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HashiCorp adopts Business Source License

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Re: HashiCorp adopts Business Source License

#441

Post by _msw_ »

thayne wrote: post #395
unknownian wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>like the AGPL? As I explained in an earlier thread, MongoDB tried using AGPL. AGPL is not a barrier for Amazon, they still will resell your product without contributing. MongoDB ended up using a variant of AGPL that is even stricter (requiring the entire tech stack to be under the same license) but is no longer considered FOSS. Until the attitude changes around what FOSS is, this will keep happening.

Um. Mongodb changed its license before AWS offered a mongodb compatible service. And since I can't get the source code for documentdb, either it isn't actually using a fork of mongodb, or Amazon isn't complying with the AGPL. I think the latter is pretty unlikely.

Disclosure: I work for Amazon.

AWS never offered MongoDB as a managed service, or used any of their server software when it was licensed under APLv3, or SSPLv1.

However, we have contributed patches to MongoDB even after their license change to improve its performance on Graviton processors. Because that's what's good for customers, and MongoDB is an important customer and partner.

AGPLv3 gives all the permissions needed to offer software as a manged service, just like every other FOSS license does. Unfortunately, in my personal opinion, the license has been co-opted by companies that do not care about Software Freedom, and rather hope that companies fear the license so they choose an alternative commercial agreement [1]. I don't think that's good for the community.

[1] https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2020/jan/06/copyleft-equality...

Re: HashiCorp adopts Business Source License

#442

Post by growse »

randmeerkat wrote: post #214
andrewstuart2 wrote: post #167

That's pretty disappointing. I personally haven't used much beyond vault (I've used but not enjoyed or built anything on terraform), but this is pretty diametrically opposed to what I appreciated most about hashicorp products. Heck, I've even contributed a chunk of the code I use the most from vault (Cert management) and now I'm going to have to reevaluate whether I can attempt to use that service for customers going…

> That's pretty disappointing. From the article: “End users can continue to copy, modify, and redistribute the code for all non-commercial and commercial use, except where providing a competitive offering to HashiCorp.” Literally nothing has changed, this isn’t disappointing, it’s smart, they’re protecting themselves against cloud providers that have repeatedly abused the goodwill of the open source community.

For me, bait-and-switching their code contributors is almost the textbook definition of "abusing the goodwill of the open source community".

Re: HashiCorp adopts Business Source License

#443

Post by sanderjd »

joeduffy wrote: post #208
paulgb wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a paying Pulumi user. Their tool integrates with a cloud platform and we pay per resource managed by Pulumi. Pulumi is one of several products where I like that it’s open source in case I need to move off their cloud, but hope that I don’t have to (Plausible is another).

[Joe, Pulumi Founder here.] Said well (and thank you for being a customer and valuable member of our community!) The analogy I draw sometimes is that our open source infrastructure as code SDK ("Pulumi") is like Git, and our commercial offering ("Pulumi Cloud") is like GitHub. Like GitHub, the Pulumi Cloud offers valuable features that go beyond the open source project for teams looking to manage lots of projects sec…

So here's my perspective on these two competing models:

1. I can read all of the code, modify it, and self-host it for my own purposes, but the license disallows me from re-selling it.

2. I can read, modify, self-host, and commercialize a subset of the code, and the rest is an opaque SaaS.

To me, as a customer with no interest in re-selling this code, I don't see how #2 is better than #1 in any way. And I find it incredibly mystifying that I keep seeing companies ragged on here for doing #1 while the model in #2 is somehow held up as the paragon of ethical virtue or something.

Can you help me understand? Why is it better for me to be able to read less of the code I'm running?

Re: HashiCorp adopts Business Source License

#444

Post by growse »

sanderjd wrote: post #439
j1elo wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The huge difference is where the copyright of the code lays. OSS projects that require contributors to assign their copyright away, should not be trusted, and should not receive goodwill contributions to begin with. Otherwise, what today is Apache 2.0, tomorrow can become Commercial, while asking nobody for permission, because the maintainers have ownership of 100% of the code. Not that OSS projects backed by commerc…

I would much rather contribute to a project with a CLA and the possibility to be commercially licensed by the entity driving the work on the project. I'm not that interested in working for Amazon for free...

You can't have it both ways. You either believe in, and enthusiastically participate in the development of free software (the philosophy of which requires freedoms to be available on an equitable basis), or you don't.

Re: HashiCorp adopts Business Source License

#445

Post by scrollaway »

schmichael wrote: post #420
NathanFlurry wrote: post #396

We built our OSS company (Apache 2.0) with Nomad at its core. We provide game server orchestration with a handful of services around it, which could be misconstrued to be considered providing a "competitive offering to HashiCorp." Needless to say, we'll be freezing our Nomad version at the last MPL version because of how vague the license is (intentionally). We also use CockroachDB which uses BSL, but we're not provi…

Please reach out to me: schmichael at hashicorp. I’m the Nomad Eng Lead and while licensing is out of my control we have a lot of users in a similar position to you: not knowing what might someday could be construed competition. I can’t make any promises but will do whatever I can to give you confidence that Nomad is still the right tool for your job.

It sounds to me like GP thinks Nomad still IS the right tool if they’re freezing its version.

Problem is with the license not the tool. It’s nice that you’re trying to do what you can, but it’s like trying to sell roof insurance to a homeless person.

Re: HashiCorp adopts Business Source License

#447

Post by thrillgore »

> However, there are other vendors who take advantage of pure OSS models, and the community work on OSS projects, for their own commercial goals, without providing material contributions back. We don’t believe this is in the spirit of open source.

There's a license that actively prevents this. It's called the GNU GPL.

Has anyone here identified any forks that predate the license change?

Re: HashiCorp adopts Business Source License

#448

Post by sanderjd »

pessimizer wrote: post #109
toomuchtodo wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I argue the window is moving as to what “open source” means out of survival. Source available is the new open source, and what young technologists will grow up grinding on. You’ll have folks complain about it during the transition (as happens with any Overton window sort of event), but they’ll move on eventually and a new crop of tech industry will grow up with this as the new normal. Change is inevitable, broadly sp…

> I argue the window is moving as to what “open source” means out of survival. I don't think this is happening at all. Open source means the same thing it's always meant. Some people are just retreating from open source. Which is fine, they should be writing Free Software anyway if they want the world to have it, or use proprietary licenses if they don't. Otherwise very wealthy people will live on your back.

My perspective is more like the parent's. As someone who has grown up along with open source, I've found it surprising recently how up in arms people are about how critical the ability for anyone to commercialize a project is for the definition of open source. To me, I care a lot about whether I can see how software is implemented, and modify it for my own use, but it has never really occurred to me that I need to have the right to commercialize any arbitrary project.

But :shrug: I guess different people care about different things, is what I've realized watching these discussions unfold.

But I do think this purist perspective on open source is just going to result in more Snowflakes and fewer Hashicorps, because why bother with this fight?

Re: HashiCorp adopts Business Source License

#449

Post by myroon5 »

glenngillen wrote: post #376
Coryodaniel wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read their s1 and it looked like a lot of the revenue came from professional services. I’m curious how this affects consultants and PSOs that might be competing w Hashi’s services business and running terraform on jenkins or whatever.

previous quarter: https://ir.hashicorp.com/node/8351/pdf Cloud: $16.5M (+88% YoY) Subscriptions: $133.6M (+35% YoY) ProServ: $4.4M (+75% YoY)

Cloud revenue is a subset of Subscription revenue, and Subscription revenue is mostly Support ($101.9M). In fact, 3/4 of their total revenue is Support

Re: HashiCorp adopts Business Source License

#450

Post by thallavajhula »

>We don’t believe this is in the spirit of open source.

Open source seems to be evolving from being truly open source to being a variant with financially driven contingencies. HashiCorp have created great OSS over the years and am grateful for it. I understand their intention behind this move, but having a financially driven motive drive their OSS is not a good thing. I'd rather they not open source any of their code than put such limitations on it with these licenses.

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