People are upset because Redis is not open source anymore. That is all.

Is this like a Richard Stallman ideological thing?

(EDIT: Genuine question - I'm trying to understand if this is a license purity issue or something else).

People like having choice. The SSPL provides less choice than open source licenses. It came about because users were utilising their choice in way the project leaders didn't like, because they didn't directly financially benefit from it. But without that choice, arguably Redis would not have reached where it is today.

If it had launched as some proprietary single-vendor cloud service, people would have kept using memcached, or their relational DB or whatever for a lot of Redis use cases where it might be nice, but not essential improvements over the competition.

So it's shutting the door behind them, accusing the users of taking advantage of the very thing that let Redis get to where they are today. (Especially so for Redis, where Redis Labs started as just another hosted provider unassociated with the open source projects)

> But without that choice, arguably Redis would not have reached where it is today.

I'd honestly love to know how many people actually use any of the features added to Redis in the last... 5 or 8 years.

I'm not saying they were useless, but Redis used to be a pretty fine piece of software that could have easily been done for many use cases, 10 years ago.

What is commonly known as open source nowadays is a license that follows the definition adopted by the Open Source Initiative. SSPL is considered as not approved because it encumber unrelated programs to the one licensed by the SSPL:

https://web.archive.org/web/20230411163802/https://lists.ope...

So it is a combination of idealogical issue as well as being an annoyance to people who adopted it because it was released under the BSD in the first place.

Yes, it's an ideological type of thing. Meanwhile, most of the same people don't mind using closed standards like HDMI or kinda proprietary software like Android.

I don't think your snarky remark about hdmi or android is pertinent.

Regardless is stuff is open or proprietary, nobody like when the terms of a contract change without their consent. People/companies have adopted redis under a specific license, which really is kind of a binding contract, then one day under a new release the terms have changed making it incompatible with their intended use. It is only natural that an alternative, and in this case a fork appears.

I'm sure there are plenty of people who do mind using HDMI and/or Android but in lack of other realistic alternatives for one or more reasons, end up with the pragmatic choice of using those things anyways.

For some people, yes. But for the majority, I'd say no.

In my mind a lot of the outrage is just generated through FUD that the big corps create when their ability to place themselves in a position to create false scarcity (and hence "value") is threatened. A big clue to these types of people are if they say anything about money or profit: e.g. "OSS devs need to make money too"

For the RMS believers, OSS is a more fundamental attempt to change mankind at a time before the greedy asshats could capture and restrict things. The birth of the electronic age, and software in particular was viewed as a golden opportunity to capture the value we created for EVERYONE. This is a HUGE reason you see so many OSS devs that will work thanklessly on code for years or decades for no pay, they are the doctors-without-borders of the tech world, they really give a shit about freeing humanity from usury and corporate value capture.

It's been really interesting to watch as the internet was captured, in a space where the cost of reproduction is literally zero, they've still been incredibly successful in strategically shunting a lion's share of the value for themselves where they then proceed with leveraging the artificial scarcity to capture that value monetarily.

Considering this in the face of what we've been taught about today's capitalist society, owning the means of production is really only a small part of the greedy antisocial playbook of those who market in false scarcity. Don't think for a second that this isn't an ideological war, one that will be fought with all the information weapons at the disposal of those who stand to lose in a free and open society.

Redis Labs didn't start Redis, they didn't contribute most of the code. They just own the trademark. They have about as much right to extract money from AWS and Google for Redis as I have, all they are doing is that they are hijacking an open source project to make themselves rich. They're not a victim of the cloud providers, they are a leech trying to make a score while fucking over all the other contributors to Redis, who have done 80% of the work they are trying to extract a ransom for.

Hmm, so anyone can just start a company with the name of an open source project and try to monetise it? Like someone could start e.g. "Rust Labs" and sell a commercial version of Rust?

I don't know much about the genesis of Redis or Redis Labs, who key people and dates are, etc. I guess this obfuscation is part of the problem.

> Like someone could start e.g. "Rust Labs" and sell a commercial version of Rust?

No, because the Rust trademark guidelines prohibit that (https://foundation.rust-lang.org/policies/logo-policy-and-me...)

In Redis Labs case, they acquired the Redis trademark from the original author, who they employed for a few years after the project was well established.

So just business as usual.

Redis Labs acquired the trademark from the original owner.

Nobody could start "Rust Labs" without the agreement of the Rust Foundation, because they own the Rust trademark.

Not really. As mentioned in the article, Redis has a Contributor License Agreement [0] that you have to sign if you contribute to Redis codebase, which basically gives the company behind it ownership behind everyone's contributions:

    You grant to Redis and to the recipients of the software distributed by Redis a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, no-charge, royalty-free, irrevocable copyright license to reproduce, prepare derivative works of, publicly display, publicly perform, sublicense, and distribute Your Contribution and such derivative works.

Usually, projects don't have such agreements. E.g. Linux, the kernel, would have a hard time re-licensing under different license, because of how many people actually hold the copyright to the code they contributed, and would have to agree beforehand.

[0] https://github.com/redis/redis/blob/unstable/CONTRIBUTING.md

The CLA is sort of a red herring in the case of permissively licensed software though. It becomes relevant for the SSPL case, where Redis don't want to be bound by the same rules as others.

Like since Rust is MIT licensed, you could make a closed source fork of Rust. The trademark guidelines would prevent you calling it Rust or anything too close, but you could describe it as Rust(TM) compatible and any of the other legally permitted uses of other people's trademarks.

There's some point in which good faith rules apply, probably even in court (although not decisively). Presumably Redis Labs works with the developer community and, critically, promotes the technology, which adds great value in terms of network effects. This is sort of the situation with Mozilla.org/com, right?

(Say you like something like Elm -- wouldn't it be better to have a relatively closely aligned commercial entity that puts significant and effective effort in making it widely used, which in turns makes it easier to find an Elm job or sell Elm-like solutions as a consultant).

Mozilla Corp is (solely) owned by Mozilla Org.

You can sell a commercial version of Rust (MIT, BSD, and Apache licensed), but you'd need to change the name for trademark reasons.

> Hmm, so anyone can just start a company with the name of an open source project and try to monetise it? Like someone could start e.g. "Rust Labs" and sell a commercial version of Rust?

I'm not a lawyer, so take the following with that grain of salt.

In the specific case of Rust, no, because as another user pointed out, their licensing prohibits it.

If my understanding of the licenses is correct, the X-11, BSD 3-clause and BSD 4-clause licenses also prohibit this.

The MIT, BSD 2-clause and ISC licenses don't appear to prohibit this.

Your post mentions a few issues which I believe are legally separate:

1. Naming your company after an open-source project. I believe this is perfectly legal under the latter listed licenses, and happens in practice (for example, a brief search yields that React is MIT-licensed, and "React Labs" is a company).

2. Selling a commercial version of an open-source project. This is legal, and in fact a license isn't considered open source by OSI or free software by FSF if it disallows selling a commercial version. Whether this will be profitable is a separate question--generally people won't be willing to pay for something if they can just get it for free. There are two ways around this that I can think of: a) providing services and development around the open-source project, and b) extending the open source project with closed source code. The latter business model is prohibited by copyleft--you can only sell closed-source extensions to copyleft software if you have rights to the copyright (i.e. you created the code yourself) so attempting to do this with an existing copyleft-licensed project would be prohibited.

3. Enforcing trademark on the name of an open source project. My understanding is that enforcing a trademark created after a open source project started using it isn't possible, not because of licensing terms, but because of "priority of use" or "first to use in commerce"[1]. That is, if an open source project "Foo" exists already, I can't create "Foo Labs" and then sue the Foo project for using my name--on the contrary, the Foo project could probably sue Foo Labs. Redis Labs avoids this liability because they obtained rights for the trademark from the original Redis developer (I'm not sure what terms they obtained rights to the Redis name under--if they have exclusive rights they could sue anyone using the Redis name, but contribution to the project over time would likely make this complicated). There's a separate issue which is that "Foo" and "Foo Labs" are arguably different trademarks--Foo Labs can't inherently sue anyone using the Foo name, but they could likely sue someone who started a "Foo Labs" if they were the first ones to trade under that name.

[1] https://www.avvo.com/legal-answers/does-prior-art-apply-to-t...

There's some context in the comments to:

http://antirez.com/news/121

This makes more sense as an explanation.

Are there any instances where an SSPL license or similar is warranted?

If you want to release your project for the first time as SSPL, go right ahead. You may have difficulty getting adoption however.

It's the "build your userbase on open source, then lock them in" that bothers people.

Slightly disingenuous question, but I'll bite anyways...

No, people are not upset Redis is trying to make money. People are upset that something that used to be FOSS is no longer FOSS, and are trying to protect themselves from future pain by doing something that is very common in FOSS, which is forking a project.

Just because someone is trying to make sure the software they rely on continues to be FOSS, doesn't mean that they are out to actively hurt the original creator(s) of the original project. I don't know how you could possibly read the situation like that either.

There is open source and there is non open source. Both is fine.

Open source does not make a difference who uses it.

That’s unfortunate. I have a clause forbidding Anish Kapoor from forking or using my code.

Substantial portions of Redis were written by AWS and Google. People are upset because Redis is a collaborative project with many people working on it and Redis Ltd wants the sole right to commercialize the work of an entire community.

LWN has a good overview:

https://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/966631/8bc9d155d4e2afb3/

Redis Ltd is only responsible for about 20% of the work.

AWS and Google contributed those under BSD license, being fully informed that Redis Ltd can commercialize like this.

It makes perfect sense for AWS and Google to fork immediately after the switch, but for contributions before the switch, there is no basis for AWS and Google to complain Redis Ltd, either legally or morally.

Legally, they can't complain, but morally it is icky. Redis is a leech.

If you don't want to be leeched, don't contribute to BSD licensed projects.

>>Substantial portions of Redis were written by AWS and Google

Employees on their own time, or paid to do it?

So I'm clear though - if I wrote a SAAS product tomorrow that under the covers used Redis, I'm OK, but if I spun up a bunch of servers and offered managed Redis as a product, I would need to pay?

>So I'm clear though - if I wrote a SAAS product tomorrow that under the covers used Redis, I'm OK, but if I spun up a bunch of servers and offered managed Redis as a product, I would need to pay?

That's the pitch of the license, essentially, but in practice the SSPL is an utter nightmare to comply with (to the point of being deliberate) and it mainly exists to put a veneer of open source on a proprietary product. In actual practice you really just cannot offer Redis as a service unless you are Redis Ltd, which is the actual point of the license in the end.

> In actual practice you really just cannot offer Redis as a service unless you are Redis Ltd

Isn’t this exactly what the person you’re replying to was saying?

Yes, I realize I worded this poorly. I emphasized this point because this is what makes it non-free/not meet the Open Source Definition; you cannot retain exclusive right to commercialization. But I realize that was not actually something the parent commenter was asking about.

That's what many people seem to think, but it has not been legally challenged yet. We won't know for sure until Google or AWS decides to test the limits, in your jurisdiction.

You should probably ask Redis, Inc. what their intention is. Keep in mind, though, the run the risk of being re-rug-pulled. They have changed the license once and they can do it again.

Yeah, I think a key point is that Salvatore Sanfilippo, the original developer, maintainer and principle contributor[1] for 11 years, was not a founder of Redis Labs. He joined as an employee in 2015 but resigned in 2020. Perhaps he has equity in Redis Labs, but it's not clear he stands to profit at all from this switch.

[1] https://github.com/redis/redis/graphs/contributors

Perhaps true but besides the point, actually - the same companies will happily take your code and make a saas offering out of it on their oligopolistic infrastructures, making it economically unviable to compete with.

...which, given LGPL, will be worse now as they'll simply not share their modifications because that's the legally safest option.

And well, why not? That is the idea. It's open source.