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Nutanix Objects violates MinIO’s open source license

blog.min.io

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Re: Nutanix Objects violates MinIO’s open source license

#71

Post by neverartful »

dikei wrote: post #20
henvic wrote: post #9

Any recommendations on MinIO forks or open-source alternatives with more welcoming licenses? They changed their license from Apache recently. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MinIO#Re-licensing

There are quite a few Storage projects out there with a S3-compatible API storage, that can be used in place of Minio such as Ceph, Openstack Swift, SeaweedFS, etc.. Of course, they all differ in subtle ways, so you have to try for yourself.

No one in their right mind would attempt to use Ceph in place of MinIO. Yes, Ceph can provide S3 compliant object storage via the RadosGW, but the effort and footprint is not worth it for MinIO use cases. On the other hand, OpenStack Swift's all-in-one (typically used by developers) could easily be a replacement of MinIO.

Re: Nutanix Objects violates MinIO’s open source license

#73

Post by robertlagrant »

KronisLV wrote: post #34
robertlagrant wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> DigitalOcean, for example, proudly advertises managed MongoDB as a service: https://www.digitalocean.com/products/managed-databases-mong ... > And yet, to the best of my understanding, the entirety of the DigitalOcean platform isn't open source (even though many projects are): https://github.com/orgs/digitalocean/repositories I don't think it's required to open source everything, only the bits that provide the Mong…

> I don't think it's required to open source everything, only the bits that provide the MongoDB service. I don't know if they've done that. Yes, that's my exact point - these things are sometimes full of finer points. I don't doubt that DigitalOcean have talked with MongoDB and have probably figured out some sort of a deal, or another way to offer it as a service (someone mentioned them using the enterprise version,…

It's a tricky problem one can only have when one chooses to give one's work away with zero strings attached :)

Re: Nutanix Objects violates MinIO’s open source license

#74

Post by Jolter »

ticviking wrote: post #70
Jolter wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First, revoke the license. That means they are no longer permitted to redistribute the code. If they then continue to redistribute it, they are committing a copyright violation. That’s when there is cause for a lawsuit.

More than that, they've been given notice, and are willfully distributing it. There's all kinds of specific legal teeth for that behavior.

It wouldn’t really be a (useful) revocation of the license if they were not legally notified.

Re: Nutanix Objects violates MinIO’s open source license

#75

Post by KronisLV »

robertlagrant wrote: post #73
KronisLV wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't think it's required to open source everything, only the bits that provide the MongoDB service. I don't know if they've done that. Yes, that's my exact point - these things are sometimes full of finer points. I don't doubt that DigitalOcean have talked with MongoDB and have probably figured out some sort of a deal, or another way to offer it as a service (someone mentioned them using the enterprise version,…

It's a tricky problem one can only have when one chooses to give one's work away with zero strings attached :)

That is probably true, when you live in a society where you probably still want some money for your work.

The greater implications of that might have something to do with how we get articles like "Software below the poverty line": https://staltz.com/software-below-the-poverty-line.html

Or maybe the revelations about how "well" supported the people who maintained Log4j were from the open source community: https://words.filippo.io/professional-maintainers/

  Earlier this week, a severe RCE in a logging library called Log4j2 got everyone, from Apple to Minecraft. As of yesterday, the maintainer who patched the vulnerability had three sponsors on GitHub: Michael, Glenn, and Matt.
That's why it's hard to be angry with companies and people trying to get paid for their work, supported by various software licenses in one way or another. I do still mostly support open source in spirit, though doing that with my wallet on OpenCollective (or GitHub Sponsors or whatever) is also a good thing to do.

Re: Nutanix Objects violates MinIO’s open source license

#76

Post by bayesian_horse »

jarym wrote: post #4

Kudos for MinIO team for spending THREE YEARS trying to resolve this. Shame that they had to resort to a public naming and shaming but sometimes corporate entities are tone deaf. Now this is exposed the next question is if Nutanix Objects is just a MinIO wrapper then what value are they even proving here?

That also means Nutanix is pretty sure they are covered, legally.

Re: Nutanix Objects violates MinIO’s open source license

#77

Post by bayesian_horse »

Jolter wrote: post #42
pabs3 wrote: post #6

Will revoking their license stop Nutanix from using MinIO or will they have to go to court to get them to stop? I don't see any mention of a lawsuit in the post.

First, revoke the license. That means they are no longer permitted to redistribute the code. If they then continue to redistribute it, they are committing a copyright violation. That’s when there is cause for a lawsuit.

They aren't redistributing it at all, only using it.

Re: Nutanix Objects violates MinIO’s open source license

#78

Post by baisq »

pid-1 wrote: post #12
tut-urut-utut wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don't blame engineers on every single issue. The engineer may not even know there's an issue here. They may be assured by their boss or legal department that they are in the clear. They may not even think about such mundane things like licensing and stuff, that's what they have higher ups for. If someone is to blame, then it's the company leadership and legal department. As much as we want to make us engineers…

> They may not even think about such mundane things like licensing and stuff Imagine a medical doctor or civil engineer claiming that knowing the laws of their professions is "mudane". That's why no one takes programers seriously. > we are not decision makers. You totally can decide to not work on stuff you are not comfortable with. It's not like there's a shortage of software engineering jobs.

I like that I am not being taken seriously as a programmer. I get paid a lot and in exchange I have no responsibilities. If a civil engineer or a doctor make a mistake that kills someone they go to prison. Nothing happens to me for producing crappy code. What are the downsides?

Re: Nutanix Objects violates MinIO’s open source license

#79

Post by cpach »

bayesian_horse wrote: post #76
jarym wrote: post #4

Kudos for MinIO team for spending THREE YEARS trying to resolve this. Shame that they had to resort to a public naming and shaming but sometimes corporate entities are tone deaf. Now this is exposed the next question is if Nutanix Objects is just a MinIO wrapper then what value are they even proving here?

That also means Nutanix is pretty sure they are covered, legally.

I don’t follow. What case would they have to not follow the AGPL…?

Re: Nutanix Objects violates MinIO’s open source license

#80

Post by mananaysiempre »

bad416f1f5a2 wrote: post #48
d3nj4l wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it possible to do something legal, yet morally wrong?

“By selecting this license I give anyone permission to do X, Y, and Z with my software - provided they do A as well.” “I’m going to chose to do Z and A with your software.” “Moral hazard! Moral hazard!” Picking a license indicates what you are willing to have others do with your work. If you don’t want people to be able to monetize it, pick a different license.

> Picking a license indicates what you are willing to have others do with your work.

Picking a license indicates what you are willing to have others do with your work without going after them with a threat of handcuffs and prison bars. I might not be willing to do or threaten (government-mediated) violence to someone for being an arsehole, and yet consider them an arsehole.

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