future of Rust redis-rs client library

#34

Post by aurumque »

The real value of open source code is that it should be able to be fully decoupled from trademarks. Much like OpenTofu, we shouldn't be caring too much about what private entities are trying to do to disrupt the community. Fork the code, change the names, and move forward together.

We don't need this noise. The code is already written and published. Consider the 'brand recognition' of such exciting tooling as:

* fzf * tmux * ripgrep * exiftool * fdupes * etc.

Re: Redis Inc seeks control over future of Rust redis-rs client library

#35

Post by hshshshshsh »

MortyWaves wrote: post #3
voidfunc wrote: post #2

I have yet to hear a single positive story about this Redis Inc... it's like a giant company full of only assholes. Story after story is just "wow, these people all suck"

Shame because I remember the original author being quite well regarded on places like here and Reddit.

Did he start Redis Inc or got hired to work there? I remember something like that for a popular open source project.

Re: Redis Inc seeks control over future of Rust redis-rs client library

#37

Post by tayo42 »

the_mitsuhiko wrote: post #32
tayo42 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Comments are all reasonable and there was no reason for the drama in the first place... Rust seems to just attract drama sometimes, the other client library owners dealt with the company without blowing up?

> Comments are all reasonable and there was no reason for the drama in the first place... As the author of that issue I'm assuming if there was drama, then it was up to me. However I did not intend on causing one, but to discuss this issue with active maintainers of the crate as well as to understand to which degree valkey support is needed by users for the crate. That this has created a discourse that goes beyond th…

> That this has created a discourse that goes beyond that was not intended.

I think the thing started off fine and reasonable, but if you go down the comments it takes a turn towards cynical and antagonistic where people are assuming the worst. Which is basically the point of my comment, rust related things seems to have these weird blow ups.

Some quotes

> Redis team has the required Rust proficiency, nor that they actually care about maintaining this crate

> Concepts of a plan eh?

> Of course they don't have a list of missing features, it's not about features. It's about taking control of a ecosystem that's collasping under them because of widly percieved-as shady license rug pulling.

In bold too

> What you care about is your customers, not the community or any contributors.

Then there's headlines like

> Redis Inc seeks control over Rust Redis-rs library, talk of trademark concerns

Its overall inflammatory, when the intention from the emails shown seem fine and the goals seem clear.

Re: Redis Inc seeks control over future of Rust redis-rs client library

#38

Post by greenavocado »

mperham wrote: post #12
greenavocado wrote: post #7

My theory is Redis is trying to take control over all popular libraries that interface with it so it can break protocol level compatibility to force vendor lock-in

That would push everyone to valkey. They want to add proprietary features supported only by their server and client. That's the extend part of "embrace, extend, extinguish". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguis...

Some cash cows would remain stuck and they are ultimately the ones that would be milked for profit even if 95% of the community leaves

Re: Redis Inc seeks control over future of Rust redis-rs client library

#39

Post by probablybetter »

I have no need for Redis in my life. There is nothing unique it provides in 2024, and they have no special sauce I would consider getting hooked-on (locked into).

I am trying to remember why their software became considered ubiquitous for caching and sessions, and I reckon many a framework is busy rectifying this choice, as we speak.

Re: Redis Inc seeks control over future of Rust redis-rs client library

#40

Post by reconditerose »

seneca wrote: post #28
paxys wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Redis the project was essentially taken over by a company that had nothing to do with its development. Salvatore Sanfilippo (antirez) started Redis and developed it by himself from 2009 to 2015, gaining massive popularity and building a large community in the process. It was FOSS the entire time. A separate VC-backed company called Garantia Data used to make money by offering a hosted version of Redis. That company c…

> The company also managed to acquire full rights of the Redis trademark and project stewardship from antirez after hiring him How did that happen? He must have given/sold it to them, right? I remember him making an announcement that he was done with Redis and stepping away from involvement.

The only public record I've seen him talking about it was in https://github.com/valkey-io/valkey/issues/544, where he mentioned having sold the copyright.
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