
Redis Labs Changes Its Open-Source License Again - dankohn1
https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/21/redis-labs-changes-its-open-source-license-again/
======
mrob
The biggest change here is the name. Instead of "Apache 2 modified with
Commons Clause", which risked causing confusion with Open Source software, and
with Creative Commons licenses, we get the much clearer "Redis Source
Available License". "Source available" is standard terminology for this type
of proprietary software license, so nobody should be mislead. I approve.

~~~
dcbadacd
I think it's still open-source, it's just not free (as in freedom) software.
I'm annoyed how suddenly redis, even when source is available, is put into the
same bin as say MSSQL, with rest of the "proprietary software".

~~~
gdwatson
The usual definition of open source is the Open Source Definition,[1] which
was adapted from the Debian Free Software Guidelines[2]. The sixth item
prohibits discrimination against fields of endeavor, which this new license
would violate.

It's more like an especially generous version of shared source than open
source.

[1] [https://opensource.org/osd](https://opensource.org/osd) [2]
[https://www.debian.org/social_contract#guidelines](https://www.debian.org/social_contract#guidelines)

~~~
dcbadacd
I do not agree that some organization can define what open source is and
everyone else can't. That's not free.

------
SloopJon
"The community now understands that the original concept of open source has to
be fixed." Well, how lucky for the community that a wise startup came along
and fixed open source.

I get that open source business models are hard, especially in an increasingly
commoditized space like databases. Still, it rubs me the wrong way when a
business wants the goodwill of open source, then tries its hardest to bend the
rules in its favor.

~~~
djsumdog
Why does one have to make money with open source? Why does that have to be a
goal in and of itself. Are people going to take your stuff and not contribute
back? Possibly .. that's why there's the FSF/Stallman and GPLv3 argument.

Out of curiosity would the GPLv3 at least force providers like Amazon to
release any modifications they make to FOSS stuff to turn it into a
hosted/managed service? With things like Apache/BSD/MIT, does AWS currently
mod stuff without releasing the results as FOSS? (Is Aurora DB really modified
MySql or MariaDB under its core?)

But going back to the point, yes this clearly violates the spirit of what many
in the 90s viewed as FOSS culture. You write it because it's fun and you want
to share. If you can make money off of it, that's great. If not, whatevers.

The big players only open source middleware. Facebook will never FOSS
messenger or any big critical parts of the platform itself. They only open the
middle parts so other people can build applications dependent on them and the
other big players.

I wrote about OSS both in the 90s and today a while back. It's kinda a log
read though:

[https://penguindreams.org/blog/the-philosophy-of-open-
source...](https://penguindreams.org/blog/the-philosophy-of-open-source-in-
community-and-enterprise-software/)

~~~
burtonator
> Why does one have to make money with open source? Why does that have to be a
> goal in and of itself

Money is air... without money good luck competing against other technologies.

I find that the OSS community is insanely naive about where OSS comes from.

There's this assumption that it just comes for free like manna from heaven.

I seem HN geeks (saying that in a good way) say how they want to use Firefox
vs Chrome because Firefox is somehow less evil.

But where does Firefox get its money from? Google. Google gets its money from
ads.

If you track down the source of all the OSS we're using there's some root
source that most HN people would not be too happy about.

And the flip side is also true too.

I often hear people complaining about how they don't want to pay for apps and
expect things to come for free.

This REALLY screws over a lot of ISVs that are literally just trying to build
cool apps.

This is really a tragedy of the commons that we don't address very often.

Most billionaires have figured out some way to exploit this issue - much to
our collective disadvantage.

~~~
paulstovell
So much this!

At first the huge corporations saw OSS as a threat. Their model had been to
spend money building software, then charge people for that software. Competing
with $0 software scared them and caught them off guard.

Now the corporations and VCs figured out how to use OSS as a weapon. And it’s
a deadly one!

The developer insistence on everything being open source means that it’s very
easy for a large corporation to destroy a whole lot of ISVs by just releasing
an OSS equivalent. VCs know this too.

OSS is used as a PR tool. Projects like React and Angular go a long way to
making the parent companies look developer-friendly, even though many
developers would normally consider those company’s missions against their
values.

OSS is also a powerful way for corporations to commodotise their complements.
You see this with the cloud vendors jumping behind Kubernetes to ensure Docker
wouldn’t be the next Oracle.

Developers expect everything to be free and open source. We’ll end up in a
world where the only programming jobs left will be at the corporations who
weaponise OSS the best.

~~~
delfinom
>Developers expect everything to be free and open source.

Considering that before "OSS" was big as it is now, many companies would
refuse to fix their proprietary shit even if we were paying, fuck them. Even
now the proprietary software I have to integrate is often basement level
outsourced to 200 consultants trash. If anything, open source filters
companies out those that are at least proud of showing their work.

------
omeid2
"The community now understands that the original concept of open source has to
be fixed."

The open source issue is fixed, it is called AGPL.

However, the issue that Redis along many other suffering from is called brutal
competition, it is not even just tech or open source tech, Amazon is eating
everyone's lunch. I don't have any idea how this _problem_ can be solved.

But, I know that restricting building API compatible software is not a
solution, not a good one at least.

Letting anyone build API compatible software is a natural order of things that
enables innovation and helps consumers avoid lock-in, specially with stagnated
software, this is a big deal and something that we shouldn't give up, so on
that topic, fark Oracle.

~~~
djsumdog
If Redis had some big product people used, and their Redis server was just a
middleware component, it could be a great side business where they sell
support, but not the primary business.

All the other big players like Google/Facebook will open source those middle
pieces to help people who will make apps that will most likely have to
interact with their platforms. They'll never release the source to actual end
products.

Are there any examples where the middle-tier stuff is successful on its own as
a business model? I guess you could say Redhat or Canonical, but even then
they're developing a lot of commercial stuff around the core open source
operating systems/distros .. things like Landscape. Also they got in early,
years ago, and might be able to build a better foundation than more recent
companies.

~~~
spectre256
RedHat is (was?) sortof an example, but their product wasn't the open source
software per-se, it was the guarantees their consulting and support offers.

RedHat makes, for example, patches for kernel vulnerabilities, but they
actually give that away for free. What they sell is a promise that when
there's a new vulnerability, you can get a patch from them quickly.

They also spread this service across MANY different open source packages. Like
you said, a company that just offered services around a smaller package would
have to run a lot more lean and would probably be a risky venture.

~~~
gruez
>RedHat makes, for example, patches for kernel vulnerabilities, but they
actually give that away for free. What they sell is a promise that when
there's a new vulnerability, you can get a patch from them quickly.

What's preventing someone from freeloading? It sounds like regardless of
whether you're paying, you can still get the patches.

~~~
sauceop
If you're running IT for a major corporation and you have an issue with your
OS that prevents your business from operating, what do you do? Hope that your
IT team figures out an issue they've never seen before in code they have no
particular expertise in? No, you want to be able to pull in people who
actually know the technology and have seen it all before.

~~~
spectre256
Right. It would have been be clearer if I sad people pay RedHat for the
promise that they quickly make a patch for any issue available, and that they
know how to identify which patches are relevant for any individual customer.

What's the joke where someone fixes some machine and charges $1000? Their cost
breakdown was:

turning a knob: $1

knowing which knob to turn: $999

------
kodablah
> the community now understands that the original concept of open source has
> to be fixed because it isn’t suitable anymore to the modern era where cloud
> companies use their monopoly power to adopt any successful open source
> project without contributing anything to it.

Assuming "community" means general open source devs/users, this doesn't speak
for everyone. The (admittedly small) stuff I make open source is given to rich
and poor, startup and big cloud company alike. I don't feel "taken advantage
of" when my code is taken, used in secret, and nothing is given back. I'm glad
I could help. Lots of the best open source software are just byproducts of the
primary method of making money instead of its sole driver. All
approaches/opinions are ok, but not everyone has this vindictive attitude
towards how what you give away is used.

~~~
SloopJon
One thing I've found surprising and interesting over the past decade or so is
the popularity of permissive licenses like BSD, MIT, and others. I would have
expected the essential share-alike fairness of copyleft to resonate more. I
don't know if it's down to marketing (the whole viral thing), the influence of
commercial users, or if it's fundamentally what people prefer, as you do.

~~~
e12e
See my other comment here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19223687](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19223687)

The gpl was always about _end user_ freedom. The bsd/mit is more about
developer freedom. Neither guarantees upstreaming of changes - but many see
the gpl as _effectively_ requiring publication of changes. And it does prevent
restricting such publication.

But if you develop a point-of-sale system (say) and sell it to a store chain -
they might not have any motivation to publish the source - even if it includes
a patched mysql, or some gpl code etc (maybe a patched Linux kernel?).

Now, the client _has_ the source, and hire someone else to adapt the system as
needed, or publish the source if they want. But the gpl doesn't _demand_
giving anything back to the original authors.

How is bsd different? In that case the pos could be delivered without any
source code. The client wouldn't be able to maintain it without help from the
original vendor.

~~~
pferde
"But if you develop a point-of-sale system (say) and sell it to a store chain
- they might not have any motivation to publish the source - even if it
includes a patched mysql, or some gpl code etc (maybe a patched Linux
kernel?)."

They also have no obligation to publish it. You are distributing the software
to them, you have to give them the source code along with it. They are _using_
the software, not distributing it further, therefore GPL does not require them
to publish the source code.

(I'm not trying to argue with you here, as I think you know this - I just
thing your comment does not make this detail clear enough. :) )

------
Sir_Cmpwn
Dammit TechCrunch... neither this nor the previous license were/are "open
source".

My comment from another thread:

>As an outspoken critic of the original change, I applaud this move. I still
wish it were open source, but this solves a lot of the confusing nomenclature
I took offense with. Kudos.

That being said, this is some serious bullshit:

>But after the initial noise calmed down — and especially after some other
companies came out with a similar concept — the community now understands that
the original concept of open source has to be fixed

~~~
zokier
The only place TechCrunch refers to it as open source is the title. The
article body even explains that it isn't open source

> By definition, an open-source license can’t have limitations. This new
> license does, so it’s technically not an open-source license.

~~~
Sir_Cmpwn
This language is still awful. The title is inexcusable and this "technically"
qualifier is implying that open source is some flimsy title to be bandied
about with software that is not.

------
antirez
Please make sure to read the official Redis Labs story about the license
change because this TC article is just terrible.
[https://redislabs.com/blog/redis-labs-modules-license-
change...](https://redislabs.com/blog/redis-labs-modules-license-changes/)

~~~
brazzledazzle
TC isn’t exactly known for their journalistic prowess.

------
CharlesW
> _“When we came out with this new license, there were many different views,”
> he acknowledged. “Some people condemned that. But after the initial noise
> calmed down — and especially after some other companies came out with a
> similar concept — the community now understands that the original concept of
> open source has to be fixed because it isn’t suitable anymore to the modern
> era where cloud companies use their monopoly power to adopt any successful
> open source project without contributing anything to it.”_

So, is it true that HN now understands and is cool with Redis Labs "fixing"
the concept of open source?

From reading previous threads on HN this seems like a mischaracterization, but
it's quite possible I missed the relevant thread(s).

~~~
spectre256
I think it's fair to say that people are acknowledging the problem: it's
possible for a large company to use the rights offered to them by an open
source license to create products that effectively end the financial viability
of smaller companies that lead core development of the project.

There's definitely not yet agreement on the solution, and Redis Labs alone is
not going to solve it.

Roughly I think different people believe several things such as:

1.) The purity of open source (no restrictions on use) trump the needs of a
company that does core development to profit, and so nothing should change.

2.) Its ok for companies doing core OSS development to "build a moat" that
protects their revenue stream, but it shouldn't be done at the license level.
Instead companies should look somewhere else like their expertise/reputation,
building products on top of their open source code, etc

3.) Adjusting licenses is a reasonable way to allow interesting code to be
available for use by anyone (under a not-quite pure open source license), and
we are figuring out the best way to do that

~~~
jhall1468
> I think it's fair to say that people are acknowledging the problem: it's
> possible for a large company to use the rights offered to them by an open
> source license to create products that effectively end the financial
> viability of smaller companies that lead core development of the project.

That's been true since the MIT and Apache license came into existence.

Your third item just reeks of justification. "not-quite pure open source
license" is nonsense. This is not an open source license, at its core. The
goal here is to _prevent_ use.

So I don't think the third is a valid option when we're discussing "fixing"
open source. It's a valid option for protecting a companies revenue stream,
but in doing so that company is no longer an "open source company" by
definition.

------
avar
I wish Redis and its ecosystem was 100% open source, but I also wish for a
pony.

I applaud Redis Labs for not being one of the companies (such as MongoDB) that
appears to be intentionally trying to muddy the waters by blurring the
distinction between open source and proprietary software.

~~~
kemitchell
> intentionally trying to muddy the waters by blurring the distinction between
> open source and proprietary software

Consider this quote from RMS, in _Copyleft: Pragmatic Idealism_ :

> I make my code available for use in free software, and not for use in
> proprietary software, in order to encourage other people who write software
> to make it free as well. I figure that since proprietary software developers
> use copyright to stop us from sharing, we cooperators can use copyright to
> give other cooperators an advantage of their own: they can use our code.

[https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/pragmatic.en.html](https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/pragmatic.en.html)

------
irq-1
Community edition (open) and Enterprise edition (closed) has been a strategy
for years, but now AWS/GCP/Azure are building the enterprise part themselves
using the community software.

Changing the enterprise/closed license won't stop the cloud providers.
Changing the open source license will: imagine a 4-part BSD that adds a
license fee for organizations with over a billion in revenue. That goes to the
heart of the problem and still lets everyone else use the software like it's a
3-part BSD.

------
jarym
I’m beginning to think the coolness of open sourcing stuff is wearing off a
bit.

If it is core tech to a business then why bother? Lots of cool projects don’t
really get that many contributors. No point getting a community hooked on your
software if you have to give it away and hope they’ll one day buy some
services so you get paid.

All in all I foresee it becoming easier that source is kept closed for all
things non-core to a business.

~~~
kemitchell
F/OSS' counterculture days are over. They _are_ the culture.

Consider: [https://opensource.org/sponsors](https://opensource.org/sponsors)

------
eberkund
Given the choice between close source software and open source software which
is restricted legally I will still gladly take the latter.

------
flurdy
Think we need a standardised AGPL-like license that includes API as well as
code. (Cue Oracle v Google ) There may be several in existence already?

To prevent AWS and its ilk duplicating features of other's products but not
really run (or pretending to not...) their software underneath.

I also hoped Morsi's tweaks to AGPL, the Lesser Affero GPLv3, would have
become more popular.

[1]
[http://mo.morsi.org/blog/2009/08/13/lesser_affero_gplv3/](http://mo.morsi.org/blog/2009/08/13/lesser_affero_gplv3/)

~~~
kemitchell
I'd love more feedback on this license:

[https://github.com/kemitchell/api-copyleft-
license/blob/mast...](https://github.com/kemitchell/api-copyleft-
license/blob/master/license.md)

It's written in everyday English. We've already had some great feedback from
interested hackers.

~~~
flurdy
This looks very good to me. I do not speak legalese but it seems to me to
cover the API clauses I was looking for.

I may be using this license for some projects going forward. :)

~~~
kemitchell
I am about to release a version 1.0.0. I'd strongly suggest you watch releases
on GitHub.

I'd also appreciate a note on GitHub about any projects using the license.
Eventually, I'd like to add a list to the repo.

------
tanilama
What are Redis's alternatives? Might be a good idea to have one, had their VC
backers pushed them too far into monetization, leading to even more drastic
licensing changes.

~~~
djur
It doesn't look like Redis requires a copyright assignment from its
contributors. The bulk of the files have a copyright statement for Salvatore
Sanfilippo (antirez), but other contributors have copyrights in there as well
(including Redis Labs). Redis Labs employs antirez and bought the trademark
from him, but it doesn't appear that he transferred copyright to them. Even if
he had, I don't think Redis Labs would be able to unilaterally relicense
Redis.

What Redis Labs owns (and is distributing under this new proprietary license)
is a set of modules that they developed for use with Redis. They aren't
officially part of Redis.

~~~
WorldMaker
Yeah, it's a very ugly and confusing case of "trademark overload" where
"Redis™ Labs" is not directly the owner of "redis" the server application but
is directly the owner of "Redis™ Modules" add-ons for the server application.
Redis™ is not exactly "redis", one of these things is not like the other.

------
detaro
Redislabs' announcement: [https://redislabs.com/blog/redis-labs-modules-
license-change...](https://redislabs.com/blog/redis-labs-modules-license-
changes/)

------
luord
So they've essentially admitted that redis labs is now open core. Good for
them, I remember how adamantly they tried to deny it during the "commons
clause" debacle.

------
hannob
Hey Techcrunch, I fixed this headline for you:

"Redis Labs Changes Its Non-Open-Source License Again"

------
johncolanduoni
I don't really see how cloud providers are using their "monopoly power to
adopt any successful open source project without contributing anything to it".
The fact that e.g. AWS is a (near) monopoly, or even just massive has little
to do with it. They provide VMs, those VMs can run software, and if you want
they'll manage the VMs with the given software for you if you'd rather not
worry about it. Rackspace does the same thing, and they're a million miles
away from a monopoly.

I don't see how these measures are practical either. Redis is much easier to
do a cleanroom implementation of than MongoDB, so I doubt this kind of thing
will produce any other kind of response from Amazon.

~~~
skrebbel
It's not about VMs, it's about "Amazon so-and-so is a fully managed cloud
database that speaks the XYZ protocol", which is code for "we forked a popular
open source product and we're not going to contribute our changes back".

~~~
johncolanduoni
I don’t believe that DocumentDB actually runs any MongoDB code. On the other
extreme, there aren’t any apparent Amazon-only features in their services that
are simply hosted versions like they do with Redis (via Elasticache). If that
was the issue these companies could have just gone with the AGPL. The problem
isn’t that they’re maintaining internal forks with changes they won’t
contribute back, it’s that they’re either (a) running unmodified versions or
(b) cleanrooming the whole shebang.

I don’t see how to make the first impossible without effectively using a
proprietary license, and banning the second would hurt open source much more
than it would help it

