Redis Changes Its Open Source License -- Again (zdnet.com) 68
"Redis Labs is dropping its Commons Clause license in favor of its new 'available-source' license: Redis Source Available License (RSAL)," reports ZDNet -- adding "This is not an open-source license."
Redis Labs had used Commons Clause on top of the open-source Apache License to protect its rights to modules added to its 3-Clause-BSD-licensed Redis, the popular open-source in-memory data structure store. But, as Manish Gupta, Redis Labs' CMO, explained, "It didn't work. Confusion reigned over whether or not the modules were open source. They're not open-source." So, although it hadn't wanted to create a new license, that's what Redis Labs ended up doing....
The RSAL grants, Gupta said, equivalent rights to permissive open-source licenses for the vast majority of users. With the RSAL, developers can: Use the software; modify the source code; integrate it with an application; and use, distribute, support, or sell their application. But -- and this is big -- the RSAL forbids you from using any application built with these modules in a database, a caching engine, a stream processing engine, a search engine, an indexing engine, or a machine learning/artificial intelligence serving engine. In short, all the ways that Redis Labs makes money from Redis. Gupta wants to make it perfectly clear: "We're not calling it open source. It's not."
Earlier this month the Open Source Initiative had reaffirmed its commitment to open source's original definition, adding "There is no trust in a world where anyone can invent their own definition for open source, and without trust there is no community, no collaboration, and no innovation."
And earlier this week on Twitter a Red Hat open-source evangelist said they wondered whether Redis was just "clueless. There are a lot of folks entering #opensource today who are unwilling to do the research and reading, and assume that these are all new problems."
The RSAL grants, Gupta said, equivalent rights to permissive open-source licenses for the vast majority of users. With the RSAL, developers can: Use the software; modify the source code; integrate it with an application; and use, distribute, support, or sell their application. But -- and this is big -- the RSAL forbids you from using any application built with these modules in a database, a caching engine, a stream processing engine, a search engine, an indexing engine, or a machine learning/artificial intelligence serving engine. In short, all the ways that Redis Labs makes money from Redis. Gupta wants to make it perfectly clear: "We're not calling it open source. It's not."
Earlier this month the Open Source Initiative had reaffirmed its commitment to open source's original definition, adding "There is no trust in a world where anyone can invent their own definition for open source, and without trust there is no community, no collaboration, and no innovation."
And earlier this week on Twitter a Red Hat open-source evangelist said they wondered whether Redis was just "clueless. There are a lot of folks entering #opensource today who are unwilling to do the research and reading, and assume that these are all new problems."
Bye, Redis (Score:3)
This will be the thing that causes Redis to lose whatever prominent marketshare it currently has.
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This.
The headline is wrong. This is not "Redis changes its open source license" -- as the company acknowledges, this is "Redis goes non-open source". In-house developers are not going to want to build on Redis if its license forbids them from using modified versions for the things that Redis is designed to do.
Re:Bye, Redis (Score:5, Informative)
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Clarification: The license for the Redis core is not changing *yet*.
They have altered the licence. Pray they do not alter it further.
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How is that meaningfully different than the case of the modules, which were apparently under AGPL before they changed to Apache v2.0+Commons Clause (for six months) or this clearly non-open-source license?
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If the reporting here is accurate, what Gupta actually said was that Redis never was open-source.
And this really gets me too:
the RSAL forbids you from using any application built with these modules in a database, a caching engine, a stream processing engine, a search engine, an indexing engine, or a machine learning/artificial intelligence serving engine. In short, all the ways that Redis Labs makes money from Redis.
That's not just all the ways it makes money; it's pretty damned close to a list of all the things that are practical to do with Redis.
No use in a database? Get real.
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This will be the thing that causes Redis to lose whatever prominent marketshare it currently has.
It certainly is very consumer unfriendly. One of my favorite applications called Rspam uses Redis. I am guessing that Rspam is going to be ripping out that and choosing a friendly, open source product. It's a shame that greed is winning out.
Missing Information (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Missing Information (Score:5, Informative)
Amazon wants to take their database, modify it so it can be used as a hosted AWS service, and not contribute back their code changes.
If that bothers Redis, they should use the AGPL, which specifically prevents that kind of thing. The BSD licenses specifically allow it. Instead, Redis made their own licence, which annoyed RedHat enough to threaten removing Redis from their distro.
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Agpl will impact a lot of use cases that are possible now. Think for example in an embedded device.
How would that be impacted? Serious question.
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It would not, if the AC was implying that Redis would run within an embedded device. Redis is addressed toward use cases like "I need a distributed cache that can effectively cache a hundred-million objects with sub-millisecond access." That, and the other use cases for Redis, are not the kind of things that would be likely to occur for an embedded device.
10 meter pole (Score:2)
don't touch that code even with a 10 meter pole !
Redis alternative in 3,2,1 ... (Score:4, Interesting)
Does anyone know any neat Redis alternatives/forks?
Fork it :) (Score:3)
Fork it hard and right before the license change. :)
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One issue you’re ignoring is that a lot of us open source developers would love to spend more time on open source, but have signed "inventions" contracts which force us to turn over any "inventions" we make, in our spare time or not, over to our employer (California has a "on your own time, with your own computer, as long as it is not related to what your employer makes" exception, but some companies argue they make everything, so the third clause means they own everything a developer can possibly do [joelonsoftware.com]
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Does anyone know any neat Redis alternatives/forks?
There is always Pedis [github.com] .. It doesn't do everything that Redis does, but for the vast majority of cases thats ok.
welp (Score:1)
What a load of bollocks (Score:4, Interesting)
Earlier this month the Open Source Initiative had reaffirmed its commitment to open source's original definition, adding "There is no trust in a world where anyone can invent their own definition for open source
Uh, bullshit. Open Source means you can see the source. That's all it means. That's why we have all these various Open Source licenses, and also why Free Software is different from Open Source. When you don't invent the term, which was provably in use before the leading lights of the OSI claimed to have coined it, you don't get to define it.
Redis IS Open Source. It is NOT Free Software. Equivocating the two is corporate whoredom.
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Hey dumbass, your application to be the guy that decides what all the words mean? Denied.
I know you're an idiot, you've been posting idiot shit on this site for years, but what the fuck makes you think you would get to make up a new meaning for a common term? I mean, did you fall out of bed and have a head injury this morning?
Get some fucking internet and look up what Open Source is!
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I agree with you here, but I don't have mod points.
A specific person probably used the term "Open Source" first, and that person has given a definition and description of intent, and control has been placed in the hands of the OSI.
As far as I can see, they've got a monopoly on the meaning of that term. I'm not really sure why drinkypoo tried to claim anyone was equating it with Free Software, a thing that the inventor of the term Open Source stated he was deliberately trying to be distinct from. Smells like
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Stupid bleeping...I'm not sure how I wrote "probably". A specific person, ESR, definitely used it first.
Re:What a load of bollocks (Score:5, Interesting)
Stupid bleeping...I'm not sure how I wrote "probably". A specific person, ESR, definitely used it first.
First, ESR doesn't actually claim (any more) to have invented it, he claims Christine Petersen invented it. He changed his story.
Second:
1993: Jerome Schneider [google.com]
1996: Caldera [archive.org] (Written by Lyle Ball, whom I queried on the subject [hyperlogos.org])
1998: Christine Peterson [opensource.com] (Writing in 2006, mind, and providing zero citations)
So you tell me, who you gonna believe? The citations which prove that its use predates OSI claims by five years, provided by a person (me) who has nothing to gain by continuing this argument except the credibility which naturally comes from supporting the facts, or someone with something to gain economically from making such claims, like Christine Peterson or Bruce Perens [slashdot.org]? The only dog I've got in this fight is the truth.
Sustaining this argument over the years (literally over more than a decade [slashdot.org]) has cost me substantial credibility, but only among people who value prejudice over fact. I'm okay with that. Better to suffer for the truth than promote a pack of lies. Buying into bullshit is why we can't have nice things.
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A specific person probably used the term "Open Source" first,
They probably did, but we (around UCSC, MIT, etc) were already using it before it appeared in the first commercial source, a press release for Caldera OpenDOS. Background and Citations are found here. [hyperlogos.org]
and that person has given a definition and description of intent, and control has been placed in the hands of the OSI.
Well, no. Absolutely not. We don't actually know who first coined the term relating to software, but they were probably in or near the intelligence community, which was using the term to mean something else. What we do know is that the people in the OSI who claim to have been involved with its invention did no
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They're called homonyms. Open Source intel is not Open Source software.
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We don't actually know who first coined the term relating to software, but they were probably in or near the intelligence community, which was using the term to mean something else.
They're called homonyms. Open Source intel is not Open Source software.
me: they were using the term to mean something else
you: they're not the same thing
me: facepalm
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Nonetheless, interesting little post. I do feel like it confirms the original authorship of the term as ESR. It's claimed that Perens claims ESR invented it, regardless of the disagreement on timing.
"Raymond and I had met occassionally at the Hacker's Conference, a by-invitation-only gathering of creative and unconventional programmers. We had corresponded on various subjects via e-mail. He contacted me in February of 1997 with the idea for Open Source."
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Nonetheless, interesting little post. I do feel like it confirms the original authorship of the term as ESR. It's claimed that Perens claims ESR invented it, regardless of the disagreement on timing.
You think he invented it in 1997, my citation clearly shows that it was used in 1996 [hyperlogos.org], and I contacted the person who wrote that press release and he confirmed "my" version of events [hyperlogos.org]. (I also included two additional citations at the bottom of that second story).
The evidence proves conclusively that nobody at the OSI invented the term. I probably should have linked that second blog post first, or instead, but my first post was frankly sufficient proof. In fact, I only ever wrote the second one because of the
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Well... I shot my mouth off on Slashdot and came up wrong it would seem. I wasn't aware of the OpenDOS announcement.
I have to admit you have a compelling argument for Caldera being first to put out a license using that term. The mailing list entry, the license text itself, are all evocative of what Open Source became.
You're right, and I think it'd be interesting to hear ESR and Perens' take on them.
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You're right, and I think it'd be interesting to hear ESR and Perens' take on them.
Me too! ESR won't join any argument he doesn't think he can win, but if you want to know what Bruce thinks about this, you can google Slashdot and find the several times he and I have clashed over the subject. I used to think ESR was one of the smartest guys around, but then I followed him on Google+ for a while and that cured me of that notion.
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No, but using a different meaning doesn't change theirs. They don't control shit, but their use can't be controlled, either.
All the meanings of the words are meanings of the words, but the main meaning in a context is still the main meaning.
The part that was stupid above was the "that's all it means" part, because "all it means" at a minimum needs to include the known meanings.
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Why must you be such an angry young man when your future looks quite bright to me?
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You're fooling yourself if you don't believe it.
Come on, let's see what you've got just take your best shot and don't blow it.
Any evidence of that whatsoever, or from your butt (Score:2)
> provably in use before the leading lights of the OSI claimed to have coined it
Do you have any shred of evidence whatsoever that the term was in use prior to the February 1998 meeting, or are you talking out of your butt?
BTW OSI has trademarks for various "Open Source *", terms so they *do* get to define it, legally.
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Do you have any shred of evidence whatsoever that the term was in use prior to the February 1998 meeting, or are you talking out of your butt?
Solid Evidence is located here [hyperlogos.org].
BTW OSI has trademarks for various "Open Source *", terms so they *do* get to define it, legally.
No, no they do NOT. They have trademark on "Open Source Initiative" but they declined to attempt to register "Open Source" when they registered "Open Source Initiative" on the advice of their legal counsel. We don't know on what grounds their legal counsel told them not to do it, and they don't actually believe in Openness so they haven't told us. We only know that their counsel told them not to, because they told us THAT much.
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Oh, for fuck's sake, grow up. Someone choosing to preserve their attorney-client privilege does not mean "they don't actually believe in Openness".
But at least you made it blindingly obvious that you have a huge chip on your shoulder about OSI.
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Oh, for fuck's sake, grow up. Someone choosing to preserve their attorney-client privilege does not mean "they don't actually believe in Openness".
In this case, it absolutely does. It's also legally relevant, and here's why. Members of the OSI have claimed publicly that it was a mistake to heed their counsel in that regard, and that they should have filed for a trademark on "Open Source", because it probably would have been granted (their words, or at least, the gist.) In fact, they made those claims here on Slashdot. However, they are the ones who hold the information about the truth of those claims. One can't go to their attorney to find out (obviou
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I think your post would have been more credible if you had shown any understanding that a trademark [wikipedia.org] and copyright [wikipedia.org] are not the same thing. In particular, you need to take active steps to defend against violations of a registered trademark or you may lose it.
I would guess the reason they were advised against registering "open source" as a trademark is that they would have had to be continually defending it when used incorrectly, plus they wanted the term to become a widely used term.
Thanks much. You misrepresent Bruce's words (Score:3)
Thanks for the link and your research.
You have, however, misrepresented the statement Bruce Perens made. This unfortunate fact turns your work from useful to bullshit. I'm not sure why you would put in all that time, then produce a lie. You could have lied without doing ANY research.
Bruce's statement is consistent with everyone else's. Bruce, ESR, Christine Peterson, et all discussed it and agreed upon that term. *Bruce then took the responsibility for drafting and maintaining a definition based upon the D
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Thanks for the link and your research.
You're welcome.
You have, however, misrepresented the statement Bruce Perens made. This unfortunate fact turns your work from useful to bullshit.
No, no it does not. Frankly, it wasn't clear at the time what Bruce was talking about. Lots of people were making lots of claims at the time — remember, this was a dozen years ago, before Christine Peterson claimed to have coined the term. But even if it was, that doesn't change the content or quality of the citations I and others located even slightly.
Neither Perens, nor ESR, not Stallman, nor any other person claims to have originated the term,
Christine Peterson outright claims to have "coined" the phrase [opensource.com]. My recollection is that before that, ESR claimed to have done so, but h
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> agree with you that Perens didn't claim to have coined the term
That's great we agree on that point, thank you.
I may not have made myself clear regarding the Caldera headline. "Source code" has been a well-known term for many years, well before the period being discussed. It's a noun phrase with a specific meaning. That noun "source code" was and still is often described with many adjectives. You could could "messy code", "elegant source code", "corrupted source code", "open source code", "long source c
Perhaps I should have said "name" (Score:2)
My post post might have been more clear if I had said "name" rather than "noun phrase".
"Source code" is the name of a specific thing.
There is a huge difference between spelling a url "h t t p colon slash slash ..." versus using "colonslash.org" as the name of a particular thing.
Neither Peterson nor anyone else claims to have been first to the words "open" and "source". It is generally believed they *named* something "open source".
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Neither Peterson nor anyone else claims to have been first to the words "open" and "source". It is generally believed they *named* something "open source".
You're trying to draw a distinction where none exists. Source == Source Code. And those of us who were actually there rapidly dropped the word "code" off of the end of that, before the OSIers think they named something "Open Source". They were late to the party, and they're either being disingenuous, or they were just totally oblivious to what was actually happening years earlier. This 1993 USENET post [google.com] (which I linked before) proves conclusively that the words "Open Source" were clearly being used to refer
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> First you don't like what you think I said about Bruce,
That's right, I don't like lying - and it seriously distracts from any valid point you might have, mixed in with lies and half-truths.
The 1993 post not only uses "open source" as a stand-alone term, it's also capitalized, assuming the caps are there in the original rather than being adddd by you. Names get capitalized, so that look like "Open Source" is being used as the name of some particular thing. Not just happened to have both words (with sep
To summarize (Score:2)
To summarize my thoughts on the matter:
If you just point out the CompuServe post, you've shown the term was in use prior to the meeting. You win.
If instead you make bullshit statements like saying Bruce claims to have coined the term, anyone reading that will likely see that you are full of shit and stop reading before they even get to see the CompuServe link. You lose the argument because your evidence is never seen and you just look like an asshole.
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If instead you make bullshit statements like saying Bruce claims to have coined the term, anyone reading that will likely see that you are full of shit and stop reading before they even get to see the CompuServe link. You lose the argument because your evidence is never seen and you just look like an asshole.
If you can't learn from assholes, how do you learn from anyone? Most everyone acts like one at least part of the time, like when they remain willfully ignorant even when someone is trying to share information with them.
And here, have a fresh citation, hot off the WP (Score:2)
Just discovered this one on Wikipedia [wikipedia.org], the oldest citation yet: Bill Joy, co-founder of Sun Microsystems, cited as using the term all the way back in 1985 [archive.org]. (Try at about 13 minutes and 50 seconds.) Thanks, NJB!
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You're talking crap. The Open Source Initiative (OSI) organisation has a specific definition for "Open Source" and has a trademark on the term. Licenses that don't meat the OSI definition of "Open Source" are typically referred to as "source available", "shared source", or "public source" to avoid stepping on the trademark. Various services are only available to projects released under the terms of an OSI-approved Open Source license (e.g. SourceForge hosting, or free use of Coverity static analysis). S
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You're talking crap. The Open Source Initiative (OSI) organisation has a specific definition for "Open Source" and has a trademark on the term.
No, they don't. They literally do not have a trademark on "Open Source" [wikipedia.org]. First they decided not to try to register it, and then they tried and were denied on the basis of lack of specificity. Their trademark is on "Open Source Initiative". Perhaps you're confused by their old logo, which put the (R) next to "Source" instead of "Initiative", in which case their nefarious graphics design worked brilliantly on your tiny little mind. The rest of your comment is therefore invalid, and there's no point in engagin
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Yes, in fact, you do. The first person to use a term does not obtain a perpetual monopoly concerning its meaning, especially when they put no substantial investment into promoting that meaning. English is a consensus based language, and the consensus has long favored the OSI definition.
You can set yourself on fire over this issue all you wish, but the majorit [merriam-webster.com]
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"The first person to use a term does not obtain a perpetual monopoly concerning its meaning, especially when they put no substantial investment into promoting that meaning."
This isn't about a person, this is about a community which was using this terminology for over a decade before Bruce tried to rewrite history. If he wasn't aware of that, then he was ignorant. If he was, then he was arrogant. If you aren't familiar with the substantial prior use (which as we have seen in this discussion, goes back at lea
Understandable (Score:2)
Just about everyone makes a living through something proprietary. The only exceptions are those who give away all their creations, but attract patrons who are just happy that they exist. I can't think of one at the moment. Even Beethoven sold concerts and scores (and dedications?).
When their software is a person's only chance for revenue, it's entirely understandable that these ISVs don't adopt a licence that totally gives it away. Hopefully in a way that retains as many of the benefits of open software