News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:“Commons Clause” was intended to stop AWS from selling op... by danieldk on Monday September 10, 2018 @08:24AM (#17951262)
When open source became popular, it was designed for practitioners to experiment with and build on, while contributing back to the community. [...] open-source software was never intended for cloud infrastructure companies to take and sell.

Uhm no. If you are using the BSD license or the Apache license, you are explicitly saying: you can use this software as you want, just give me credit, and don't sue me if it does not work. Many companies have used the BSD TCP/IP stack and included it in proprietary software, including the BSD projects. This is something that the non-copyleft open source licenses explicitly permit and has been encouraged by a lot of projects. Using open source software in the cloud is a modern variant of it.

When it comes to copyleft licensing, the goal is that the user of a program or service (in the case of AGPL) can obtain the source code of a program and redistribute it under the same terms.

The goal of open source was never to protect (VC-backed) companies that want to pretent to do open source, but then object when other people earn money with their software.

What you are looking for is a non-open source license, optionally with the possibility to make the source available. That's fine. But please stop hijacking the history of open source and diluting the reputation of open source licenses by calling it Apache 2 License + Commons Clause.

Commons Clause is not open source and had nothing to do with it.

Some rabid open-source wonks accused Redis Labs of trying to trick the community into thinking that modules were open source, because they used the word “Apache.” (They were reported to be foaming at the mouth while making these accusations, but in fairness it could have been just drool.)

What does this poison even do on Hacker News?

Re:“Commons Clause” was intended to stop AWS from selling op... by ABS on Monday September 10, 2018 @08:45AM (#17951365)
it is telling that he opens with a factually wrong "fact":

"I have invested in the companies behind many open-source projects: [...] Redis" (linking to RedisLabs' website)

except RedisLabs is NOT "the company behind Redis"

Re:“Commons Clause” was intended to stop AWS from selling op... by marshray on Monday September 10, 2018 @08:56PM (#17956390)
Well, the confusion sure seems intentional.

"On July 15, 2015, the creator of Redis and lead developer, Salvatore Sanfilippo, joined Redis Labs to lead open source development, and Redis Labs became the official sponsor of the open source project."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redis_Labs

Re:“Commons Clause” was intended to stop AWS from selling op... by gregwebs on Monday September 10, 2018 @08:37AM (#17951325)
I think its useful to have a name of "Apache 2 License + Commons Clause" because 99% of the users will use it as Apache-2.0 rather than sell it as a cloud service.
Re:“Commons Clause” was intended to stop AWS from selling op... by dragonwriter on Monday September 10, 2018 @08:43AM (#17951360)
> 99% of the users will use it as Apache-2.0 rather than sell it as a cloud service.

No, that's the fundamental problem: 0% of the users will “use it as Apache 2.0”; this is not a dual license with Apache 2.0 license and some other license as options, it's a single license which is more restrictive than Apache 2.0.

Re:“Commons Clause” was intended to stop AWS from selling op... by gregwebs on Monday September 10, 2018 @01:43PM (#17953525)
Practically speaking, how is that different than shipping Apache 2.0 with a NOTICE file? Having to include a notice is more restrictive than Apache 2.0 without a notice. For a cloud provider, there is a real difference, but for a non-cloud provider the NOTICE version is more restrictive.

A question I don't see addressed is: what licensing compatibility issues (for non-cloud providers) are presented by the commons clause?

Re:“Commons Clause” was intended to stop AWS from selling op... by lozenge on Monday September 10, 2018 @02:03PM (#17953657)
It's incompatible with all open source licences.
Re:“Commons Clause” was intended to stop AWS from selling op... by detaro on Monday September 10, 2018 @02:04PM (#17953672)
For compatibility with Open Source licenses the Commons Clause is like any other proprietary license: some (e.g. MIT) allow combination, and the result is proprietary, others (e.g. GPL) are entirely incompatible.
Re:“Commons Clause” was intended to stop AWS from selling op... by detaro on Monday September 10, 2018 @02:08PM (#17953705)
Note that representatives of the Apache Foundation have repeatedly requested to not use this misleading naming scheme, which has seemingly been totally ignored.
Re:“Commons Clause” was intended to stop AWS from selling op... by gregwebs on Monday September 10, 2018 @02:18PM (#17953787)
Is there a reference for that? That would convince me that it is a bad idea to use that naming scheme then.
Re:“Commons Clause” was intended to stop AWS from selling op... by detaro on Monday September 10, 2018 @03:39PM (#17954500)