Making the GPL more scary
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Making the GPL more scary
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Re: Making the GPL more scary
#2Do I understand it right, that whatever a project I build using MongoDB (i.e. any website/app that uses a MongoDB instance as a backend to store data directly or via a middleware layer or has a feature of connecting to MongoDB) I must open-source it completely? This feels a way too radical if so.
Re: Making the GPL more scary
#3I would like to make it explicit that only flesh and blood individuals should have access to freedom 0. These licenses are a step in a direction closer to what I would like to see, but aren't quite there yet.
If you as a person want to run software xyz and try to make money off of it, go ahead. As soon as you open a limited company to reduce your exposure you should be hit with paying license fees.
I don't get the hate for the licenses that try to remove freedom 0 for corporations. At work I suggest horrible propitiatory software solutions all the time because it doesn't matter how locked down the stack is.
So long as it has a ROI of >3% over the fixed and running costs it's a good solution.
No one is harmed by human first open source software, other than a legal fictions bottom line.
Re: Making the GPL more scary
#4Do I understand it right, that whatever a project I build using MongoDB (i.e. any website/app that uses a MongoDB instance as a backend to store data directly or via a middleware layer or has a feature of connecting to MongoDB) I must open-source it completely? This feels a way too radical if so.
I think this is only about cases where you expose MongoDB directly, not if you use it in the backend.
Re: Making the GPL more scary
#5The change in licence terms sounds too stringent — far beyond just the scope of derived works which is typically the case. Especially “requiring a relicensing of the Linux kernel if a MongoDB service runs on Linux”?
MongoDB can very well stop calling itself an open source software then when to use it in any significant manner, one needs to get into a proprietary license agreement. Wish the license doesn’t get approved as a valid open-source license.
Re: Making the GPL more scary
#6Do I understand it right, that whatever a project I build using MongoDB (i.e. any website/app that uses a MongoDB instance as a backend to store data directly or via a middleware layer or has a feature of connecting to MongoDB) I must open-source it completely? This feels a way too radical if so.
I think this is only about cases where you expose MongoDB directly, not if you use it in the backend.
I believe that is what prompted the Server Side Public License (SSPL) creation, but as written could be interpreted to cover more than just offering MongoDB as a service.
From the SSPL:
13. Offering the Program as a Service.
If you make the functionality of the Program or a modified version available to third parties as a service, you must make the Service Source Code available via network download to everyone at no charge, under the terms of this License. Making the functionality of the Program or modified version available to third parties as a service includes, without limitation, enabling third parties to interact with the functionality of the Program or modified version remotely through a computer network, offering a service the value of which entirely or primarily derives from the value of the Program or modified version, or offering a service that accomplishes for users the primary purpose of the Program or modified version
“Service Source Code” means the Corresponding Source for the Program or the modified version, and the Corresponding Source for all programs that you use to make the Program or modified version available as a service, including, without limitation, management software, user interfaces, application program interfaces, automation software, monitoring software, backup software, storage software and hosting software, all such that a user could run an instance of the service using the Service Source Code you make available.
Re: Making the GPL more scary
#7I wasn't aware Mongo had the kind of market-share that would allow them to pull this off. While some people might pay, it's just going to remove trust. Who's going to recommend Mongo after this? Good chance it won't even be considered Free Software anymore.
Re: Making the GPL more scary
#8The AGPL is a great license for free software development. It is also great to be coupled with a proprietary license, something that does no often make sense with other licenses.
Re: Making the GPL more scary
#9I'm probably going to get a lot of flak for this, but here's an opinion supporting the MongoDB license. Two things:
1. MongoDB has the right to do whatever they like
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The creator of a product:
1. Has a rational interest in maximizing their returns
2. Owns all the rights to their products (barring existing IP restrictions)
And if they choose to open source their code:
3. it is of their own prerogative
4. without any obligation to do so.
Given 1, and 2, if they open source their code, they're an awesome person because they're revealing some portion of their secret business logic to the public. With that, they are entitled to whatever conditions they put on their code. That includes CLA's regardless of how much potential contributors will protest.
It doesn't matter how "against the spirit of open source" a CLA, or an overly radical copy-left license is. The creator of the product will always have an obligation to their own interests first, and since they're already sacrificing trade secrets by revealing their software source (something they were never obligated to), they can honestly do whatever they'd like.
And this includes ensuring that everyone using their software open-sources all forks of their software. Heck, even open-sources everything they use in support of their software.
Let's face it, if their software just weren't that good, no one would use it.
2. This License Means More Open Source Code
----------------------------------------------------
If the outside world wants more open source code, I don't see why they'd giving MongoDB any flak for this. All this license will do is result in more open-source code. After all, isn't that the point all along?
Or are zealous demands for open-source code only valid while it's all about a single popular product by a big company (MongoDB), and not when smaller software components by smaller companies (billing, hosting scripts by SaaS providers)?
Edited for grammar and other things my brain missed
Re: Making the GPL more scary
#10I'm probably going to get a lot of flak for this, but here's an opinion supporting the MongoDB license. Two things: 1. MongoDB has the right to do whatever they like ------------------------------------------------------ The creator of a product: 1. Has a rational interest in maximizing their returns 2. Owns all the rights to their products (barring existing IP restrictions) And if they choose to open source their co…
The reaction you speak of is called “bitter zeal” in classical spiritual direction. One gets upset because someone else does good but “not as I understand it or not within my group.”
Nothing new under the sun.