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Commons Clause

redislabs.com

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Re: Commons Clause

#321

Post by Nemo_bis »

Boulth wrote: post #285
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…

> The GPL exists for a reason. AGPL would be more appropriate for Redis IMHO as Redis as a service is not "distributed" to users so GPL alone wouldn't have desired effect. On top of that commercial license for people that don't want to share their modifications.

The Redis protocol uses TCP connections, pretty much the perfect case for AGPL which deals with "interacting with it remotely through a computer network" etc. https://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl.html

Sure, interpretation varies on what kind of interactions with what software cause what obligations, but imagine how much case law and clarity you can have with a license 10 years younger.

Re: Commons Clause

#322

Post by Nemo_bis »

XiZhao wrote: post #58

Hi folks. Kevin from http://fossa.io here. I worked on bringing the Commons Clause to life ( https://commonsclause.com/ ) and led many of the project efforts here. Happy to answer questions here (or on Twitter @kevinverse). I wanted to write a blog post to set some context because the real story is a lot less salacious then "Redis just went proprietary", but here's a quick summary: 1/ No, Redis isn't proprietary. It'…

"It's only some enterprise modules." Sure, ownCloud said the same and eventually forced its own founder to fork and make Nextcloud under AGPL. Good luck with that.

Did you completely fail to learn from experience, or are you pretending? https://fosdem.org/2018/schedule/event/nextcloud/

Re: Commons Clause

#323

Post by carlmr »

inciampati wrote: post #318
carlmr wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>git is a good example. It's GPLv2 Is it a good example? I'm not very firm with licensing. As far as I understand it git is not a library or a programming language, which means that even if you use it commercially you're not really modifying or repackaging it in your software, so there's really no duties arising out of it even if you use it on your servers. Your software is just communicating with git. Please correct…

git is a both domain specific programming language and library of software routines that enable version control. Curious why you don't see it this way.

It's a separate program though, so you're not repackaging, modifying or redistributing.

Let's take for example TortoiseGit, should they decide to sell TortoiseGit now, they wouldn't have a problem with the GPL because they're not redistributing git. They just say, download git and our program will connect to it. Git does not become part of TortoiseGit at any point. You could replace the git client with one that has the same interface and it would still work.

Re: Commons Clause

#324

Post by catwell »

marcinzm wrote: post #76
koolba wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While the tone of the entire post is unsettling, it does say that the core server is still BSD licensed.

For how long is the question to me, per the blog post: >Redis’ permissive BSD open source license allows them to do so legally, but this must be changed. Doesn't seem like having Redis core contain enough useful functionality and staying BSD lines up with their vision.

They don't get to choose. They don't own the copyright on Redis, Salvatore does. He is their employee now but if they try to pull something like this I suspect he won't be for long.

Re: Commons Clause

#325

Post by garmaine »

rplnt wrote: post #311
another-cuppa wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's really sad that the GPL has essentially "gone out of fashion". It's sad that developers would be driven merely by fashion rather than careful consideration. The fact that we have free software at all is largely thanks to the GNU and the GPL.

It's not just fashion. It's a question of "Do I want someone to use my software?", because with GPL the answer would be no for a lot of projects.

Good, I don’t want them using my projects then. If they want it to be a one way street, they don’t got the right to touch my stuff.

Re: Commons Clause

#326

Post by garmaine »

tannhaeuser wrote: post #287
paulsutter wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought your comment was great, until I actually read the link. Once I read the link I’m happy to see this experimentation and evolution of licenses. As someone who builds services and develops open source code, this approach seems more appealing than GPL and seems to cover the concerns of the Redis project nicely. Time will tell how it actually works out, but I think it looks promising. > the License does not gran…

As for the consulting part, I doubt a license (short of a NDA) can restrict you from selling your expertise. As for selling the software, there are creative ways of not distributing software technically, yet assemble proprietary and open-source bits at a customer's site such as using Docker with its layered images. So while the intention might have merit, we have to wait if it holds up in court. My guess is it won't.…

You don’t even have to go that far. This clause says the license trumps the clause, and most permissive licenses permit relicensing. So relicense without this clause. Problem solved.

It’s certainly not the intent, but I believe it’s what it actually says. Of course, IANAL and you’re an idiot if you take this ad legal advice, etc.

Re: Commons Clause

#327

Post by catwell »

sonarlunar wrote: post #258
cookiecaper wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, to be fair, it's not that they're trying to prevent it per se. It's just that they want a cut.

If Heroku, AWS, Google, IBM, whoever make money piggybacking Salvatore's work, shouldn't Salvatore actually ALSO make money from his work? If not, what's the reason for him to continue? Elasticsearch faced the same problem, Redis too. It's unfair to the developers if cloud providers make money and not contribute or give back a portion to the OSS developers. Myself, I would never be so liberal like Salvatore had I bee…

Salvatore is an employee of Redis Labs since 2015. AFAIK he still owns Redis itself personally, which is a very good thing.

That doesn't mean Redis Labs is the only Redis provider you should consider though. For instance, OpenRedis has been founded before Redis Labs (early 2011) by people who have been very involved with the community (contributed the Ruby and Lua clients, the original website...). They are a much smaller company than Redis Labs (bootstrapped, when Redis Labs raised over $50M...) so it wouldn't make financial sense for them to have Salvatore on their payroll.

EDIT: Salvatore himself is addressing this on Twitter right now. https://twitter.com/antirez/status/1032192722755571714

Re: Commons Clause

#328

Post by Nemo_bis »

mchahn wrote: post #159
mindcrime wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you're planning to bring a proprietary product to market, and make the code "shared source". There's nothing novel about that, and there are already licenses out there specifically for allowing "code available, but you can't redistribute". Using a faux "open source" license like "Apache + Commons Clause" is disingenuous, confusing, and irresponsible.

I need to learn about this. Does shared source actually allow one to arbitrarily use the source? I thought the only distinction was that it didn't allow contributions.

Your problem is probably with distribution and distribution in modified form, i.e. freedoms 2 and 3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_software#Definition_and_t...

You don't need to distribute or license the software or process you use to produce the printer itself, I suppose.

Help is available to choose a license which fits your needs. https://opensource.org/faq#which-license

Re: Commons Clause

#329

Post by HeadsUpHigh »

XiZhao wrote: post #58

Hi folks. Kevin from http://fossa.io here. I worked on bringing the Commons Clause to life ( https://commonsclause.com/ ) and led many of the project efforts here. Happy to answer questions here (or on Twitter @kevinverse). I wanted to write a blog post to set some context because the real story is a lot less salacious then "Redis just went proprietary", but here's a quick summary: 1/ No, Redis isn't proprietary. It'…

Hey I'm not saying this license is bad but it's absolutely not free software anymore by any definition.

Re: Commons Clause

#330

Post by antirez »

I clarified that the Redis core (https://github.com/antirez/redis) remains BSD, and what I think about the license switch Redis Labs is operating on certain Redis Modules.

https://twitter.com/antirez/status/1032180321834467330

and the considerations thread:

https://twitter.com/antirez/status/1032192721308594176

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