Whether Commons Clause is the right solution or not (and I have my opinion on that), at least the Redis people are trying something to fix the problem of unstustainable one-way resource extraction by mega-corporations. Of the hundreds of people criticizing them here, often in ways that question their motivation and integrity, how many are offering alternative solutions? As far as I can tell, it's a depressingly small number.
After everything Antirez has contributed to us, he deserves better than this avalanche of unconstructive negativity. If you think Commons Clause is not the correct solution to the problem of unsustainable exploitation of open-source projects, what do you propose?
The only thing they're doing "differently" is the deceptive messaging. For this, I blame the Commons Clause initiative.
Redis Labs could take these same actions under a non-deceptive name and the response of the Open Source community would be vastly different.
Lots of companies have an "open core" model (where the core is OSS and some modules are proprietary). Many organizations have mechanisms where you can review source code of their proprietary code, subject to certain requirements. When things are made clear, there's no deception.
But naming a license rider "Commons" seems designed to cause confusion. It'll be easily confused with OSS licenses (since a "commons" is the discussed reason for having them) and with the well-known Creative Commons licenses. Saying it's a rider "with" the Apache License 2.0 also makes it appear that that this is the Apache License and endorsed by the Apache Foundation, which it is not. Saying that something is only OSS if you use the standard definition of OSS makes it sound like there's a minor legal nit, but it's a fundamental precept that OSS allows any use (including use by business).
> Redis Labs could take these same actions under a non-deceptive name and the response of the Open Source community would be vastly different.
I think that's right. I'm sure some would be unhappy, but the real problem here is the naming that seems designed to mislead. I'm not sure the information here was actually designed to mislead, but if that wasn't the intent, I think Redis Labs needs to change the names to quell the confusion.
If Redis Labs continues to use these confusing names, I suspect that the Creative Commons Corporation and Apache Foundation will consider going to court to protect their trademarks, since otherwise there's a significant risk of confusion in the marketplace (the reason that trademarks exist). Hopefully Redis Labs will just change to less-confusing names and then the problem will disappear.
I get that Commons Clause does not meet the official definition of Open Source (which I believe they admit upfront), but it’s definitely different from “open core” and from whatever Red Hat calls their model. Since it’s something new, it seems reasonable to give it a new name. I don’t have any strong opinions about the name “Commons Clause, maybe there’s a better name for it, but I wouldn’t call this one deceptive.
It made more sense when you could release a product openly and then start a business around supporting it, consulting and training and selling "enterprise" versions for serious customers. But now that's even hard to do when everyone just wants to use AWS, etc to use this software.
It's a double edged sword and we take for granted. These projects have grown and become so feature rich because of the investment in them and the ability to hire hundreds of developers to contribute full time. But then this is harvested by someone who isn't paying for it and not just a little bit - a whole lot. What will eventually happen is we won't have feature rich products that are open source in the future without a change in how we think about licensing. The Apache License is not compatible with running a business around an open source project any longer.