Redis will remain BSD licensed

by antirez • 8 years ago

448 197 8 years ago

I’m happy to hear that Redis will remain BSD, but it’s a bit weird to play the “fake news” card. Can you really blame people for interpreting this the wrong way?

Especially when the original announcement was specifically targeting cloud providers, who, afaik, are just running vanilla redis.

If there is anything that we can learn from this, is that a little bit of forethought when putting these announcements out there is required, and blaming this on the readers is not fair.

lbriner• 8 years ago

The parts that I noticed were missing from the original announcement include more specifics about the parts of the system that would change licence and also whether the intention was to charge people to use these new parts. It was unclear whether the intention was to stop these cloud providers or to make them pay in some way for what they were doing.

antirez12• 8 years ago

Yep, now finally this is updated to specify exactly what changes license. Incidentally: nothing I ever worked to directly. It would be way cooler if also things like RediSearch or RediGraph could still be totally open source, but it's apparently very hard, Common Clause at least will allow it to be free-as-beer and with the source code available.

meowface• 8 years ago

I don't think he's blaming people, but it does seem odd if he had no input at all into the Redis Labs announcement.

antirez12• 8 years ago

Honestly my colleagues did a poor job with such an announcement there, and I did not get a chance to read it (which is actually a good thing, it means that the OSS division, I'm part of, is independent and can work to the Github repositories without caring about what the commercial side does). But it was kinda of a manifest to announce that certain things made inside Redis Labs are now Common Clause licensed. In doubt, why not asking? Also people that follow me and Redis for years getting trapped into this idea is very strange, I would never do that and without explaining, prior notice, and so forth. So yep the Common Clause page at Redis Labs sucked but in doubt ask instead of creating news out of no actual information.

l2dy• 8 years ago

The abbreviation "CC" will be confusing if Commons Clause got popular… We already have Creative Commons licenses.

dilap3• 8 years ago

It was clear to me from a careful reading that the page did not refer to Redis, but it also seemed deliberately designed to suggest that it did. It seemed pretty scummy.

And the name itself of "Commons Clause" is practically a tiny version of fake news, since it tries to give an "open source" feeling to what is essentially a proprietary license.

As a practical/PR matter, I think Redis Labs have likely shot themselves in the foot. I've been in a low-key debate advocating for Redis Labs over AWS elasticache on an upcoming project; my argument probably just got about 1000% harder, given the anti-RL sentiment I saw on our Slack last night.

(Finally, if you'll forgive me a bit of personal advice, I think for better or worse Redis + your personal brand + RedisLabs are now all somewhat tied together -- I'm not sure how much sense it makes for you to just pay attention to the OSS side of the house...)

hiccuphippo• 8 years ago

If the commercial side can change the license without your knowledge then it is not a good thing at all.

adrianmonk• 8 years ago

I agree with your complaint but I wouldn't use the terminology "fake news". To me, that's more of a specific term that refers to media bias as a propaganda tool. Whereas this is more of a rumor mill going wild as rumor mills naturally tend to do.

But yes, while hoards of people behave in a bit of a crazy manner, it is a known thing, and if you're responsible for public communication, you should understand those quirks and their predictable consequences. And you should realize that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure by just making everything as clear as possible from the beginning.

marshray• 8 years ago

To be precise, the term 'fake news' is an accusation against the media, used as a propaganda tactic, and most often false.

acjohnson55• 8 years ago

However in the fake news era my attempts to provide the correct information failed

Eww. This actually removes credibility from the announcement, given the way the term "fake news" continues to be used to distract from objective truth.

royjacobs• 8 years ago

I think antirez is using it in the context of people misinterpreting some facts, followed by this misinterpretation escalating fast as a lot of people seem to think its the truth.

misterbowfinger2• 8 years ago

Here's an example of a high-profile one:

https://twitter.com/antirez/status/1032271799529218048

antirez12• 8 years ago

What I mean is that even after the project leader tells you it was just some confusion, the Github project still is marked as BSD, and nothing is written in the original announcement clearly stating that Redis would switch license, it is a bit strange that the information continues to spread regardless of what I continued to say.

scott_s• 8 years ago

I understand both your meaning and frustration. But I think acjohnson55's point is that the phrase "fake news" has become a loaded term. I avoid it because it may imply things I don't want to.

endorphone2• 8 years ago

"Redis is an example of this paradigm. 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"

Crying fake news (which has been co-opted to mean "real news that I don't like or that you shouldn't pay attention to") completely undermined your statement. Yes, the original announcement wasn't just unclear, it is very clearly drawing a line that "this must be changed".

rectang4• 8 years ago

I understand your meaning. The problem is that the phrase "fake news" in the United States at least is associated with a specific political party. Your message will be less well-received by part of your audience as a result. Perhaps you are fine with that, though.

EDIT: antirez updated the post, so this is no longer relevant.

daveFNbuck• 8 years ago

There are two usages for the term "fake news".

The original one was news that's completely made up without reference facts. This term was created to describe sites that generate fictional news stories to support an agenda or get clicks.

The second one is news that is negative about you. This usage was created as a deflection from the actual problem of fiction being sold as fact, and has become the primary usage. It is an attack on news not for whether it's correct, but for how it makes you look.

Neither of these apply to an honest miscommunication, and they both describe the people who misunderstood the announcement as malicious enemies rather than the concerned fans of Redis they more likely are.

misterbowfinger2• 8 years ago

I think that Redis Labs Common Clause page did not provide a clear and complete information, but software companies often do communication errors

In their defense, many programmers can be so spiteful and cynical that basically nothing could've been done to change this "communication error."

It's helpful that Salvatore clarified, but I suspect that there are many who won't care or won't be convinced. The headline is all they needed to trip their "GTFO" line.

Personally, I think the move was fine. There are much worse companies out there.

_hyn32• 8 years ago

Closely related: "The Commons Clause will destroy Open Source" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17818407

Sir_Cmpwn• 8 years ago

As the author of that article, I want to clarify that I was aware that Redis core was going to continue to be available as BSD and incorporated that information into my article. antirez, if you have any comments or corrections I'd be happy to include them in the article.

JdeBP• 8 years ago

And https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17814386 .

js22• 8 years ago

antirez: I understand your frustration and don’t mean to take away from the message, but please consider removing “fake news” from the wording. It unnecessarily politicizes the post and really leaves a bad taste.

“Fake news” is the term of art that politicians are using to criticize true stories that they don’t like.

In this case, you’re trying to correct an actual falsehood. The spreading of falsehoods and their being difficult to correct is as old as time and nothing new to this era.

Thank you for listening, and for Redis, as always.

antirez12• 8 years ago

Thanks, I removed fake news because I've the feeling that in US it is used by right-wing people, here in Italy it's the current government that is the master of fake news and is used by our left-wings to criticize what they do. In the doubt I changed the wording. I did not expect the term to be political.

js22• 8 years ago

Thank you.

DanielGee• 8 years ago

Thanks, I removed fake news because I've the feeling that in US it is used by right-wing people

It's a term used by both the left and the right. By politicians and the media.

In the doubt I changed the wording. I did not expect the term to be political.

You shouldn't have. Who cares if it is political. You are the author and you should express yourself the way you want.

protomyth2• 8 years ago

I've the feeling that in US it is used by right-wing people

No, both sides love using the term about anything the other side says.

krn• 8 years ago

Even though this comment got downvoted for being overly political, antirez is right, that "fake news" holds completely different associations across the world, depending on who uses this term in a particular country.

geofft• 8 years ago

The history of the term is a little funny. It had two distinct meanings during the course of the US 2016 election, shortly before it escaped to the rest of the world.

The first was the brief phenomenon of websites actually spoofing real news sites with confusing URLs and similar styles - think phishing for news. One example of this was "abcnews.com.co": see e.g. https://timesofsandiego.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Fake-... They would generally publish intentionally false stories with the goal of getting social media clicks and/or influencing public opinion, and usually in the direction of influencing public opinion in favor of US right-wing politics.

The second is the accusation of US right-wing politicians that mainstream journalism (the real ABC, etc.) is publishing intentionally false stories on their actual sites. This use of the term "fake news" pretty efficiently displaced the previous meaning, and left us with no real term to talk about that phenomenon. It generally implies that stories are being made up out of whole cloth with the intent of lying to the public.

At some point, thanks to repeated use of that phrase by the country that dominates the worldwide media, it escaped to the rest of the world - apparently to left-wing folks in Italy as well as to dictators across the globe. Assad has complained about living in a "fake news era". An official in Myanmar has called the very existence of the Rohingya people "fake news."

There has been a phenomenon, for probably as long as recorded human history has been around, where storytellers and journalists get things wrong because of human fallibility and not malicious intent. I think it's easy to understand why people would misread the announcement, and no accusation of malice is required.

ksec• 8 years ago

The lessons learned here is don't use any word that is being used by US politicians. As Americans are extremely sensitive to politics.

Although I do understand your frustration with news media and the echo chambers echoing precisely the wrong thing without making any attempt in correction.

dragonwriter4• 8 years ago

I removed fake news because I've the feeling that in US it is used by right-wing people

It was adopted by right-wing (specifically, pro-Trump) people in the US specifically to drown out its earlier use to describe pro-Trump propaganda that followed what RAND Corp had described as the “firehose of falsehoods” propaganda approach used by Russia in other contexts (and which, it is increasingly evident, did so because it was in fact, often engineered by the same people who engineered the Russian propaganda that that label described.)

jim_bailie• 8 years ago

Antirez, don't worry about it! It's a very effective and accurate phrase that inflames a small minority of overly vocal folks who are irritated that the double standard in left-leaning western media is now becoming better understood. Anyway, enough of that, thanks again for your incredible contribution to humanity.

relaunched• 8 years ago

The underlying clarification makes sense, sort of. Is it correct to say that, "These specific modules were developed solely by Redis Labs and are free of any open source contributions."

I understand that the previously licensed versions of the modules will retain there old license and people can choose to contribute or not, on a go forward basis (based on the common clause). However, if FOSS contributions were made (in mass), it still seems a little unctuous.

radus3• 8 years ago

I think that this clears up questions about redis itself, but doesn't address the concern than future development will be focused on new modules rather than the core - akin to Google Play Services vs. Android.

chii• 8 years ago

doesn't address the concern than future development will be focused on new modules rather than the core

which is a very valid thing to do, since dev costs money.

radus3• 8 years ago

I'm not arguing that, and am personally not outraged by it, but in that context I do understand what seems to be a sense of betrayal on the part of OSS stalwarts, even as redis remains BSD licensed.

marcinzm• 8 years ago

They have a right to do it but then they're making proprietary software and people who like open source software are free to not like/support them as a result.

antirez12• 8 years ago

Personally I'll keep working on the Redis core, plus the Disque module, that will be developed under the AGPL license (not Common Clause). So you can expect me to be focused on the core as usually.

kawsper• 8 years ago

It makes me wonder if we would have ever received an open-source redis-cluster if it was developed today, and it makes me afraid that it won't stay open like today.

InfluxDB moved their cluster implementation to their enterprise product behind an undisclosed amount of dollars if you want to self-host.

allengeorge• 8 years ago

It was pretty clear to me on reading the RedisLabs page that Redis itself would be BSD licensed.

And, FWIW, I totally sympathize with the motivations behind their decision. I suspect we'll see variations of this in a variety of projects (if not module licensing, then enterprise-only features, reduced work in the open-source version, etc.)

_hyn32• 8 years ago

It was pretty clear to me on reading the RedisLabs page that Redis itself would be BSD licensed.

The page has been updated since the original announcement.

rauhl• 8 years ago

An example of such module is RediSearch: it was AGPL and is now going to be Apache + Common Clause.

Sounds to me like the right thing to do here for Free Software proponents is to download the latest AGPL RediSearch, fork it and continue development.

codingdave• 8 years ago

HN needs a feature to say, "Hey! We haven't talked in forever, wanna catch up?" when we notice comments from people we worked with many years ago but haven't talked to in forever.

lma21• 8 years ago

Who exactly would continue the development in this case? Weren't Redis Labs the biggest contributor here?

scj• 8 years ago

If a project is licensed "BSD + antithetical_term" or "Apache + antithetical_term", then the names of BSD and Apache should not be invoked.

They are free to make a RedisLab license though.

antirez12• 8 years ago

Redis core is just "BSD", nothing attached.

Yiftach4• 8 years ago

Hi, this is Yiftach, CTO and Co-founder of Redis Labs. First, let me assure you that Redis remains and always will remain, open source, BSD license. For avoiding any doubt - commons clause (as defined in commonsclause.com) is applied only to add-ons (modules), on top of Redis (e.g. RediSearch, Redis Graph, ReJSON, Redis-ML, Rebloom) that were developed by Redis Labs .

We initially released these modules under AGPL license but found two major drawbacks (a) AGPL does not prevent cloud providers (such as AWS) from building managed services from these modules, and (b) we got requests from developers, working at large enterprises to move from AGPL to a more permissive license, because the use of AGPL is against their company’s policy.

In addition, a few people here (and other threads) have asked why we didn’t create a new proprietary license, like those offered by Elastic or MaraiaDB? Well, Commons Clause was created by a coalition of several OSS infrastructure companies, some of which use a different OSS licenses. In order to maintain a standard framework we decided to piggyback the restriction (on creating managed services by cloud providers) on any existing OSS license.

dragonwriter4• 8 years ago

we got requests from developers, working at large enterprises to move from AGPL to a more permissive license

...so you did exactly the opposite, though with naming that makes it sound like you honored that request until you actually read the license terms.

detaro4• 8 years ago

it's more permissive for some enterprise use cases if you're worried about AGPL consequences. You now can use it in internal systems. (Assuming you feel comfortable interpreting the vague bits of the "Commons Clause")

zokier• 8 years ago

First of all, I do appreciate your reply here.

we got requests from developers, working at large enterprises to move from AGPL to a more permissive license, because the use of AGPL is against their company’s policy.

It's not clear how Commons Clause will help here. I can't imagine many corporations liking Commons Clause if they have decided against AGPL.

Yiftach4• 8 years ago

Well, we already have positive responses from few large enterprises.

antirez12• 8 years ago

I think that what happens here is that enterprises don't like a license where there is this concept of open sourcing internal changes. They are happier with limiting the kind of use you can do with the code instead, like doing SaaS, that most of them don't plan to do at all.

rectang4• 8 years ago

Thank you for the explanation. I see no problem with this approach in principle and wish your business the best of luck.

However, you have made a big mistake with how the "Commons Clause" confuses Open Source under the OSD with "source available". You were not well served by those who advised you to do so.

XiZhao3• 8 years ago

The Commons Clause clearly acknowledges this in the FAQ:

https://commonsclause.com/

derefr6• 8 years ago

Commons Clause software isn't just "source available"; you can modify it and redistribute it, such that the regular FOSS workflow of "fork on GitHub and create a PR" is legal.

You just can't deploy your fork (or the original code) in a private service without paying for a license for that code.

scrollaway6• 8 years ago

This is the top post in the thread from ~18 hours ago:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17816332

Everybody wants to have their word in how that software they didn't write should be licensed. The back and forth ends up being something akin to "It's your own fault for picking BSD; you shouldn't have picked that in the first place!... now why don't you make all the other stuff BSD too?".

Frankly, I don't see what the OSD/OSI definition of open source matters. You pick the license that suits your needs best. People ought to argue the license on its actual text and merits, not whether some other organization likes it or not, otherwise it's just argumentation by authority.

detaro4• 8 years ago

BTW, you should probably change https://redislabs.com/community/oss-projects/ to match the the non-Open-Source-licenses most things have there. (yes, they are listed, but the page pretends everything on it is Open Source)

lazyloop• 8 years ago

You're mixing up Open Source and Free Software, those two are not the same.

nmjohn• 8 years ago

because the use of AGPL is against their company’s policy.

Have you confirmed with these same people that the new license is allowed by their company policies?

Yiftach4• 8 years ago

Believe it or not - the answer is 'yes'

Cursuviam• 8 years ago

Hmmm, I wonder if you could use a license even more virulent than the AGPL to approach problem (a) and then dual license to solve (b)

baybal2• 8 years ago

from AGPL to a more permissive license, because the use of AGPL is against their company’s policy.

But to effect, it is the same. The point of them restricting use of AGPL is them not wanting to publish the code while making money of it. To the effect, they still can't make money of it.

mindcrime3• 8 years ago

In order to maintain a standard framework we decided to piggyback the restriction (on creating managed services by cloud providers) on any existing OSS license.

And that was a bad decision and it needs to be reverted. What you're doing is dishonest, point blank.

If you don't want to write a new license from scratch, take one of the ones off this list, and fork it and make a "Redis Non-Commercial License" or whatever you want to call it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Source-available_software#Rest...

ccleve2• 8 years ago

Yiftach (and Antirez),

Please talk more about AGPL. MongoDB has a similar problem, and they solved it by making their product dual-licensed, AGPL + commercial. They then clarified the AGPL to say that in their opinion, it did in fact prevent cloud providers from building managed services around the modules.

https://www.mongodb.com/community/licensing/faq

The AGPL is lengthy and a bit convoluted, so it's possible they're wrong. Could you talk through your reasoning?

Yiftach4• 8 years ago

Well - I can only say that what MongoDB has is not complete. There are still many holes, and we prefer to avoid them. And of course this doesn't solve the other issue, where developers cannot use AGPL in large enterprises.

yeahforsureman2• 8 years ago

I'm not speaking on anyone's behalf but MongoDB's interpretation of AGPL is very contentious and extreme.

JaimeThompson• 8 years ago

"commons clause (as defined in commonsclause.com) "

That is subject to change so without a specific version number / date it is effectively useless as a guide.

microtonal• 8 years ago

We initially released these modules under AGPL license but found two major drawbacks (a) AGPL does not prevent cloud providers (such as AWS) from building managed services from these modules,

Aren't there good solutions within open source licenses? I agree that the AGPL does not solve the stated issue. However, the Apache License version 2.0 has the following text:

If the Work includes a "NOTICE" text file as part of its distribution, then any Derivative Works that You distribute must include a readable copy of the attribution notices contained within such NOTICE file, excluding those notices that do not pertain to any part of the Derivative Works, in at least one of the following places: within a NOTICE text file distributed as part of the Derivative Works; within the Source form or documentation, if provided along with the Derivative Works; or, within a display generated by the Derivative Works, if and wherever such third-party notices normally appear. [...]

I typically use the Apache License version 2 and include a NOTICE file with something like

This software contains portions of XYZ, which was developed by Daniël de Kok.

I do get contacted every once in a while by a company that wants to use my software, but does not want to include this notice in their software/documentation and offer to pay to remove the notice. You could even make it a bit nefarious like:

This software uses XYZ, but your software/service vendor is a cheapskate that leaches off XYZ and kills puppies by not contributing back to XYZ.

And offer the option to obtain a (proprietary) license that allows use with removal of the notice. IANAL, and I don't know if the Apache License's NOTICE wording also covers use in cloud services (it seems so). If not, it would be an easy extension. And the outcome is much better than the abomination that Commons Clause is: the software stays open source and it puts pressure on downstream users to contribute back.

e12e3• 8 years ago

AGPL license but found two major drawbacks (a) AGPL does not prevent cloud providers (such as AWS) from building managed services from these modules

I'm not sure I understand this formulation. The * gp licenses are generally focused on defending the four freedoms[f] - and freedom zero is the freedom to run the software. How would anyone think that a * gp license would prevent that?

Am I correct in my interpretation that Redis Labs' original intention was to charge a fee for these modules, and in the case of various form of re-sales (like SaaS) - to partner with providers so that there was a revenue split?

I'm asking, not because I'm against commercial software (although I do prefer to run Free software) - but just to make sure I understand the [ed:"drawbacks"] of the AGPL as Redis Labs sees it?

[f] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html

legohead• 8 years ago

GNU licenses require sharing code. Bad for business.

kfogel• 8 years ago

"...a few people here (and other threads) have asked why we didn't create a new proprietary license..."

But, you did create a new proprietary license. That's what ${ANY_OPEN_SOURCE_LICENSE} + COMMONS_CLAUSE is.

All this is is a proprietary fork of Redis. It's no different than if someone else -- someone other than Redis Labs -- had done it. What's unusual here is just the reluctance on Redis Labs' part to call it what it is. I think a lot of the surprise and blowback across the Net is simply because of the strange unwillingness on Redis Labs' part to call this by its right name and own it.

irabinovitch1• 8 years ago

I'm not sure I follow here...

a) Is there an example of a cloud provider adopting or building on top of your existing AGPL code bases? The big 3 all have fairly well known internal policies that forbid AGPL use. Ever wonder why there isn't there a MongoDB service being offered by any of the major cloud providers? AGPL.

All that being said I doubt they would want your modules anyways. Their track record tends to be:

* AWS would grab the core BSD licensed project, ignore your management tooling regardless of license, and build their own management tooling that integrates with their ecosystem. Theres a few exceptions to this like [Chef and AWS on OpsWorks](https://twitter.com/adamhjk/status/1032312528196575234).

* Google. They wont use your software either. If anything they'll build some wizbang redis like protocol and interface on one of their internal proprietary databases. All the software will work the same, but it'll be "better" because its powered by BigTable/Spanner/whatever.

* Microsoft. 50/50 shot they might actually just license your code and partner if they thought customers wanted it.

b) I'm not surprised that large customers aren't AGPL fans. Isn't this where they should come in with a dual-license approach and sell commercial licenses to the software you develop? So whats the win here?

leshow• 8 years ago

IMO people in the original thread had a pretty good understanding that Redis core was going to have the same license, and some of the modules RL developed would be proprietary (sorry, "source-available").

I think many people are just plain unhappy with that situation, no misunderstanding. I read comparisons drawn between android, taking more and more out of the open source core into proprietary modules, among others.

dwheeler• 8 years ago

But it does appear to be true that some Redis modules used to be open source software (OSS) and are now proprietary. As I understand it, some modules used to be licensed under the AGPL (an OSS license) and they are now under this new "Commons Clause" (which is a proprietary license). So while the core of Redis is OSS, if my understanding is correct, it's absolutely true that parts of Redis have switched to being proprietary software. That's different than organizations who license the software as "AGPL or proprietary" or "GPL or proprietary" - such licenses are also unambiguously OSS. Choosing "Apache WITH proprietary-rider" is fundamentally different; Redis has every right to do that, but it's fair to note that this isn't the same thing.

XiZhao3• 8 years ago

Also: there is no longer a source-disclosure requirement built into the license.

vmlinuz• 8 years ago

This could have been made clear in a few simple sentences:

We have created a new software license which we are calling the 'Redis Labs License' (RLL), by adding the Commons Clause terms as extra restrictions on top of the Apache 2.0 License. We recognise this will no longer be a true Open Source license, but we consider it a fair trade-off between our business needs and our responsibility and commitment to the Redis community.

From now and in the future, work on the following Redis Labs modules will be published under the RLL: Module A, Module B and Module C.

There will be no change to the licensing of Redis core, and we remain committed to supporting ongoing development under the existing BSD license.

mrfredward• 8 years ago

Redis went out of their way to obfuscate what they were doing with deceptive license names. Now they are struggling to control the damage caused in all the confusion. There's a lesson here...

derefr6• 8 years ago

Redis

Redis Labs isn't Redis, any more than, say, Heroku is Ruby because Matz works there.

arminiusreturns• 8 years ago

BSD: Freedom for the developer

GPL: Freedom for the user

You've made your choice.

zimbatm2• 8 years ago

Even if Redis were to change license, the ones who would be to blame are the big cloud providers that re-package OSS products and rent them without giving anything back. They are milking the work out of these projects, taking only the opportunity to make money out of it.

I remember talking to Elastic and they had a similar issue where AWS would take their product, package it and not give anything back (money or patches).

Obviously it's permitted by the license, it doesn't mean that it's right.

prepend3• 8 years ago

Why would this tweak the developers. Isn’t this precisely what the license they chose was made for to include and allow?

In this case Amazon functions like a hosting company. So would you be surprised if a hardware vendor automated the install and patching of Elastic? They’re basically just installing OSS for end users.

ChristianBundy• 8 years ago

Small nitpick: the "most permissive license ever" is the FPL/0BSD: https://opensource.org/licenses/FPL-1.0.0

keepper• 8 years ago

What I find interesting is all of the comments saying

   "Well, I was going to use RedisLabs.. but because of this, i'll use AWS/elasticache"

Which is just such a weird statement. So instead of supporting the OSS creators and main contributors, who want a way to monetize their "value add" modules, while still giving the core software freely; you rather support a huge corporation that gives almost zero back to OSS ( AWS has a history of extend and embrace, make it a service/black box, with open source, that would make Microsoft of the 90s/00s proud!)

prepend3• 8 years ago

“...gives almost zero back to OSS...” This is not true as Amazon not only releases it’s own projects but contributes really broadly [0].

I can’t speak for others, but I understand the decision to choose ElastiCache over CC software as I understand Amazon’s model a lot better than projects that change their license.

So if I’m going to hinge on something non-OSS, I prefer the logical points where a utility that sells cloud compute so doesn’t care about software than for software companies that change their license, really substantially.

My org allows AGPL as we can easily comply. But we can’t comply with CC. This shift is a big deal and kind of hoses me.

You mention Microsoft in the 90s. They shared source code all the time, but you couldn’t use it and there was zero community. So if you want that, CC is way more likely to get us there as community contributions will dry up. I’d rather depend on companies that are explicit (ie, “this is open source, this is not”).

[0] https://aws.amazon.com/opensource/

derefr6• 8 years ago

But we can’t comply with CC.

Why not? The point of the CC is literally "pay us to use it commercially." You can't just... pay them to use it? Even when that's exactly what you'd be doing by using an AWS service?

whoisjuan• 8 years ago

I don't think that's the problem. Real Open Source (at least for me) means that you can trust that's there's an unbiased commitment to make solutions widely available and implementable. It also means that you can switch between managed providers and/or between OS implementations and expect to have a similar experience.

There are so many ways to make money out of open source that are totally compatible with this approach. I don't see how keeping an iron grip on open source software (just because you're afraid that other people would make money out of it or whatever) would help you at all to monetize your own value-adds.

dahdum2• 8 years ago

One reason from a corporate standpoint is dependency. You can assume AWS will continue to host the core Redis indefinitely, but if you use Redis Labs and your developers begin to use any of the the new proprietary modules, you are locked into the RL platform only. No other platform will be able to use those modules, the only option being rolling your own.

If RL quadruples their pricing, you'll just have to bear it. Definitely makes it more risky than it was.

jsmeaton• 8 years ago

But can’t AWS pay RedisLabs for those modules? That’s exactly what RL are after - a cut from the big hosting providers. If the demand is there (for the modules) then you’ll be able to license them via AWS.

skissane• 8 years ago

If you want to ship enterprise modules under a source-is-publicly-available-but-not-open-source license, a sort of limited-commercial-use-source-available-freeware license, I think that is definitely better in some ways than keeping them fully closed source, so should be applauded.

But, I think this "Commons Clause" condition was a poor choice of a way of achieving that end. Having some condition which is added to an existing open source license, and takes away some of the rights that license grants, is horribly confusing. If you aren't granting the full set of rights associated with open source license X, then open source license X should not even be mentioned.

If you had just picked some existing license which had the set of permissions you wanted, or even created a new one, I don't think anywhere near as many people would be complaining. "Commons Clause" is a horrible idea and should be retired.

esterly• 8 years ago

Best to check the source, license unchanged: https://github.com/antirez/redis/blob/unstable/COPYING

Thank you Salvatore for Redis, it has benefited so many projects.

papaf• 8 years ago

This should be the top rated comment.

I wish people would put the pitchforks away, and acknowledge the challenges of funding a successful Open Source project.

hannob• 8 years ago

Seems a severe case of "we tried really hard to obfuscate our words with marketing bullshit speak and then it backfired and we got a shitstorm instead, because noone understoond what we were really trying to say".

quotemstr3• 8 years ago

I've seen saying for years and years that we're going to see a resurgence of proprietary software. Free software was one of those ideas that spread so successfully that people temporarily forgot that life could be otherwise, which means they stopped caring about the idea, which in turn led to a complacency that, at first, shifted software licensing to a BSD-style permissive model, and now, is starting to allow 1990s cancer like this commonscause.com license restriction to come back.

There's nothing new in the software ecosystem driving this.

Well, this commonsclause.com crap is such a move toward proprietary software. We're here.

The Commons Clause is a first step at starting an important discussion

maxerickson2• 8 years ago

The baseline is pretty high to call anything a resurgence.

I guess by revenue dollar most software is already proprietary, it's just billed as a service or whatnot.

Considering all the code inside of companies, it's probably the case that most lines of code are also proprietary.

slavik81• 8 years ago

Revenue is probably not a good measure, as an open source solution tends to reduce market size as measured by dollars spent. From Bob Young, founder of Red Hat:

The reality is most of our users don’t pay us squat [...] Our business model [showed] that if we had millions of users, we only needed one-tenth of our users to actually find something of value to pay Red Hat for.
If Microsoft’s earning $40 billion worth of operating system sales, and if we [reduce that to] a $4 billion-a-year market, because nine out of ten of the people that use our operating system aren’t going to pay us, we’re quite happy with a share of a $4 billion-a-year market.

https://growthhackers.com/growth-studies/red-hat-how-they-de...

scrollaway6• 8 years ago

Have you read the Commons Clause license? Do you understand it well enough to back up those absurd claims you're making?

People see "oh it's not OSI-approved" and just de-facto assume it's the end of the world.

Redis is an amazing piece of open source, BSD software and you're taking a huge dump on it and its author for not complying to your wishes. Friend, have you done for open source even 1/10th of what Antirez and the Redis project have?

Honestly, this whole thread. I remember instances of people finding out about major figures in open source burning out, turning to drugs or even killing themselves and being all like "oh, this was so preventable".

Prevent now. Stop behaving like this towards people.

quotemstr3• 8 years ago

Your comment is not productive. It attempts to substitute emotion, misplaced empathy, and ultimately social shaming in place of a discussion of the linguistic and economic issues that this Redis affair is surfacing.

Your post amounts to a ban on criticism, on made on the grounds that it might make people feel bad. It's an attempt to end discussion, not further it. Much like proprietary software licensing, this approach has been tried many times before and has seen limited success.

dang5• 8 years ago

Would you please stop posting to HN in the flamewar style? It lowers the discussion and evokes worse from others. We're trying to do better than that here, and I feel like we've asked you this many times already.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

carapace2• 8 years ago

(What I want to know is how does that #$%^ing page hijack the font even in Reader Mode!? WTF! I want serif body fonts goddamnit.)

mrob• 8 years ago

The body text is contained in a <pre> tag with newlines for paragraphs instead of the correct <p> tags. You can force Firefox to respect your font choice by adding a font:inherit to the <pre>'s css with the developer tools. This will break pages with correctly used <pre> tags.

carapace2• 8 years ago

Thank you! You're too kind.

welder• 8 years ago

This Redis-compatible alternative is also BSD licensed:

https://github.com/ideawu/ssdb

And it doesn't require the dataset fit in RAM.

actuator• 8 years ago

This still doesn't sound good. Even I don't like the fact that AWS is extremely bad at giving back to the community but it is not like doing things like this will make people use RedisLabs. Infact, I will be wary of using these modules for the fear of getting locked with a vendor.

I have used both Elasticache and RedisLabs and can say both have their advantages and annoyances. Elasticache is way easier to set up and configure. RedisLabs puts a lot of artificial restrictions which you have to work around. Also, their pricing model is kind of screwed up. The only major problems I have seen with Elasticache are: Locked APIs, no way to scale instance once created with live traffic, A-Z failover sucks and no persistence.

ummonk• 8 years ago

We at Redis Labs are sorry for the confusion generated by the Creative Common page, and my colleagues are working to fix the page with better wording.

So I'm not the only one mixing up "Creative Commons" with "Commons Clause".

Animats• 8 years ago

Isn't this what Google pulled with Android? First it was open source. Then there were closed source Play Store Services. Then Google products required the Play Store services. Then third-party Android distributions stopped working. Now you do what Google tells you to do and pay them what they want to be paid to use Android.

DickScarington• 8 years ago

RedisLabs needs to clearly mark which of the following versions of these modules are freely redistributable as part of a larger project or service.

  neural-redis BSD
  RediSearch AGPL
  rediSQL AGPL-3.0
  ReJSON AGPL
  Redis AGPL
  redis-cell MIT
  Redis-ML AGPL
  redis-timerseries AGPL
  cthulhu BSD
  rebloom AGPL
  redis-cuckoofilter MIT
  redis-roaring MIT
  redis-tdigest MIT
  Session MIT
  countminsketch AGPL
  topk AGPL
  ReDe MIT
  commentDis MIT

smarnach• 8 years ago

Just as a curiosity, Redis Labs is offering a hosted Memcached service, so they are a cloud provider profiting from open-source software they did not significantly contribute to. Just saying. (More seriously, I think the only mistake they made was communicating this license change badly, and with too much whining about how unfair it is that people do what the license explicitly allows them to do.)

antirez12• 8 years ago

It's a proxy that targets Redis actually.

Redis will remain BSD licensed

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