I worked on Objects at Nutanix for the last ~12 months. Nutanix had originally used the API server in MinIO to translate between the S3 REST API and internal RPCs. MinIO's claim on this blog post that "Nutanix Objects is built around MinIO object storage" is a gross exaggeration.
By the time I joined in June 2021, MinIO was deprecated and we were using an in-house S3 REST API server. I am skeptical that any of the APGL code was distributed because we just weren't using it around the time that MinIO changed from Apache to AGPL.
MinIO is leveraging their switch to the AGPL license as a vehicle to extract immense seven figure plus licensing agreements from "big" companies who relied on non-AGPL versions of the code in the past.
I don't know if that makes MinIO bad, better or good but it's all about money.
Strange. You spent THREE YEARS in discussion with Nutanix and still say
> we believe they may also be in violation of the GNU AGPL v3 versions of MinIO.
`may also be`? you are not even 100% sure whether they are using your AGPL v3 version? I have no clue, what the heck you were discussing for 3 years.
Moving from Apache-2.0 to AGPLv3 is a clear trap for those who use Minio as part of their commercial offering. With AGPLV3 one need to "disclose your source code" where as its not required with Apache-2.
If you started your "Open source" project with AGPL it is a different thing but to start the project under Apache-2 and few years later introducing AGPLv3 is kind of lame and unethical, IMHO.
https://github.com/minio/minio/discussions/12156
Until then here is my spicy story: - In 2019: Minio Sales contacted Nutanix (like this user mentioned https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32152645) hoping for a nice big cheque.
- 2019-2021: Nutanix cites Apache-2 license and refused to pay.
- 2021: Minio changed its license to AGPL (probably few others like Nutanix)
- 2021: Nutanix knows this and refuses to use AGPL version with their product.
- 2022: Discussion went on for another year and nothing came out from Nutanix.
- Now: Minio decided to publicly shame the company.