Re:Amazon's cloud business is competing with its own customers
by tracker1 on Monday December 03, 2018 @04:14PM
(#18593093)
Even GPL wouldn't stop Amazon from offering API interfaces to services built on GPL software. They're not selling/distributing the software. AGPL and similar provisions might work, but then you risk alienating most commercial interest.
Many either don't understand or don't want to take on any risk associated with some kinds of licensing or barriers in certain situations. Right now I've had to work around calling a GPL executable (pngquant), simply because we don't want to have to require it as a separate install. So switched to an alternative implementation.
It just depends on where you are, where your business is, and what you're working towards/against. It's hard to find a balance. And it will take some time to flush out. MongoDB and Redis come to mind here. They have to make some money to pay their bills and developers, also profit isn't a bad word. At the same time, huge cloud providers are offering services using their software and the devs make nothing. I get both sides here. There's no perfect solution here.
Many either don't understand or don't want to take on any risk associated with some kinds of licensing or barriers in certain situations. Right now I've had to work around calling a GPL executable (pngquant), simply because we don't want to have to require it as a separate install. So switched to an alternative implementation.
It just depends on where you are, where your business is, and what you're working towards/against. It's hard to find a balance. And it will take some time to flush out. MongoDB and Redis come to mind here. They have to make some money to pay their bills and developers, also profit isn't a bad word. At the same time, huge cloud providers are offering services using their software and the devs make nothing. I get both sides here. There's no perfect solution here.