
“Worrying about licensing is what PG would call a sitcom idea” - tepidandroid
https://github.com/rethinkdb/rethinkdb/issues/6137#issuecomment-275954709
======
notacoward
I've been through relicensing exercises a couple of times. They're a pain, but
a _necessary_ pain because this stuff really does matter and can come back to
haunt you. I might not agree with bcantrill on the "toxicity" of AGPL, but
he's totally on point about the likely effect of failing to deal with the
license issue. "Sitcom idea" only betrays the author's own ignorance.

~~~
bcantrill
My view on its toxicity comes in part from too many conversations with lawyers
over the years: lawyers (like engineers, honestly) are conservative, worst-
case thinkers by nature -- and with the AGPL, one needn't much imagination to
get to a worst-case that threatens one's entire business. As further evidence:
there are a few projects that have started as AGPL, but moved away from it as
they have needed broader adoption[1] -- but there is one notable example of a
project that moved _to_ the AGPL. That project was BerkeleyDB -- which was
relicensed to be AGPL by Oracle.[2] Oracle knew exactly what they were doing
here: cynically using the AGPL's toxicity to drive enterprise adopters of
BerkeleyDB towards a commercial license.

[1] [http://blog.opalang.org/2012/05/opa-license-change-not-
just-...](http://blog.opalang.org/2012/05/opa-license-change-not-just-
agpl.html)

[2] [http://www.infoworld.com/article/2611450/open-source-
softwar...](http://www.infoworld.com/article/2611450/open-source-
software/oracle-switches-berkeley-db-license.html)

~~~
omouse
I like thinking of GPL and AGPL as licenses that solve the freeloader problem.
Corporations and their employees love to lower their costs and externalize
their costs; therefore they use MIT/BSD/Apache licensed code as much as
possible and rely on what is essentially _free_ labour to maintain that code;
they rarely if ever donate.

~~~
Nomentatus
Copyleft addresses the freeloader problem, true - but GPL goes on to grab
patent rights - that's what usually prevents corporate use. Sadly, you aren't
the only one whom confuses copyleft with GPL; which has (unnecessarily) badly
tainted the idea of copyleft, itself. GPL deserves its terrible reputation,
copyleft doesn't. But someone (cough, cough) over-reached.

~~~
wolrah
I'm curious how you believe the GPL has overstepped regarding patents in the
context of a copyleft license.

GPLv2 says very little directly about patents, only touching on the topic by
saying that they're not an excuse for not complying. That implies some things
for patent holders on relevant topics but isn't explicit about it.

GPLv3 basically makes those implications explicit, stating clearly that if you
hold or license any relevant patents you must be able to freely license them
downstream.

To me that stuff is implied with copyleft, because how else could it work?
Since patents restrict my ability to legally redistribute the code, and the
whole point of copyleft is to ensure my ability to legally redistribute the
code, I don't see how they're separable as long as software patents remain
being a thing.

~~~
jdmichal
Does it restrict your capability to distribute the code? Or the user's
capability to run the code unless they have properly licensed the patent
contained therein?

I'm specifically thinking about sub-pixel font rendering, for which FreeType
contains code which is disabled by default due to patents:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subpixel_rendering#Patents](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subpixel_rendering#Patents)

That would imply that it's the latter. Which, of course, is still an issue for
the user. But it does point to the GPL not _requiring_ the patent clause in
order to meet its copyleft goals.

~~~
Nomentatus
Interesting angle. I'd say the courts haven't ruled on this.

FreeType wasn't created by Microsoft, obviously. It has no license for M's
patented tech so it can't include the code live, period. I presume that
FreeType is trying to skirt the law by making it easy for users to break the
law without, they hope, being seen as breaking the law themselves. I don't
know what the court would decide if Microsoft sued. Presumably FreeType would
say that the code was there just to help future programmers catch up when the
patent expires. I'm guessing they wouldn't win that one.

So, I'm going to say it's not a sufficient example.

------
falcolas
> It's a hundred times easier to solve any potential IP problems for a
> successful project

Tell that to the original author of libevhtp, who is currently homeless. To
paraphrase him, "the ideals behind BSD are great until someone derives massive
profits from your work and doesn't share."

Yes, there are other issues contributing to his being homeless; my point is
that putting careful thought into your licensing _is_ important, if only
because you can't always change it later. Being clear on IP ownership is also
quite important, especially with the threat of someone with an army of lawyers
landing on your doorstep.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13423607](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13423607)

EDIT: Fixed name of library, thanks for the check.

~~~
tptacek
The original author of libevent --- if we're talking about the C library that
provides a common event interface between select, poll, epoll, &c --- is Niels
Provos. Niels is definitely not homeless; he works at Google and spends his
weekends making Wootz steel and forging swords from it.

The person you're talking about is the author of libevhtp, a small HTTP
library built on top of libevent. Apparently, Chromium uses or at some point
used libevhtp.

~~~
zerr
[https://github.com/ellzey/libevhtp](https://github.com/ellzey/libevhtp)

Not sure how "small" it is. Seems like a significant work to me, worth some
appreciation, including a financial one.

~~~
tptacek
It replaces one feature of libevent, is built on top of libevent, has fewer
users than libevent, and is substantially smaller in code size than libevent.
That's all I meant to communicate by the word "small".

~~~
zerr
Sure, there are smaller and larger libraries. The fact that the author of the
smaller library is homeless doesn't make it less tragic. I mean the pathos of
the OP still holds even if the named person (and number of lines of code) is
different.

~~~
tptacek
I hadn't even heard of libevhtp before it was brought up as a failure of the
open source model. But I'll bet a pretty big chunk of readers know what
libevent is. That's not a minor mixup. All I'm interested in is correcting it,
and now that I have, I'm not not interested in litigating any of the rest of
this.

------
fusiongyro
He's extremely right. I like RethinkDB, but it's not going to fail because of
accidental success attracting parasitic litigious organisms in the post-
corporate open-source phase. It's going to fail because the only people who
know the code well enough to work on it aren't working on it anymore.

I like RethinkDB a lot, but A) I have no time to contribute and B) my ability
to use and enjoy databases does not automatically confer the ability to write
them. I think most people who liked RethinkDB are in a similar boat to me. I'd
love to see this project take off. But I didn't have money or time for it
before and I still don't. I don't have those things for Postgres either but it
doesn't seem to need them as direly.

~~~
jankotek
I disagree.

If code would be Apache licensed, I personally would consider to start new
company around it. Maybe it would not 'scale', but it would be enough to pay
my bills.

~~~
mrkurt
This isn't an asshole question, I'm actually curious: what could you do with
the Apache license that you can't do with the agpl?

~~~
jankotek
\- Consulting is much harder with AGPL. It is pain to ship products with this
license

\- No way to operate under Apache foundation or other umbrella

\- AGPL is simply banned in many corporations

\- No way to create 'enterprise' proprietary version

\- No way to charge for extended customer support (patches only for
subscribers after free support runs out).

~~~
michaelmrose
Couldn't you as the author offer any of the above by dual licensing it?

------
Nomentatus
There's nothing theoretical about the billions that have already been spent
(wasted) replacing GPL projects with code with a more permissive license -
namely one that actually permits companies to keep their patents, among other
things. Think about Chromium (which is not derived from webkit, that had to be
replaced by Blink) and Android (replacing the GNU libraries and making them
redundant. Total waste, caused by a license that over-reaches. Not everyone
wants to abandon the idea of having patents.

~~~
belorn
The billions that have already been wasted on software patent could be used to
pay developers making better software rather than reinventing around patents.
That some handful companies decides to re-implement existing software just so
they can go after developers with patents is a waste, one that most companies
can't afford nor would it be good if they could. A total waste, caused by
_law_ that over-reaches with no legal or conclusive definition (According to
the European Patent Office).

Software is protected as works of literature under the Berne Convention, yet a
work of literature is not patentable. We don't patent underlying methodologies
of writing a story. We don't have hundred of patent with _slight_ different
wording of the concept of "hero and villain", nor trolls trying to sue every
time someone writes a successful book. We don't have patents of "every day
concept, but this time its a book". That would be a total waste, caused by
over-reaching lobbyists that get to write their own laws if they just spend
enough money on the winning candidate.

~~~
Nomentatus
See my remark above, it's NOT just about software patents - GPL grabs hardware
patents too. No patent is respected. That's a problem.

------
TeMPOraL
For those of us who don't follow RethinkDB story: I was initially confused
about this - they're talking about "open-rethinkdb", even though RethinkDB
itself is open source.

It seems that the company between RethinkDB is shutting down, but trying to
let the project be continued by the community. Some context I found here:
[https://rethinkdb.com/blog/rethinkdb-
shutdown/](https://rethinkdb.com/blog/rethinkdb-shutdown/).

------
rch
> the differences are mostly theoretical

This is simply untrue, and bad advice to anyone thinking of using the product
in a way that's inconsistent with the license. Is the author actually
suggesting people should do that?

------
tepidandroid
It's not my intention to start a flame-war, I'm just interested in hearing
hn's opinion on the merit of this viewpoint.

~~~
tyingq
Seems fairly straightforward to me. The more viral nature of AGPL is limiting
their options for stewardship.

One way of getting around that is to be the owner of the original IP, whereby
you could relicense it under something that wouldn't limit stewardship
options. It seems that's not a possibility, because:

 _" One of the creditors owns the IP and IMO they're unlikely to sell it
unless the project raises fairly substantial sums of money"_

So, basically, they will have to sort out stewardship with fewer options than
what would be optimal.

There seems to be a "far left" and "far right" view on the thread. The "far
left" is that the issues above somehow don't matter at all. The "far right"
view is that they are showstoppers for any kind of stewardship solution.

The truth is somewhere in the middle.

~~~
wmf
I don't understand why everything has to be part of ASF or LF these days. Our
code is open but our thinking seems pretty cargo cult.

~~~
vorg
ASF have had IP and governance problems with Open Office (wrt Libre Office),
Cassandra (wrt DataStax), and Apache Groovy (wrt OCI, IP).

------
mshenfield
Can someone explain if/when the AGPL can be used as part of a closed source
software project?

~~~
icebraining
It's not clear. Supposedly yes as long as it's a separate component (like
using RethinkDB from another process), but not if it's linked into the same
executable. Then again, some people disagree with the FSF on that regarding,
saying that simply linking isn't enough to make it a derived work.

I'm not sure any of this has been well tested in court.

~~~
mshenfield
Makes sense, thanks

------
marknadal
Look, Slava and Mike are incredible guys and ridiculously smart. If Slava
thinks "I wouldn't spend a dime of that money on IP" then you should do that
for two reasons:

1) He's the original founder and should be respected out of courtesy.

2) He just gave you an amazing opportunity to not worry, so take it.

I explore more of my thoughts on Open Source license and the post-mortem on
this just-released The Change Log podcast episode -
[https://changelog.com/podcast](https://changelog.com/podcast) .

One of the things that we are doing is making sure to always license our code
as MIT or ZLIB or Apache 2. This is a promise (and a legal one too) to
developers that the ideals and values of Open Source will always be there,
first and foremost. In fact, the license was determined by a community vote
(see here:
[https://github.com/amark/gun/issues/17](https://github.com/amark/gun/issues/17)
).

People have asked why others (like us) won't shut down in the same way Parse
and Rethink have, I think the answer is simple:

5 billion new people are coming online by 2020 and the technical challenges of
creating scalable systems still exists. So the opportunity is enormous and
proportional to how scalable your system can be - which means decentralized
tools will win out over time compared to their centralized alternatives.

Second, unlike attempts to sell support licenses or DBaaS or crippleware
premium upgrades, we're taking the approach of partnering with
developers/companies that build industry transformational product and
solutions for governments and enterprises. We believe that if we can enable
others to be able to create answers for the needs of large organizations, then
we both can mutually benefit by creating revenue shared partnerships. This is
already happening with several companies, and we're rolling out to a
government (but I can't disclose who/what/how yet).

We think this will work, and it will pave the pathway for other Open Source
vendors that a real business model can work, without any of the unfortunate
alternatives strategies others have taken (open core crippleware, unlikely
support licenses, struggling DBaaS). This creates the best "win-win-win"
environment, where startups get to piggy back for free while governments and
enterprises pay for the much needed technology solutions to handle the coming
transformation.

What transformation am I talking about? Again, the 5B new people, the advent
of IoT and every autonomous car or burrito delivery drone, and the demand for
doing machine learning on the whole system, at a global scale - see this
article on distributed machine learning with gun:
[http://myrighttocode.org/blog/artificial%20intelligence/part...](http://myrighttocode.org/blog/artificial%20intelligence/particle%20swarm/genetic%20algorithm/collective%20knowledge/machine%20learning/gun-
db-artificial-knowledge-sharing) .

This transformation won't succeed unless it can be built on top of truly Open
technology, and that is why license is important.

~~~
AgentME
>then you should do that for two reasons: >1) He's the original founder and
should be respected out of courtesy. >2) He just gave you an amazing
opportunity to not worry, so take it.

I don't have anything against the AGPL, but it seems like you're just saying
"The AGPL isn't a problem because RethinkDB's founders are nice smart people".
And then you explain how it's a great thing that a project yours is using a
less-restrictive license like the AGPL critics are hoping for.

~~~
marknadal
Yes, I know that sounds contradictory, but it is still true. While it is ideal
to have MIT/ZLIB/Apache2, that isn't a reality (and now confirmed, with
Slava's comment) that is going to happen.

Initially, that might be scary, but Slava /also/ said people shouldn't spend a
dime on it or distract from the amazing momentum of carrying RethinkDB forward
(RethinkDB fits certain solutions that GUN isn't optimal for, so it still has
an important niche and place).

You guys are here to do this as a community, for the benefit of all. If you
are afraid the IP owners (when they said they won't) will capitalize on your
success after the community has overcome the challenge... then the intent and
motive is in the wrong place, and that isn't conducive to anybody.

Worse case scenario: So what if they do? The community won't be forgotten,
everybody would still win. Losing momentum is far more dangerous.

