Redis changes license again
At Redis Labs, for the second time in the last six months, they are changing the licensing model for a number of their products. The company is now switching from the Apache 2.0 Commons Clause to the Redis Source Available License (RSAL). Let's talk about the reasons for this decision and the features of RSAL.
/ Pixino / congerdesign / PD
Redis Labs is not the first time to change the license for their products. Last August, the company transferred several modules — Redis Graph, ReJSON, and others — from the GNU AGPL license to Apache 2.0 Commons Clause. Thus, the company has banned the sale of original modules by third parties. However, this led to unpleasant consequences.
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First, the new license caused confusion and misunderstanding. Some users mistakenly decided that working with modules is now governed only by Apache 2.0 (without Commons Clause). Secondly, the ban on the sale of solutions Redis " strike " on open source. For example, some of the services were forced to be removed by the Debian and Fedora developers. They had to create forklifts of the Redis module repositories and merge them into the GoodFORM project.
The Redis Labs team also encountered unforeseen difficulties. License restrictions have slowed the growth of the community around products, although the effect was expected to be exactly the opposite. All this led to the fact that Redis Labs created their license, honed to the needs and features of the company - RSAL.
According to the RSAL terms, developers can use the RediSearch, RedisGraph, RedisJSON, RedisBloom, RedisML, and several others modules in their services, change the source code, and implement it in applications. Final solutions can be distributed and sold.
RSAL limits only the type of end products. An application based on the designated modules cannot be a database, a tool for caching and indexing, a search engine or software for working with machine learning.
The purpose of these restrictions is to exclude commercial implementation of the modules by competing companies without prejudice to the Redis community. As for the Redis core itself, just like last time, it remains open and distributed under the BSD license. To support it, the company created a separate team that will manage the development of the kernel, regardless of what happens to the other components.
/ Flickr / Mark Hougaard Jensen / CC BY-SA
Some representatives of the community believe that re-changing the license can be another mistake. Matt Asay of Adobe does not agree with the statement that large corporations that sell open source software have a negative effect on the development of open source ecosystems. He says that such organizations, on the contrary, help to spread open products in the global market.
The vision of Redis is also not shared by Gordon Haff, head of cloud computing at Red Hat. He believes that due to licensing, Redis is trying to “sit on two chairs” - to profit from the sale of modules and be an open source company.
Red Hat Apache Guru Rich Bowen called the company's decision "meaningless." According to him, people who come to open source, expect to see free solutions and they hardly want to understand some of the limitations and conditions. Members of the Open Source Initiative ( OSI ) agree with him. They argue that the actions of Redis are contrary to the definition and principles of open source software.
There are those who see the meaning in the transition to a new license. For example, the head of BaenCapital notes that corporations that build their products on the basis of open source software act unethically . Therefore, the actions of Redis are quite understandable - with the help of new licenses, the company protects its interests and the rights of developers.
One of the creators of Ansible, Michael Dehaan (Michael DeHaan) also believes that if all the software to distribute for free, most of the projects simply will not survive. Not all companies manage to attract investors, so the sale of individual components to large organizations is one of the ways to stay on the market.
Redis Labs are not the only ones trying different licensing approaches. So, in October 2018 MongoDB switched from the GNU AGPL to its own version of the GNU 3 - Server-Side Public License (SSPL). The purpose of changing the license is the same as that of Redis - to prevent third-party companies from “packaging” and reselling an open DBMS.
The authors of the Confluent project also abandoned Apache 2.0 in favor of their version - the Confluent Community License . The terms of the new license prohibit selling KSQL as a proprietary solution. Although it is still allowed to implement SaaS services on this SQL engine.
There are other examples of companies where part of the solutions are implemented for money. Among them - Elasticsearch, Hadoop, Berkeley DB and dozens of others.
/ Pixino / congerdesign / PD
A bit of history
Redis Labs is not the first time to change the license for their products. Last August, the company transferred several modules — Redis Graph, ReJSON, and others — from the GNU AGPL license to Apache 2.0 Commons Clause. Thus, the company has banned the sale of original modules by third parties. However, this led to unpleasant consequences.
')
First, the new license caused confusion and misunderstanding. Some users mistakenly decided that working with modules is now governed only by Apache 2.0 (without Commons Clause). Secondly, the ban on the sale of solutions Redis " strike " on open source. For example, some of the services were forced to be removed by the Debian and Fedora developers. They had to create forklifts of the Redis module repositories and merge them into the GoodFORM project.
The Redis Labs team also encountered unforeseen difficulties. License restrictions have slowed the growth of the community around products, although the effect was expected to be exactly the opposite. All this led to the fact that Redis Labs created their license, honed to the needs and features of the company - RSAL.
What is the new license?
According to the RSAL terms, developers can use the RediSearch, RedisGraph, RedisJSON, RedisBloom, RedisML, and several others modules in their services, change the source code, and implement it in applications. Final solutions can be distributed and sold.
RSAL limits only the type of end products. An application based on the designated modules cannot be a database, a tool for caching and indexing, a search engine or software for working with machine learning.
In all other cases, the developed software can be used and distributed with the note: This software is subject to the Agreement .
The purpose of these restrictions is to exclude commercial implementation of the modules by competing companies without prejudice to the Redis community. As for the Redis core itself, just like last time, it remains open and distributed under the BSD license. To support it, the company created a separate team that will manage the development of the kernel, regardless of what happens to the other components.
/ Flickr / Mark Hougaard Jensen / CC BY-SA
What does the community think?
Some representatives of the community believe that re-changing the license can be another mistake. Matt Asay of Adobe does not agree with the statement that large corporations that sell open source software have a negative effect on the development of open source ecosystems. He says that such organizations, on the contrary, help to spread open products in the global market.
The vision of Redis is also not shared by Gordon Haff, head of cloud computing at Red Hat. He believes that due to licensing, Redis is trying to “sit on two chairs” - to profit from the sale of modules and be an open source company.
Red Hat Apache Guru Rich Bowen called the company's decision "meaningless." According to him, people who come to open source, expect to see free solutions and they hardly want to understand some of the limitations and conditions. Members of the Open Source Initiative ( OSI ) agree with him. They argue that the actions of Redis are contrary to the definition and principles of open source software.
There are those who see the meaning in the transition to a new license. For example, the head of BaenCapital notes that corporations that build their products on the basis of open source software act unethically . Therefore, the actions of Redis are quite understandable - with the help of new licenses, the company protects its interests and the rights of developers.
One of the creators of Ansible, Michael Dehaan (Michael DeHaan) also believes that if all the software to distribute for free, most of the projects simply will not survive. Not all companies manage to attract investors, so the sale of individual components to large organizations is one of the ways to stay on the market.
Who else recently changed the license
Redis Labs are not the only ones trying different licensing approaches. So, in October 2018 MongoDB switched from the GNU AGPL to its own version of the GNU 3 - Server-Side Public License (SSPL). The purpose of changing the license is the same as that of Redis - to prevent third-party companies from “packaging” and reselling an open DBMS.
The authors of the Confluent project also abandoned Apache 2.0 in favor of their version - the Confluent Community License . The terms of the new license prohibit selling KSQL as a proprietary solution. Although it is still allowed to implement SaaS services on this SQL engine.
There are other examples of companies where part of the solutions are implemented for money. Among them - Elasticsearch, Hadoop, Berkeley DB and dozens of others.
“There are fewer free projects like the Linux kernel, WordPress or GIMP. Open source developers are building business models in an attempt to find a balance between revenue and the free distribution of products without prejudice to the company, ”commented Sergey Belkin, head of the development department of the virtual infrastructure provider 1cloud.ru . “But there are still enough people in the IT community who oppose changes to the open source concept. Therefore, in the near future, completely free software will not disappear from the market, no matter how the licenses for certain products and their components change. ”
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Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/442338/
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