
Commons Clause - dankohn1
https://redislabs.com/community/commons-clause/
======
XiZhao
Hi folks. Kevin from [http://fossa.io](http://fossa.io) here. I worked on
bringing the Commons Clause to life
([https://commonsclause.com/](https://commonsclause.com/)) and led many of the
project efforts here.

Happy to answer questions here (or on Twitter @kevinverse).

I wanted to write a blog post to set some context because the real story is a
lot less salacious then "Redis just went proprietary", but here's a quick
summary:

1/ No, Redis isn't proprietary. It's only some enterprise modules. The Commons
Clause is mostly used to temporarily transition enterprise offering
counterparts of OSS projects to source-available.

2/ OSS projects are mainly funded by some proprietary offering or service on
top of it. Anything to help the ability to monetize this layer is really good,
as the fate of the project is directly tied to this revenue stream. A quick
reminder, companies like Redis sink 10s of millions into RnD and are usually
contributing over 99% of the code to these repos.

3/ OSS-savvy companies aren't dumb. They understand the optics of any
licensing announcement and carefully consider what it will mean. Before we
react, we should push ourselves to understand what systems are forcing deeply
passionate OSS devs to consider more proprietary options.

~~~
DannyBee
As an open source lawyer, this is definitely not an open source license in any
meaningful sense (it meets no definition of open source/free software/DFSG/you
name it).

No restrictions on fields of endeavor and no discrimination is a pretty basic
tenent that goes back a long long time (the DFSG were published in 1997, there
are other things saying the same thing that pre-date it).

I also know this is what other open source lawyers are saying as well (in
fact, i haven't seen _one_ who believes it is anything else).

I'm sure you can make up another word other than "proprietary" to call it, but
...

As for questions: The main commons clause page makes the claim "Initiated by a
coalition of top infrastructure software companies to protect their rights"

Care to list them?

Additionally, even ignoring the significant vagueness in the clause, there are
plenty of combinations of licenses with which this clause makes literally no
sense. It seems there is no guide or policing of these. Truthfully, this all
does not feel well thought out. Who actually participated in the drafting?

Here is one that exists in practice:

neo4j is commons clause + AGPLv3

AGPLv3 section 7: If the Program as you received it, or any part of it,
contains a notice stating that it is governed by this License along with a
term that is a further restriction, you may remove that term.

...

GPLv3 is identical in this respect, and LGPLv3 is a set of permissions on top
of GPLV3 that does not revoke this clause.

This seems to make commons clause incompatible with a lot of software.

~~~
mchahn
I've never heard of an open-source lawyer. I understand totally how valuable
it is to litigate open-source issues, but I'm curious as to who pays for such
services? Being able to pay lawyers seems unlikely for a free product.

~~~
ZiiS
10 out of 10 of the largest tech firms in the world release significant
opensource software: Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Google, Facebook, Alibaba,
Intel, Oracle, Samsung and Baidu. They turnover more then $1 trillion and use
many lawyers.

------
wkoszek
Weird. Company full of Open Source guys, but I think they didn't get the right
advice on a business model. The reason why MIT/BSD/Apache licenses are there
is that there's a group of people who want to let companies use their stuff.
If you want people pay you, you just release commercial software, without
showing the source. License is something that once put in, it's too late to
change later, and not disrupt how your technology is used in the field.

e.g.: I was contributing to FreeBSD because I wanted to contribute to BSD
licensed-software, with a hope people from FANG would use it, and maybe hire
me later. If FreeBSD made a chance to the license, it'd no longer be FreeBSD.
It'd be FreeCommonsClause--different project. I wouldn't like to contribute to
this.

As a CEO fo a software company, if I were to go and analyze what this license
change means to my business, and probably get uncertain answer, I'd rather
fork Redis from before the license change, and run on the copy.

Why? Because the fee for a US software engineer is $X, for a over-sees is
$0.3X or $0.5X. Fee for a US copyright lawyer with expertise in software is
10$X. Pay that much money for no value-added to my business makes no sense to
me.

~~~
slavak
Sorry for spamming this all over the post, but I think it's important enough
for everyone to see this:

Redis itself IS NOT changing licenses, and if you only use the core Redis
product you are unaffected. This license change only applies (or _will_ apply,
I guess) to some source-available addon Redis modules. (I'm not sure if any
existing open-source modules developed by Redis Labs will have their license
changed, or if this will only apply to modules published after the
announcement.)

Full disclosure: Am a Redis Labs employee, although not here in any official
capacity.

~~~
bigiain
Since you're spamming this everywhere, I'll repeat _my_ concerns.

1) Some of us no longer trust the company not to bait-and-switch again. 2)
It's almost guaranteed that at least future useful developments will happen
under the proprietary and consulting-encumbered license.

I'll admit the company has every right to execute on #2 - t is 100% without
doubt going to have me reconsidering our use of redis here, and keeping a very
close eye on what Amazon and Google (and others) do in response to this, as I
decide what alternative to the consulting-encumbered software we might use
going forward.

~~~
slavak
Re. 1, that's a fair point. For what it's worth, the blog post does explicitly
promise, in writing, that Redis itself will remain BSD-licensed forever. Take
that for what you will, since I certainly don't have any more info on their
intentions than you do (and probably would be prohibited from talking about it
if I did), and you have no reason to trust me any more than the blog. I
believe a written commitment under a company's official domain should at least
have some legal weight, though IANAL.

Re. 2, I /personally/ believe the BSD-licensed Redis itself will continue to
be developed and improved as before, but I hope you appreciate why I'm being
very cautious about what I say. I'm not really positioned or authorized to
make any statements on behalf of Redis Labs.

~~~
Xylakant
> believe a written commitment under a company's official domain should at
> least have some legal weight, though IANAL.

It doesn’t. It’s a promise made by someone who just reneged on another
implicit promise.

------
mmastrac
This is the license below. I'm pretty sure this is going to be vague enough to
cause problems with a ton of legal departments. They want to be the only ones
hosting it and the the only ones you call in to help with it.

I get where the Redis folks are coming from, but this is basically a nail in
the product and guarantees a fork if they don't turn back.

=== 8< ===

The Software is provided to you by the Licensor under the License, as defined
below, subject to the following condition.

Without limiting other conditions in the License, the grant of rights under
the License will not include, and the License does not grant to you, the right
to Sell the Software.

For purposes of the foregoing, “Sell” means practicing any or all of the
rights granted to you under the License to provide to third parties, for a fee
or other consideration (including without limitation fees for hosting or
consulting/ support services related to the Software), a product or service
whose value derives, entirely or substantially, from the functionality of the
Software. Any license notice or attribution required by the License must also
include this Commons Cause License Condition notice.

~~~
marcinzm
>substantially

Wow, that's a legal landmine. Is there even a legal standard or consensus for
what "substantial" means?

~~~
michaelhoffman
It's something that would be decided by a judge or a jury.

~~~
sleepychu
Right, exactly. So at this point how am I supposed to use your software for
anything commercial at all, without the fear that one day you'll decide it's
offering me substantial value? (If the answer is "Do not" then just license it
correctly).

------
mark_element
I don't like the naming. "Apache 2.0 with commons clause" is not the right way
to describe this licensing paradigm. It is fundamentally no longer Apache 2.0.
I appreciate the motivation, but think it would better serve everyone to just
make a new "Redis License" that describes the terms.

~~~
incompatible
The name is kind of implying that it's somehow related to Creative Commons. I
assume the latter organization actually has nothing to do with it?

~~~
paulddraper
Yeah... I'm interested to know why they picked they been.

------
pmilot
Doesn't this Commons Clause goes specifically against one of the core
principles of Free Software? The whole idea is that a Free Software license
should not restrict what you can do with said software.

Even the most restrictive FS licenses like GPL will not prevent me from
selling consulting services around the product licensed under it.

If you combine this clause with a Free Software license, it sounds to me like
it is no longer FS. You can't have your cake and eat it too.

~~~
kazinator
> _Even the most restrictive FS licenses like GPL will not prevent me from
> selling consulting services around the product licensed under it._

At least this doesn't prevent _buying_ those services. If I obtain the program
from some party A, then A redistributed it to me. Then if I contract B to work
on/with the software, B is not bound by the contract because they did not
redistribute it to me. However, though I can pay B, neither of us can sell the
enhancements though, if enhancements were made.

Moreover, I can't use the software to run any kind of business, because that's
might be a product or service that arguably derives substantial value from the
software.

------
geofft
> _but all other users will be unaffected by this change._

This is untrue for the simple reason that you will be unable to apt-get
install this software directly from Linux distros with a policy of including
only FOSS.

Or, more generally - the value of FOSS is in the opportunities for public
collaboration and redistribution. If you think you're doing the vast majority
of the development work anyway and you want people to get packages from you
anyway, great, there's no need for an open-source license at all: just provide
source, allow people to make private modifications, and allow people to send
fixes back to you. If you value the open source ecosystem, though, cutting
yourself off from it is a bad plan.

~~~
dcow
They mention later on that redis core will always remain BSD. I share your
sentiment, though it seems like this is an effort to not totally isolate the
project. Their goal appears to be clamping down on straight up resale of
integration components & modules.

~~~
justinjlynn
If they're concerned about brand dilution via resale of "Redis"-as-a-Service
RedisLabs could easily trademark the term Redis and prohibit its use in this
way. This mechanism is much the same way Mozilla controls the Firefox
trademarks. I do wish they hadn't made their Open Source licence a confusing
mess and effectively proprietary for certain modules. That's their right, of
course - as copyright holders. However, it's really unhelpful for the rest of
the community. We're going to spend a lot of time trying to clarify for people
who don't understand the implications of these toxic licence provisions why
they make such components unacceptable.

~~~
mattdeboard
I mean.. I'm sure they're concerned far more about corporations making money
off their unpaid work by hiding it under many layers of abstraction.

"Use our stuff for free to do new stuff. But if you're making money off our
stuff by selling our stuff's features, then we need to talk licensing first."

If this is an accurate summary, I really don't see anything scandalous about
it.

~~~
justinjlynn
Surely this kind of resale of enterprise proprietary software modules is
already prohibited by their enterprise licensing scheme. If it's open source,
this is precisely what open source is meant to do. It's supposed to be a means
to an end to enable new functionality - the fact that it's being sold doesn't
matter. The key is that we all gain that ability. If they want to compete in
that space with their open source product then they should run a hosting
outfit - not try to rent seek from people adding value by actually running
their code in production.

~~~
mattdeboard
This is absolutely not Redis rent-seeking. In fact, what the Commons Clause is
designed to protect against, from my lay-reading of it, _is in fact rent-
seeking_.

As for the rest, the Redis Labs post addresses every point you make pretty
definitively. I don't think many of the people who are bothered by this
business decision read that post. And if they did, and they comprehended it
all, but they still think Redis decided poorly, then I think there's a
different convo to have. A broader one about values.

Or... hey, maybe they're just not as cynical as me. Maybe they don't think
it's plausible companies are out there right now selling their "Redis with a
few bells & whistles" product. Then it stands to reason that you'd see the
Commons Clause as some kind of enablement to somehow rent-seek from innocent
corporations. I mean hell I'd prefer that. If that's the case then I'd
probably share that person's opinion about Commons Clause.

I just don't think that's the case. I believe Redis is making this licensing
change in good faith. Not because I know anything about Redis that leads me to
believe they're honest people. But because a product team lazily putting
together a product at AMZN or GOOG or whatever else and not even thinking to
look at the Redis license sounds pretty realistic to me!

Occam's Razor would say this is not an elaborate scheme by Redis to extort
Fortune 500 companies.

~~~
justinjlynn
> But because a product team lazily putting together a product at AMZN or GOOG
> or whatever else and not even thinking to look at the Redis license sounds
> pretty realistic to me!

No.

------
sgentle
> Help! Companies are exploiting my open source software for profit!

Uh, you told them they could.

> Yeah, but they're doing it without contributing back! They're just taking
> what _I_ wrote and building it into a proprietary product!

You told them they could.

> But how is it fair that they can make so much money off my code and I never
> see a cent?

You. Told. Them. They. Could.

Time and again I see the same sense of helpless outrage from OSS devs. You owe
it to yourself to understand the consequences of the license you choose, now
and in the future. All the proselytising about permissive vs reciprocal
licenses has only masked the important personal choices involved. Choices that
you need to make honestly and carefully, or end up burned by your own
expectations.

Are you willing to release your code, both in the sense of putting it out into
the world and emancipating it from your ownership? Do you accept that your
code could be renamed, rebranded, repackaged, rented, traded or sold? Would
you be happy if your code made someone else rich, famous or successful while
you saw no benefit at all? If so, your code is a gift given unconditionally,
and you should choose a permissive license.

If not, the answer isn't to release it under an MIT license and then complain
about it, but to pick a license that matches your intent. The GPL exists for a
reason. The MPL exists for a reason. Not because the people who use reciprocal
licenses hate freedom, but because their idea of freedom is based on sharing
rather than giving. A gift expects nothing in return. Sharing expects that you
share as well.

Any choice is a fine choice as long as it aligns with your goals. What I don't
get is trying to have both and then being upset when you're rebuffed by
reality. Picking a permissive license is being the chill surfer dude who lives
in a van and just, like, takes life as it comes, man. Lots of people like the
idea of that dude, very few people want to actually be that dude. Don't pick
the BSD license because of its cool I-don't-care image. Pick it because you
actually don't care, or be forced to admit publicly and embarrassingly later
that you actually did all along and it was all a show.

And for the love of god, don't pick a permissive license, slap a preface on
top that says "but not really tho", and act like you've found some amazing
lifehack. You're just lying to yourself and everyone else; wearing open
source's uniform without making open source's sacrifices.

~~~
tannhaeuser
I agree. There's the reflex (here and elsewhere) to dismiss reciprocal
licenses such as GPL, AGPL as "uncool", pretentious, and show-stopping. Maybe
it's time to reconsider in times of cloud oligopoles. Because why would you
want your software become part of the lock-in strategy of a cloud provider.

~~~
another-cuppa
It's really sad that the GPL has essentially "gone out of fashion". It's sad
that developers would be driven merely by fashion rather than careful
consideration. The fact that we have free software _at all_ is largely thanks
to the GNU and the GPL.

~~~
rplnt
It's not just fashion. It's a question of "Do I want someone to use my
software?", because with GPL the answer would be no for a lot of projects.

~~~
another-cuppa
Why do you think that? Linux is the most widely used operating system in the
world and it's licensed under GPL. People don't choose not to use software
because it's GPL. Why would they?

~~~
yebyen
You're mistaken. (Well, maybe not mistaken if I read exactly what you said
literally, but people/companies most certainly do choose not to use GPL
software if they're looking to build a system that they can exploit for
profit-making purposes.)

It takes a very forward-thinking person to understand that they have more to
gain from the thousands of eyes and the support of the community, than from a
paywall that gates access to their creation. (And that person could reasonably
choose to license their software as GPL or any other open license, there are
lots of trade-offs.)

But if you're not building the system from scratch, you need to be aware of
the licenses you've accepted, and for many businesses the addition of GPL
software to the stack will be a non-starter. Do you think we'd have Apple as
it is today if it wasn't for BSD Unix and the BSD license?

~~~
nine_k
Would we have Android today were it not for GPLv2 and Linux licensed under it?

But indeed, GPL _does_ limit the ways you can distribute software licensed
under it. In particular, licensing something like a library, or another early-
bound component under GPL forces the users to license their work under GPL,
too. This is why LGPL exists.

~~~
yebyen
Absolutely! Not saying that Apple model is right or wrong, but they certainly
chose BSD consciously (whether or not it was because of the encumbrance of
GPL, or any technical reasons).

It's simply wrong to say that nobody pays attention to this. It's a choice you
make, and whether you view the consequences as "repercussions" or "features"
depends entirely on your view and the actual outcomes of those choices.

Fwiw I understand that Darwin is also available as BSD, so it seems you can
get some good actors that are willing to pay it forward without necessarily
needing to add a license that goads them into it.

~~~
__d
Apple/NeXT had serious experience with the GPL license when shipping their
GCC-based Objective-C compiler.

Their subsequent choice to use BSD-licensed components, and to support/create
BSD-licensed components where only GPLed components existed, must be seen in
the light of this experience.

------
antirez
I clarified that the Redis core
([https://github.com/antirez/redis](https://github.com/antirez/redis)) remains
BSD, and what I think about the license switch Redis Labs is operating on
certain Redis Modules.

[https://twitter.com/antirez/status/1032180321834467330](https://twitter.com/antirez/status/1032180321834467330)

and the considerations thread:

[https://twitter.com/antirez/status/1032192721308594176](https://twitter.com/antirez/status/1032192721308594176)

~~~
erikrothoff
Sorry to hijack this thread, but am I understanding correctly that Disque will
be AGPL? Does that mean that building a SaaS using Disque would require me to
open source the code that uses Disque? Is that the reasoning why you are
choosing AGPL?

Thanks for your awesome work btw.

~~~
antirez
Hello, yes indeed Disque will be AGPL and all the changes operated in order to
create an SaaS related to Disque will have to be open sourced as well. The
reason of the license switch is that I do no longer consider acceptable for
cloud providers to take the value generated elsewhere and monetize without
providing anything back. I was a big BSD supporter but it no longer works in
the cloud era for system software IMHO.

~~~
erikrothoff
Our use-case would be installing Redis with Disque on our servers (VPS) to run
it for our own infrastructure. Job queues n such. Not sell it to other users
as ”hosted disque” etc. Is that a use case you are against too?

~~~
antirez
No the end goal is not to go against your use case, but as a side effect AGPL
will actually remand even this use case to make the changes available.

~~~
numbsafari
To be clear, you are referring to changes to Disqueue code itself and not any
code or service that communicates with with Disqueue via its APIs, or the
configuration that I use when launching Disqueue (e.g. my disqueue.conf).

Said another way, if I make a patch to the binary that I compile to, for
example, fix a bug that isn't yet in upstream or to add a feature that isn't
yet in upstream, I must make those changes available as per AGPL.

Is that understanding correct?

------
pdeva1
To be fair, Redis itself still remains BSD licensed.

The other modules for Redis developed by RedisLabs [1] are under the new
Commons Clause license.

The big 3 cloud providers provide Redis as a cache service and don't use these
modules anyway, so their offerings will remain unaffected.

[1] [https://redislabs.com/community/oss-
projects/](https://redislabs.com/community/oss-projects/)

~~~
smnrchrds
I wonder if it will follow the path of Android: start with a huge open source
base and some propriety bits on top, and as they go on, move more and more of
the functionality to the propriety part until the open source part is useless
by itself.

~~~
pdeva1
that definitely seems to be the plan. this is the first step towards it.

------
itwasntandy
Weird thing is it just a few months ago that AWS contributed what I would
consider a pretty significant feature to Redis - encryption in transit:

[https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/opensource/open-sourcing-
encryp...](https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/opensource/open-sourcing-encryption-
in-transit-redis/)

While it’s not merged yet, antirez at the time seemed pretty onboard with the
approach. ( first Point in
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16943289](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16943289)
). The delay in merging seems understandable based on the comments and
discussion on the PR.

So leaves me wondering what’s changed. Obviously antirez != redislabs and
their focus is on the OSS side of redis, but the announcement seems to suggest
that none of the cloud providers contribute back which isn’t the case?

------
phpnode
Yikes, the wording around consulting seems especially worrisome - are they
effectively prohibiting third parties from providing redis technical support?
This move will likely kill the project as it is today.

~~~
bobsky
This is limitation around selling software/product not consulting, per bottom
of post:

"...if your product is an application that uses such a module to perform
select functions, you can use it freely and there are no restrictions on
selling your product. However, if what you sell is basically the functionality
of the module packaged as a cloud service or on-prem software, Commons Clause
does not allow it."

~~~
mmastrac
Consulting is specially called out in the actual license as a no-no:
"including without limitation fees for hosting or consulting/ support services
related to the Software"

------
hlieberman
For the record, this license is obviously incompatible with the Debian Free
Software Guidelines; I suspect it is non-free enough to not even be shipped by
Red Hat and the other semi-commercial *nix's.

~~~
nijave
Curious about vendors like Red Hat as well. Seems like their umbrella support
would conflict. Also curious about companies that might want to bundle Redis
in their product

~~~
lwf
It'd need to be clearly marked — the promise we make in Debian ``main`` is
quite strong: if you install it, you can use it for any purpose, modify it,
share the changes with your neighbour, etc.

And (although not __explicitly __codified, we touch on it in "must not
contaminate"), you can install Debian on a system, install any package in
``main``, then clone the resulting disk and redistribute it as an image. This
precludes having things like ``zfs`` in ``main``, as (last time I reviewed
it), it was pretty clear that the resulting combined work was probably not
redistributable.

(N.B.: I'm on the team that maintains ftp-master.debian.org, and reviews all
new software for DFSG-freeness, amongst other qualities)

------
jononor
The primary target here seems to be cloud hosting companies that provide
Redis-as-a-Service. But the seemingly wide definition of Sell, including how
consulting/support services are mention makes me confused. Can I as a software
developer working as a consultant, still create an app for customers which
uses Redis with modules under Commons Clause?

...the License does not grant to you, the right to Sell the Software. For
purposes of the foregoing, “Sell” means practicing any or all of the rights
granted to you under the License to provide to third parties, for a fee or
other consideration (including without limitation fees for hosting or
__consulting /support services related to the Software __), a product or
service whose value derives, entirely or substantially, from the functionality
of the Software...

One of the nice things about MIT/BSD/Apache over GPL/LPGL was the ability to
use a software without needing to involve lawyers. This might just have gone
out the window...

~~~
oliwarner
Yeah it's awful. But in answer to your question: Maybe.

It looks a lot more forgiving if you flip it over from "what do they say I can
do?" to "what could I get away with?". They'd have to find _you_ first. Then
prove you were paid. Then they'd have to prove that use-case was
_substantially_ dependent on their software.

Unless your employer went to Redis an announces all this, their ability to go
after consulting/freelance developers is very limited.

I think this is, as others have said, a cash-grab at the cloud market who
advertise these sorts of services publicly. They're easy targets.

~~~
aequitas
"what could I get away with"

Seems like an awful thing to build your business around.

------
andrepd
>Today, most cloud providers offer Redis as a managed service over their
infrastructure and enjoy huge income from software that was not developed by
them. Redis’ permissive BSD open source license allows them to do so legally,
but this must be changed.

Then it seems the solution is simple: use GPL rather than BSD. In other words,
say "Do you want to use this free software for your benefit? Fine, but in turn
give back _your_ improvements to the community for _our_ benefit.". Without
this safeguard, progress and shared good is not achieved.

~~~
abrookewood
I don't see how the GPL helps. AWS etc make money by providing Redis as a
service, which the GPL allows. If most of the work they have done is to
support Redis, rather than changing code in Redis, nothing changes.

~~~
ubernostrum
AGPL would do it, since it's specifically designed for the "cloud loophole"
(or whatever the FSF chooses to call it).

~~~
mikekchar
No, it just requires the service provider to also provide source code. The
issue here is that RedisLabs wants to ensure that no service providers can use
their modules and receive money. The AGPL _specifically_ allows people to run
the software for any purpose and also _specifically_ disallows tacking on
other clauses. (As does the GPL -- the only difference with the AGPL is that
providing it over a network is considered "distribution" for the purposes of
license compliance).

~~~
ubernostrum
In practical terms, AGPL _would_ do it because far fewer people are willing to
touch AGPL'd code.

And the start of this specific comment chain wasn't about "make money", it was
about ensuring cloud providers "give back" their improvements.

~~~
johncolanduoni
In the case of Redis and the handful of cloud providers, I’m pretty sure they
wouldn’t leave millions on the table just because they’re anxious about having
to run it by legal.

------
kingbirdy
Practically, since the core still doesn't have this clause, I imagine cloud
providers will still offer hosted Redis, but will develop their own modules to
install or allow people to install them themselves, since they can't offer the
ones developed by RedisLabs on their own

------
bodas
What a lesson in unintended consequences. The license is vague enough that
Amazon & co can just lawyer up and ignore it. What are they going to do, sue
Amazon? Good luck.

On the other hand, it will definitely scare away users of their software who
will be concerned that their CRUD app derives "substantial" value from it and
is thus infringing.

~~~
mrep
Big companies do not like vague licenses. I work at a big tech company and I
was specifically told to not use any software under the WTFPL license (Do What
the Fuck You Want To Public License) [0] because it is not explicit.

[0]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WTFPL](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WTFPL)

~~~
greglindahl
WTFPL is acceptable to IBM, though.

I bet that this new license isn't. It's radioactive.

------
mindcrime
This is pretty stupid. If you want to license your software under a
proprietary license, just license it under a proprietary license. Or if you
want to be "Shared Source"[1] use one of the old MS licenses for that. But
don't try to put lipstick on a pig and add a veneer of "openness" by shipping
something under an Open Source license + terms that make it very explicitly
_not_ Open Source.

As much as I like Redis, and even though Core is still under a plain old OSS
license, these shenanigans would make me very suspicious of RedisLabs and
reluctant to ever do business with them, or use Redis at all. :-(

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shared_source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shared_source)

~~~
tschellenbach
I have no affiliation with Redis, it's clearly still open source, it's just
not free for some of their users.

~~~
DannyBee
It's clearly _not_ open source. It meets no definition of open source that has
ever existed. Even other things like the debian free software guidelines
(which date back to 1997. Seee
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debian_Free_Software_Guideline...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debian_Free_Software_Guidelines))
would not consider this free

It's also clear the goal is to "seem" open source by reusing the license names
of open source licenses.

~~~
bradrydzewski
Can you point me to the line in the license file that clearly demonstrates
Redis is not open source?
[https://github.com/antirez/redis/blob/unstable/COPYING](https://github.com/antirez/redis/blob/unstable/COPYING)

~~~
detaro
As noted even in the initial comment in thus subthread, Redis itself is not
under this new license, and thus still Open Source.

------
derefr
There's a lot of fuss in these here comments about the future of Redis itself.

From the post (emphasis mine):

> Consequently, we decided to add Commons Clause to _certain components of_
> open source Redis. Cloud providers will no longer be able to use _these
> components_ as part of their Redis-as-a-Service offerings, but all other
> users will be unaffected by this change.

> _The Redis core_ is, and always will remain, an open source BSD license.
> _Certain modules_ , however, are now licensed as “Apache 2.0 modified with
> Commons Clause.”

Isn't this, then, just another open-core play? The Redis you know and love, if
you're most people (Redis core) isn't being relicensed. The Redis features
("certain modules") that these SaaS providers created themselves to provide on
their platforms as value-adds, are being relicensed to be less BSD-y and more
Microsoft shared-source-y ("open to contribution, pay to use", which is...
wacky.)

Fundamentally, those modules were these companies' property to do with as they
wished. Likely, they had few-if-any outside FOSS contributors (which is how
they could get away with something like this in the first place.) They aren't
some cultural touchstone of the community. They're proprietary vendor add-ons
that happened to be FOSS-licensed up until now.

If these companies had _started_ with these modules being entirely closed-
source (like with, say, Nginx's "Nginx Plus" modules), nobody would be batting
an eyelash right now.

------
humbleMouse
This is a shame to apache's good name. Apache should never be mentioned in the
name of a software version that isn't true opensource...

If you want to leverage apache and charge for it go ahead. Be a redhat or
confluent, go nuts. Don't do this kind of bs.

------
endlessvoid94
Trying to understand the motivation here.

In principle, what's the difference between my company taking advantage of
open source software (cost savings, huge advantage because I don't have to
build everything in-house) and a company that offers a hosted version of said
software?

In both cases, I am benefitting economically and not contributing upstream.

~~~
troydavis
The difference is that Redis Labs competes with one type and doesn’t compete
with the other. That’s the only difference.

I’d love to hear Salvatore Sanfilippo’s take…

~~~
endlessvoid94
Oof.

------
throwaway13337
The problem this license is trying to solve is a reasonable one: that cloud
providers package up open source products as their own service and capture the
majority of the value without adding much themselves.

This license might not be the best way around it but the issue should be
addressed.

~~~
endlessvoid94
How is this different from a startup using open source software (cost savings)
instead of building everything in-house?

In both cases, the startup benefits and the project doesn't receive upstream
contributions.

~~~
detaro
The startup doesn't compete with Redislabs, so it's not contributing, but also
not hurting.

------
ricardobeat
Oh noes. This opens a terrible precedent for Redis core.

As acknowledged in the announcement, adding restrictions is against the spirit
of open-source. No exceptions.

------
colinbartlett
If this clause comes to Redis Core, will it mean Heroku and others cannot
offer me the simple hosted Redis they do today? Thesd cloud providers are
exactly what makes Redis attractive to me, dramatically reducing the cost of
spinning up new infrastructure for projects.

~~~
borland
If you read the article, it implies that people like Heroku and others
offering hosted Redis is EXACTLY the kind of thing they are trying to prevent
with this clause.

To quote: "today’s cloud providers have repeatedly violated this ethos by
taking advantage of successful open source projects and repackaging them into
competitive, proprietary service offerings. Cloud providers contribute very
little (if anything) to those open source projects. Instead, they use their
monopolistic nature to derive hundreds of millions dollars in revenues from
them. Already, this behavior has damaged open source communities and put some
of the companies that support them out of business."

~~~
mindcrime
_If you read the article, it implies that people like Heroku and others
offering hosted Redis is EXACTLY the kind of thing they are trying to prevent
with this clause._

The thing is, the AGPL already existed for dealing with the whole "cloud
vendors turning things effectively proprietary" issue.

~~~
detaro
But the issue doesn't seem to be "cloud vendors turn things effectively
proprietary", but rather "cloud vendors offer the same services we want to
offer, so we don't get the income that's paying for our development work". A
cloud vendor can just run AGPL software and offer it as a service if they
share their modifications (if any). They can't do this with software under
this new license.

~~~
mindcrime
True, but in practice, may companies seem reluctant to offer commercial
services with AGPL software. And at least with the AGPL, they are required to
give back their changes, which helps the project. Granted, not all firms will
be making changes, but still, I think the AGPL is better than this "Common
Clause" thing, which is basically pretending to be something its not.

------
kodablah
> However, today’s cloud providers have repeatedly violated this ethos by
> taking advantage of successful open source projects and repackaging them
> into competitive, proprietary service offerings.

Well, if that's the way you see it, then sure, go ahead and limit the
software's use. But there are a lot of people, like myself on my OSS stuff,
that do not feel like they're being taken advantage of when their software is
used this way, otherwise I wouldn't put it out there. Granted I also disagree
in many cases with copy left licenses. I don't want to engage in that debate
here, but suffice to say some people want to control what you do once they
transfer stuff to you and some don't. You see it a lot in non software these
days too. We need a new term called "restrictionless software" or something
similar so those of us with small companies don't need lawyers to share and
share alike when each version of this type of clause comes out.

In the meantime, building a company out of charitable software work is
probably hard, so I'm sure others' revenues off your stuff feels wrong. And
it's hard to maintain a sense of freedom but still add pay-for features, so I
sympathize with companies going this route.

~~~
exikyut
Looking at Redis [Labs], their livelihood is based solely on consulting and
revenue generated from deploying Redis. Cloud providers are clearly netting
multiple millions and not passing that upstream in the form of consulting,
project donations, etc.

This is one workaround. It works.

~~~
pritambaral
> This is one workaround.

And a poor, misleading one. While solutions exist.

> It works.

That's to be seen. While actual solutions already work.

A solution would be a proprietary license. Neutering the Apache 2 license
while still calling it Apache 2 does a poor job of both properly licensing it
or clearly advising potential users what their rights would be. In fact,
calling it 'Apache 2 with modifications' is about as correct and honest as
calling a dead man a 'human with injuries'.

------
waterpower
I look forward to telling my consluting clients that it's illegal for me to
take a Redis gig, but I can help them migrate to another key-value store.

------
cybervegan
I don't think this is going to work out the way redis wants it to. Most
likely, this will cause a fork of whatever "modules" they have applied the new
"Commons Clause" to and everyone will continue on pretty much as before. It
will also most likely alienate existing community members and dissuade people
from contributing back - they may even lose important contributors over this.

------
no_wizard
So I just want to ask about clairification. I am leaning toward liking this as
it solves sole practical concerns for these types of businesses and projects
but one small thing I’m struggling to understand is how it affects trainings
and or consulting where you derive your income teaching people or integrating
people with these systems

The language around that was very legalese if anyone has opinions

~~~
slavak
IANAL, but my understanding is that as long as you only provide the knowledge
but not the actual software you're fine. e.g.: conducting paid training
sessions, even ones where the attendants are required to download the software
from the official site and install it on their machines for practical
exercises, should be okay. If someone wants to pay you to install licensed
software on their production machines and configure it... Eh, probably not.

Also to reiterate that Redis itself is still BSD, so if you're not using add-
on modules licensed with this clause you're unaffected.

Full disclosure: Am a Redis Labs employee, although not here in any official
capacity.

------
jonny_eh
So if you're a cloud provider that provides generic cloud VMs, with a button
to "Install Redis onto VM", is that allowed? What if it's one of hundreds of
similar buttons to install various software onto the VM?

What if there's no button, but a user can run `apt-get install redis`? Is that
in violation?

~~~
googlryas
That is allowed and fine. What you can't do is, if you are Amazon, release
"AWS Sdejt" which is simply a managed wrapper around Redis.

~~~
lozenge
Can you explain how you interpreted the license to say that's fine? Isn't the
value of the service "substantially" its ability to run redis? And isn't the
package manager a form of distributing redis? (Referring to the shared source
modules, not the BSD licensed part)

~~~
bigiain
This is the problem (at least for me) - the wording is vague and open to
interpretation, which means if it ever needs to be clarified, it'll need
expensive lawyers to get that done.

A reasonable man would say "Of course the value of, say, Digital Ocean's
service is not "substantially its ability to run redis" \- even though any
linux vm customer can run their OS choice's version of 'apt-get install
redis'".

But we do not live in a world were a "reasonable man's interpretation" is an
acceptable risk-mitigation for a business.

I'm pretty sure there'll be other people who, like me, are considering how
best to risk manage the use of redis going forward...

~~~
lozenge
Luckily the core redis server is still open source. It looks like they've
taken the nginx plus business model and combined it with shared source.

------
aries185
For clarification, here's the official response from the Redis Labs's website:
"the license for open source Redis was never changed. It is BSD and will
always remain BSD." Only Redis add-on modules developed by Redis Labs have
changed from AGPL to Apache v2.0 modified with Commons Clause.
[https://redislabs.com/blog/redis-license-bsd-will-remain-
bsd](https://redislabs.com/blog/redis-license-bsd-will-remain-bsd)

------
kazinator
The "do not redis dis" warning label.

Software with this clause is not usable in the real world.

The clause's strictest interpretation prohibits all business use.

 _Sell” means practicing any or all of the rights granted to you under the
License to provide to third parties, for a fee or other consideration
(including without limitation fees for hosting or consulting / support
services related to the Software), a product or service whose value derives,
entirely or substantially, from the functionality of the Software._

So for instance, if I run, say, a travel agency or a bakery on software with
this moronic clause, that's a product or service whose value derives
substantially from the functionality of the software.

There seems to be no difference between this and "free for non-commercial use
and redistribution".

------
icc97
I think it's worth mentioning WordPress who have managed to successfully
maintain an open source version whilst building their own cloud offering to
profit from. Many other cloud services provide WordPress as a service, but
WordPress are still able to maintain multiple streams of revenue through
'official' WordPress hosting.

~~~
porker
That's a bit harder for Redis though, because to keep latency down you want it
running in your cloud, not somewhere 10's of ms away.

Sure Redis could run clusters in every cloud provider's DCs, but then they're
paying for the cloud like anyone else and costs increase.

------
willlll
Redis is no longer free and open source software with this move. It is now
proprietary software.

~~~
googlryas
Pragmatically, this is still open source software, because the software source
is freely available.

It might not be Open Source Software now, perhaps according to some zealots
like RMS et al.

> According to the Open Source Initiative (OSI), open source licensing cannot
> limit the scope of a license – it only applies conditions to exercising it.
> With this model, no one can stop you from doing whatever you want with the
> software, whether commercial or non-commercial, or (famously) good or evil.
> Therefore, the no-sale restriction imposed by Commons Clause means that any
> software under this new license is non-open source by definition. However,
> in practice, Commons Clause only adds a limitation concerning fair use, and
> we believe that both licensing approaches share the same core value of
> making software available for use by anyone.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Pragmatically, this is still open source software,

No, it's free of charge shared-source software. The OSI and FSF open source
and free software definitions are virtually identical despite their very
different philosophy because any less freedom than they call for quickly
collapses the benefits of the arrangement.

~~~
nvahalik
I'd say GP is correct, but only insofar as that Redis Labs hasn't changed it
yet:

> Today, most cloud providers offer Redis as a managed service over their
> infrastructure and enjoy huge income from software that was not developed by
> them. Redis’ permissive BSD open source license allows them to do so
> legally, but this must be changed.

------
sandGorgon
Question : isn't the prohibition of consulting, too close to definition of
non-compete that it is effectively nullified in states like California ?

Yes, I know this is just for one particular software - but this could have
been made for an "algorithm" as well, which has already been tested in courts.

------
Cursuviam
Just dual license with AGPL, instead of this proprietary crap.

~~~
carlsborg
Agree, the Affero GPL works for the cloud scenario:

"It provides the same restrictions and freedoms as the GPLv3 but with an
additional clause which makes it so that source code must be distributed along
with web publication."

------
tschellenbach
This seems aimed at cloud hosting provider that currently get the tech for
free. Makes sense in a way.

~~~
mbrumlow
Yeah, but its not like they are "getting it for free". It is a ecosystem, and
cloud providers have provided many nice things back to the ecosystems.
Including jobs to many prominent OSS developers. Not to mention cloud
providers do the most important sort of work on any project. That is running
it reporting bugs and often submitting patches to those bugs. Larger cloud
providers even hire people for the sole purpose to work on said OSS projects
simply to improve them.

~~~
zepolen
I get what you're saying but Redis found popularity way before clouds started
offering it.

Clouds later further contribute (and profit) to the ecosystem, but make no
mistake they didn't help create or spend any resources for that ecosystem.

Redis is probably the number one kv store atm, not sure what the number two
is, and for sure no clouds are offering it right now; but if this licensing
thing goes sour with the community - you can be sure that

a) a fork will happen or the number two will gain popularity b) that
replacement once enough customers ask for it will get added to the clouds c)
the clouds again - with no initial investment will derive value

Basically the moral of the story is, be a cloud provider.

~~~
mbrumlow
I disagreed, partly on the what makes the "ecosystem". While Redis has its own
micro ecosystem it is NOT the entire ecosystem. While there may not have been
direct exchanges on the level you described Redis did benefit from having the
larger ecosystem to work within.

Does the fox owe the worm for the fish it had for dinner because the fish had
the worm for lunch?

Basically you can't isolate yourself from the entire ecosystem and cry foal.
When you fail to see the benefit.

------
thijsvandien
Slightly off-topic, but this is a reminder why it's good to only add a new
dependency to your project when the benefit is more than incremental. Any and
all of them are a potential liability. Did you really need Redis or would it
have worked fine keeping everything in Postgres (assuming that the latter is
something you couldn't do without anyway)? Did you really need Docker or would
a static binary have gotten you 80% of the way? These are important questions
to ask, regardless of any particular technology. I do not have an opinion on
the future of Redis, but I do on choosing a stack. Related:
[http://boringtechnology.club](http://boringtechnology.club)

------
chippy
The naming of this is wrong and should be changed quickly and I'll explain
why.

Commons Clause (abbreviated to CC) conflicts with Creative Commons (also CC).
Creative Commons also has the word Commons which refers to a more established
and well known thing. Commons Clause goes against the principles of the actual
commons. it has nothing to do with a commons, or what is widely understood as
"the commons". Call it something better - call it a proprietary clause
instead. Maybe it's aim is to stop the "tragedy of the commons"?

------
buybackoff
I'm not a lawyer but the first reaction to this was if it is enforceable at
all? There is a [rich choice]
([https://tldrlegal.com/](https://tldrlegal.com/)) of licenses backed by court
history and many years of practical usage.

For my OSS project I spent some time to pick a right license and changed it
couple of times (LGPL -> GPL -> MPL 2.0). My final choice was mainly due to
the blog post by author of ZeroMQ Peter Hintjens ["How to Make Money from Open
Source"] ([http://hintjens.com/blog:27](http://hintjens.com/blog:27)) , where
he described a story of "Patrick" who "told big companies that they could" rip
him off and they did - in the spirit of the top comment here.

I have faced a troll on GitHub who opened an issue on almost every project
related to data analytics and asked authors to change any reciprocal license
to MIT/BSD/Apache. I've never seen him contributing anything substantial back.
This was a refreshing reminder that as soon as I publish my code as MIT et al.
all valuable parts from it will be ripped apart immediately and I'll unlikely
see any contributions back. Yet I wanted to share my code and see
contributions back. In the [issue
thread]([https://github.com/Spreads/Spreads/issues/6](https://github.com/Spreads/Spreads/issues/6))
Peter Hintjens joined and commented that "MPLv2 gives us [ZeromMQ] the same
benefits with less angst for corporate users" vs (L/A)GPL.

Many licenses are carefully crafted by lawyers and any change to it makes
software not an open source anymore. It feels to me that OSS with a proper
license is very close to a legal entity a la trust, and maintainers are just
trustees. So if I want to remain any control I would rather choose uncool
APGL.

------
hashrate
> if what you sell is basically the functionality of the module [...] Commons
> Clause does not allow it.

Great ! Now the entire industry is accepting the "freemium" model where the
core features are free , but not the modules around it.

This is a push to milk companies with paid licences on Free Software. This is
insane that this is becoming the norm in the industry.

Every single day open source is getting less and less open. This type of
constraints are insane and are similar to the one forced by Oracle.

~~~
sonarlunar
It's one vendor contributing some modules which now they have a different
license.

I don't see how this impacts any other Redis module on github out there.

Either those modules are that good and the vendor decides that cloud providers
must pay and not get money from the vendor's work, or those modules are not
really that used so who cares.

I have used RedisJSON module which is nice and I assume changes license now.
Am I a service provider? Do I care about one module changing license so AWS
and other clouds cannot use for their own service?

I couldn't care less and it does not impact Redis open source project _at all_
IMHO

~~~
hashrate
> I couldn't care less

Let's say you are PHP consultant , you set up a Redis + EC2 instances.

You enable a redis enterprise module in that instance.

Well technically speaking you are breaching the license of RedisLabs. You are
not allowed to do so without their consent because those modules aren't "bsd"
or "mit" they are "Commons Clause".

In short , if you are doing something with the RedisLabs modules ( consulting
/ hosting / training / support ) you owe $$$ to RedisLabs.

~~~
sonarlunar
It's unenforceable. European Union cannot claim VAT from smaller - yet big
enough - foreign companies and is only targeting the very big ones to collect
it from. I used to play an online game and, if you changed your country to a
non EU one, no VAT was paid. And that was a big company that should have been
enforcing EU VAT for me.

Would Redis Labs go after Joe and his brother? Even if the license said so?
They're after the big abusers, not the community.

If I'm not mistaken antirez said so too, that it does not affect you and me.
That's the reasonable thing anyway. AWS is the big abuser. Check MongoDB or
Xen or Elastic cases. People (ex employees typically) are starting to talk how
AWS is abusing their open source work. I think that's the whole juice of the
story, that AWS is abusing successful open source projects.

At least that's what I read behind the words.

------
cjbprime
Aw, man. We yelled at the Redis dev so often for poorly reimplementing
distributed consensus algorithms that he switched to poorly reimplementing
software licenses instead.

------
drenvuk
If someone could explain, what is the difference between what redis is doing
and what nginx does with nginx+plus? I feel like most people use nginx still.

~~~
dec0dedab0de
Nginx doesn't call it open source

------
tonetheman
I too like most commenters here think this is odd or weird and feels not open
source.

Someone will just fork redis and remove the common clause is my guess as to
what should happen?

weird

------
firebacon
Wow, so many negative comments here. I for one applaud the move -- a license
like this has been needed for a long time.

Slightly (un)related, but I don't understand why in a forum full of software
developers it is the consensus that all infrastructure software must be free
(as in beer)? What are you guys planning to live off once that dream has
finally been realised?

~~~
komali2
Consulting around open source software seems to my industry-new experience how
people tend to make a living around open source software.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that how the core Linux folks make money?
Or the organization running node?

~~~
humbleMouse
Try anyone who works at a big company saving money by replacing vendor tools
with custom open source solutions. There are a million ways to monetize open
source, even as an individual.

------
jeffhorton
Maybe it's just time to crank up the revenue to make this worthwhile.

[https://redislabs.com/press/redis-labs-secures-44-million-
fu...](https://redislabs.com/press/redis-labs-secures-44-million-funding-led-
goldman-sachs-private-capital-investing-strengthen-database-leadership/)

------
amelius
Any software with a restrictive license of any kind will eventually be
replaced by software with a more liberal license.

~~~
toomuchtodo
Who would waste thousands of man hours to write a Redis replacement for free,
only to have it taken by large tech companies to rake in revenue through
managed offerings?

~~~
zaphar
The person who needs a Redis replacement but isn't interested in selling
something that isn't core to their business and wants some assistance in the
development from other people who are like minded.

They may or may not be a fool but their are more returns than just licensing
fees for such a project prestige and it's effect on hiring for a company.
Developer happiness. Other similar intangibles.

~~~
toomuchtodo
It seems to me, in the long run, it'd be cheaper to pay Redis for whatever
they offer instead of attempting to craft your own solution, maintain it, and
find others who also will maintain it. Developer happiness and exposure
doesn't pay the rent.

------
logophobia
Gotta say, stuff like this is getting a bit more common. Last month while I
was evaluating choices for an application gateway I saw that:

* Ngnix has an enterprise version

* Kong has an enterprise version

* HAProxy has an enterprise version

Now redis as well, even if the commons license isn't quite as bad, it's a step
back. It's understandable, but all a bit disappointing.

------
vesak
If you don't want others to exploit your code without contributing back, don't
use BSD/MIT/Apache; use (A)GPL.

Otherwise, you're just asking everyone to think you're a cool and mellow cat
for releasing full-libre, man. But don't take my stash, dude. Not to mention
crowdsourcing bug fixes.

------
esterly
The license commit is very clear redis core is unchanged BSD 3
[https://github.com/antirez/redis/blob/unstable/COPYING](https://github.com/antirez/redis/blob/unstable/COPYING)

------
zrail
I wonder what this means for Sidekiq.

------
fabianhjr
The P2P Foundation has some discussion on the topic:
[http://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/Copyfair](http://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/Copyfair)

------
skrebbel
This limits not just huge cloud providers bit also little startups. In fact,
Redis Labs would've probably never been founded if Redis had come with this
clause from the beginning.

~~~
XiZhao
That's true, but Redis is not closed source. This only applies to a few
enterprise modules.

------
fyfy18
Are the four popovers I had to click through to get to the article really
necesary?

\- Notice about updated privacy policy

\- GDPR opt-out (where the ‘No’ button is hidden on the next screen)

\- Chat system

\- Banner ad for an event

------
Communitivity
I would think a lawyer could poke enough holes through a Commons Clause
license for it to resemble swiss cheese afterwards. I am not a lawyer, but
software you get is under one license or another. Some are dual licensed, but
you choose which license you are operating under when you publish your
derivative work.

Base on what I read it's either Apache License or Commons Clause, not both.
And if it's Commons Clause then it seems misrepresentation to say 'license:
Apache License', as the example gave.

I think GPL has gone out of fashion, in some circles, because of fear. I work
in a shop where GPL is outright forbidden, except where absolutely necessary,
because of horror stories senior management has heard that exaggerate the risk
of using GPL software, and because of real experiences.

I know of one such experience myself, according to my friend, his team was
forced to rewrite an entire software package to use the Postgres JDBC driver
and Postgres-specific migration scripts, because they were told MySQL driver
use an redistribution did not require them to open source their code, and then
they were told something different by a second member of the MySQL team.
Shortly after that a memo was sent to all teams at that research lab, ordering
no further use of GPL software except where no other option exists (and with
lots of legal documentation in that case).

If you can deal with a service model for your business, then open source your
software with BSD or other permissive license and sell consulting services. If
you want a product model, then the one I see repeatedly work well is an open
source core with enterprise commercial add-ons.

Mentioning consulting in the license further muddies the water. I know I was
thinking of using Redis for a new project with a client, and now I won't. I
won't be using Redis again until this license gets changed, and I encourage
everyone else to do the same.

In today's security environment, and with software quality issues being what
they are, I think having all your software be closed source, or restrictive
non-free open source, is going the way of the dinosaur.

This Commons Clause seems to me to be a open source license, but seems
restrictive and a step backward. The wording coul be taken to be deceptive.
And calling it 'Commons' anything is adding insult to injury.

------
gdfasfklshg4
In other news I suspect someone will soon be forking Redis and development of
an open source/free software fork will continue...

~~~
zwily
The license for Redis itself has not changed and will not change, I doubt
there's a need to fork it.

~~~
Nemo_bis
There was such a need for ownCloud, where the company and main maintainers
pushed developers to _not_ develop things in core which would compete with
their proprietary extensions.
[https://fosdem.org/2018/schedule/event/nextcloud/](https://fosdem.org/2018/schedule/event/nextcloud/)

------
xtf
[https://xkcd.com/927/](https://xkcd.com/927/)

I am pretty happy with GPL, MIT/BSD, Apache because I have learned it. Another
nice way is Creative Commons, especially because they are modular and are
mostly translated and therefor applicable in most other laws.

Edit: also you can \- always write your own, but people like to read the
acronyms and know what they are confronted with \- go the Carmack way, last
gen open source.

------
jwildeboer
TL;DR redis is no longer open source. I wonder why that’s not the title of
this post.

~~~
reidrac
Perhaps you should read it, your TL;DR is incorrect.

What the post says is that Redis add-ons won't be open source, but the core
will be (which is Redis).

Basically this is a Open Core business model and they could have been clearer
in their announcement because looks like a lot of people don't quite read
announcements.

------
h4b4n3r0
Sounds like MBAs and lawyers are swooping in. Abandon ship.

~~~
wkoszek
It'd be much better if they asked people who understand business of open
source on how to drive more $.

For example: it could as well be: "If you're any of: FB, APPL, MS, .... and
you use this software in your cloud, you owe us $2M/yr"

It'd be much easier to analyze the impact.

~~~
yread
that would be discrimination and that's would also make it a non open source
license

 _5\. No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups

The license must not discriminate against any person or group of persons._

[https://opensource.org/osd-annotated](https://opensource.org/osd-annotated)

~~~
Nemo_bis
The freedom definition doesn't have such a requirement though. Sometimes it
allows to prohibit some usages, e.g. [https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-
list.html#OpinionLicens...](https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-
list.html#OpinionLicenses)

