That's incredible. After two years and many other databases really going non opensource, Redis, the only one that really stayed BSD, is still victim of this misinformation that claims it is no longer open source. Folks, we are supposed to be a bit more informed than the average person here. We can do a little better.

Redis itself is proper open source. There are a few modules, completely separate from the Redis code base, that aren't open source (even though Redis Labs will claim they are, like how Elastic claim Elasticsearch is open source).

The other non-open-source-but-wants-open-source-clout is Mongo.

I think it's more about the source of the revenue stream. Redis (from what I know, which is minimal) relies more on support - they have a hosted solution but support/licensing of modules is where they really make money. Elastic relies on hosting - they've invested a lot in infrastructure.

This isn't true. Modules are free (unless you're a hosting competitor) so there is no licensing revenue there. They might be charging a handful of enterprise customers for special module support, but that isn't their main revenue stream. Their revenue is from Redis Enterprise which is a Redis hosting solution (managed cloud, unmanaged cloud or on-prem). Redis Enterprise is entirely closed-source, but it's an infrastructure management system and not a data store (it isn't Redis).

Redis Labs only supports Redis Enterprise. They're not in the business of offering support for Redis.

No, the difference is that Elastic is a massive $15 billion company which needs more revenue to survive, while Redis is still largely run by one person.

This isn't true. Salvatore retired earlier this year. Redis is run, more or less, by Redis Labs which is valued at $1 billion.

While it is true that Salvatore retired last year, Redis is still FOSS under the BSD license, and it has a new governance team. Redis Labs is in the drivers seat with 3 of the 5 members, including 2 Project Leads. But there are members from Alibaba and AWS https://redis.io/topics/governance

If Redis Labs were to do something stupid with the Redis OSS license, Alibaba and AWS would fork it faster than you can HyperLogLog.

Too help clear up confusion between Redis & Redis Labs, you can read about the various licenses here: https://redislabs.com/legal/licenses/

I have never seen the Redis maintainer(s) complain about it though.

Would be interesting to compare/contrast, what leads to the difference.

They do the same with lots of products really. Postgres and MySQL too for instance. Also never seen postgres or mysql maintainance teams complain about it.

What are the contextual differences that make it a point of conflict with authors/maintainers in one case but not others?

Plenty people spending a lot of their time working on Postgres have complained about Amazon's style of using open source. Among them myself (long before working for an AWS competitor). Most of us don't have problems, or even the opposite, with companies making loads of money with Postgres. What I/we am severely disappointed with is that they barely put resources towards contributing back. Every now they make grand statements about their community support, but in the end little materializes.

This is purely my personal opinion.