Redis To Adopt 'Source-Available Licensing' Starting With Next Version (redis.com) 44
Longtime Slashdot reader jgulla shares an announcement from Redis: Beginning today, all future versions of Redis will be released with source-available licenses. Starting with Redis 7.4, Redis will be dual-licensed under the Redis Source Available License (RSALv2) and Server Side Public License (SSPLv1). Consequently, Redis will no longer be distributed under the three-clause Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD). The new source-available licenses allow us to sustainably provide permissive use of our source code.
We're leading Redis into its next phase of development as a real-time data platform with a unified set of clients, tools, and core Redis product offerings. The Redis source code will continue to be freely available to developers, customers, and partners through Redis Community Edition. Future Redis source-available releases will unify core Redis with Redis Stack, including search, JSON, vector, probabilistic, and time-series data models in one free, easy-to-use package as downloadable software. This will allow anyone to easily use Redis across a variety of contexts, including as a high-performance key/value and document store, a powerful query engine, and a low-latency vector database powering generative AI applications. [...]
Under the new license, cloud service providers hosting Redis offerings will no longer be permitted to use the source code of Redis free of charge. For example, cloud service providers will be able to deliver Redis 7.4 only after agreeing to licensing terms with Redis, the maintainers of the Redis code. These agreements will underpin support for existing integrated solutions and provide full access to forthcoming Redis innovations. In practice, nothing changes for the Redis developer community who will continue to enjoy permissive licensing under the dual license. At the same time, all the Redis client libraries under the responsibility of Redis will remain open source licensed. Redis will continue to support its vast partner ecosystem -- including managed service providers and system integrators -- with exclusive access to all future releases, updates, and features developed and delivered by Redis through its Partner Program. There is no change for existing Redis Enterprise customers.
We're leading Redis into its next phase of development as a real-time data platform with a unified set of clients, tools, and core Redis product offerings. The Redis source code will continue to be freely available to developers, customers, and partners through Redis Community Edition. Future Redis source-available releases will unify core Redis with Redis Stack, including search, JSON, vector, probabilistic, and time-series data models in one free, easy-to-use package as downloadable software. This will allow anyone to easily use Redis across a variety of contexts, including as a high-performance key/value and document store, a powerful query engine, and a low-latency vector database powering generative AI applications. [...]
Under the new license, cloud service providers hosting Redis offerings will no longer be permitted to use the source code of Redis free of charge. For example, cloud service providers will be able to deliver Redis 7.4 only after agreeing to licensing terms with Redis, the maintainers of the Redis code. These agreements will underpin support for existing integrated solutions and provide full access to forthcoming Redis innovations. In practice, nothing changes for the Redis developer community who will continue to enjoy permissive licensing under the dual license. At the same time, all the Redis client libraries under the responsibility of Redis will remain open source licensed. Redis will continue to support its vast partner ecosystem -- including managed service providers and system integrators -- with exclusive access to all future releases, updates, and features developed and delivered by Redis through its Partner Program. There is no change for existing Redis Enterprise customers.
Price of "freedom". (Score:2)
Under the new license, cloud service providers hosting Redis offerings will no longer be permitted to use the source code of Redis free of charge.
Should be interesting to see how Stallman feels about this.
Re:Price of "freedom". (Score:5, Insightful)
simple, he will they they should have used AGPL instead since start and yes, he is mostly right
the problem is that cloud services (amazon and likes) use redis and but give nothing back and end stealing the customer base, as many use their services and need not to request help from redis. Some open licenses are "too" open, making easy to be abused by big companies, specially if the developers expect to get money from their software. It is important to choose the right license for your expectations
Re:Price of "freedom". (Score:5, Insightful)
Too many developers want the goodwill and wide adoption that open source provides, but then they want to force people (especially companies) to pay.
They want to eat their cake and have it too.
If you want your software to be proprietary, you get to deal with the consequences of that.
Source-available like FOSS for direct customer (Score:2)
Re: Source-available like FOSS for direct customer (Score:1)
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That's a huge difference. Projects such as libreoffice or maria db wouldn't exist without the freedoms that open source provides.
No it is not. The indirect user can simply make contact with the dev and become a direct user, and hence gain source access if they care to do so.
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It is a huge difference. It means you can't fork it. People have to get it from the original company. No one else can create a fork, develop it independently, and distribute it to other people.
That's why the earlier poster gave the examples of LibreOffice and Maria DB. Both of them started under other names. When the previous maintainer stopped being a good caretaker for the project, the community forked it and took over development. Open source freedoms make that possible.
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It is a huge difference. It means you can't fork it. People have to get it from the original company.
Wrong. You still have the source, you can have your own fork for internal use. You can submit your fixes back to the original company. You just cannot share your fork with a third party. The third party has to have their own relationship with the original company.
No one else can create a fork, develop it independently, and distribute it to other people.
A minor thing. The someone else can create their own relationship with the original company, get the source, and control their own fate.
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You call it a minor thing. The FSF calls it an essential freedom.
You tell me--does software get wider adoption with, or without, this freedom being granted?
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You call it a minor thing. The FSF calls it an essential freedom. You tell me--does software get wider adoption with, or without, this freedom being granted?
The FSF has a self-serving distortion of the concept of freedom. They actually promote benevolent control, not freedom, with their viral licensing requirements.
The more permissive licenses actually exhibit more freedom but not coming with any such strings and requirements as the GPL. That is why the GPL is largely a legacy license at this time. Its popularity has greatly diminished. The more permissive licenses are chosen for new projects vastly more often than the GPL.
With regard to my point. An indi
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The more permissive licenses you refer to also grant freedom 3.
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The more permissive licenses you refer to also grant freedom 3.
However they are non-viral, they are in the spirit of BSD not the GPL, non-political and non-discriminatory.
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Yes, yes, we know you dislike copyleft. Not really the point, is it?
The distinction in this thread isn't between copyleft and permissive licenses.
It's between licenses that do and don't grant freedom 3.
"Source-available" software is just as much of a vendor lock-in problem as other non-free software.
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Yes, yes, we know you dislike copyleft.
Nope. I just recognize the fact that it is less free than alternatives, that is is really based on benevolent control not freedom.
The distinction in this thread isn't between copyleft and permissive licenses. It's between licenses that do and don't grant freedom 3.
Nope. I just recognize that is a minor issue. Having the source and and the ability to redistribute binaries is far more significant, it puts your fate in your own hands, FOSS or source-available. And getting your changes distributed does in practice often exist with respect to bug fixes. Submit them to developer and the fixes usually go into the main source all the other license
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redis is a in memory object storage, usually used to store information that needs to be access quickly and frequent. it is "based" in memcache, but with cluster and write to disk capabilities
usually it is used to store sessions data or cache data storage for more complex sites/programs/apps
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1) Use AGPL license for great new service.
2) Cloud users sell AGPL backed service
3) ???
4) Profit
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The context was a hypothetical discussion of Stallman's reaction. He cares only about software being free, not about Redis making money.
The BSD license allows proprietary derivatives. The AGPL requires the code to stay free.
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AGPL will force the cloud provider to publish all of their modifications, that alone could make cloud providers more friendly to open source projects and even share some of their magic to the public. But you want only money, it will not help alone.
For sharing profits, you need a new license, AGPL like, but with a revenue clause, say 1% of the revenue that the cloud charges for the services must go to the foundation/company/devs of that services.
of couse, forcing cloud to pay opensource is a hard problem, th
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The Just Fucking Pay Us license.
Re:Price of "freedom". (Score:5, Insightful)
He'd likely claim this wouldnt have happened if it was under a GPL, but that ignores the fact that it *has* happened , and repeatedly.
Regardless, the MIT version can and will be forked. Shunting products out of open source only has one of two outcomes;- The death of the product or the forking of the product. Redis is well enough loved it will almost certainly just be forked, and eventually the fork will be considered the canonical version. Either way, Redis' parent company just signed its own death warrant.
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> Redis' parent company just signed its own death warrant.
They may well have done, and that'll be a shame - they've been good custodians of it until this.
A forked version (can we call it Radish?) seems likely. Even Redis Inc have struggled to invent any new features, so the fork will likely be plenty for most people. The plugin system in Redis 7 might see some clever stuff getting integrated, but the likes of the cloud providers would most likely never support such a thing anyway, so they can carry on se
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> Redis' parent company just signed its own death warrant... A forked version (can we call it Radish?) seems likely. Even Redis Inc have struggled to invent any new features, so the fork will likely be plenty for most people.
A death warrant is not a guaranteed result. A company can support a FOSS version and a source-license version. Source-license an option for someone who cannot or will not use the FOSS license for some reason (like it's viral). Source-license is pretty much just like FOSS for that first generation customer, the one directly contacting the developer. They got source, then can distribute updated binaries, their fate is in their own hands. It is only their customers, the indirect users, the 2nd generation, that
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> A forked version (can we call it Radish?) seems
> likely.
There should really be a betting pool on this one. My money is on AWS OpenCache. Or maybe the pool should be on just how quickly the first fork, and the first cloud fork, happen.
You can dual license, FOSS and src-avail (Score:3)
He'd likely claim this wouldnt have happened if it was under a GPL, but that ignores the fact that it *has* happened , and repeatedly.
Regardless, the MIT version can and will be forked. Shunting products out of open source only has one of two outcomes;- The death of the product or the forking of the product. Redis is well enough loved it will almost certainly just be forked, and eventually the fork will be considered the canonical version. Either way, Redis' parent company just signed its own death warrant.
Why? A developer can dual license. They can offer the product with a FOSS license and a source-available license. Even, or perhaps especially, if the FOSS license is GPL, Some users will not use GPL'd code, these users can get a source-license and have the same source code benefits. People who are OK with GPL use the GPL fork, people non-OK with GPL use the source-license fork. Win/Win.
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Yes, but redis isn't.
Theres plenty of examples of GPL products getting closed sourced (You can do that if you own the rights, you just cant revoke it for people who have the previous code, so they *can* fork it) and the product pretty much dying in the marketplace OR forked. Its no more a protection (for either party) than the MIT and BSD licenses. All the GPL really gives is a prevention against a competitor taking it and close sourcing a derivative.
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Theres plenty of examples of GPL products getting closed sourced
I'm not referring to that. I'm referring to dual licensing where you can get a library GPL'd or source-licensed as a customer prefers.
As for the developer going purely source-licensed the situation is similar, there is still a fork, its just community based.
All the GPL really gives is a prevention against a competitor taking it and close sourcing a derivative.
The GPL is also viral, which is why some companies will not touch it. Hence the motivation for a developer to dual license.
I publish everything under a NRSALv2 license (Score:2)
A Not Redis Source Code available license.
Why is everybody trying to invent their own licenses?
I need a new comic :
https://xkcd.com/927/ [xkcd.com]
Would be nice (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Would be nice (Score:5, Informative)
It's one of the mostly-in-memory distributed NoSQL databases from the early '00s that's trying to monetize their open source.
Seems they missed the boat on going public so now they're trying to monetize harder.
Redis was mulling over going public in 2022 before the downturn in the market. The company was valued at $2 billion when it completed a $110 million Series G round in April of 2021 and was reportedly targeting to more than double that valuation in the IPO.
Tiger Global led the Series G, which also included participation of another new investor in Softbank’s Vision Fund 2, as well as from existing investor TCV. Additionally, Tiger, SoftBank, and TCV acquired shares as part of a $200 million secondary transaction. Redis raised $100 million eight months earlier in August 2020 at a valuation of $1 billion
the quote is from some other article, but this one covers this dynamic/relicensing thing pretty well. that's been going on for a few years https://techcrunch.com/2024/03... [techcrunch.com]
Sounds like the CEO knows what's coming:
“I wouldn’t be surprised if Amazon sponsors a fork,” he added. “Microsoft has already licensed Redis. Our doors are open for business for both Google and Amazon to license the software. It’s not that they can’t continue to ship Redis, they just need to have a commercial arrangement with us.”
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ok. 2009. so "early 2010s"
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an in-memory data cache
Rebsdi (Score:2)
I christen "Rebsdi", the BSD fork of Redis. This project is dedicated to open source, unlike the original Redis developers.
Seems to be a recurring theme (Score:3)
If there is such a thing as business karma I would not want theirs.
Re:Seems to be a recurring theme (Score:4, Informative)
Every time there is an economic downturn several open-source companies try this stunt.
Invariably the community forks the last free version, the community developers go there, eventually a new company is formed, and within five years the old company is forgotten or limping along on some legacy contracts.
Anything to chase constant growth.
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Every time there is an economic downturn several open-source companies try this stunt.
Invariably the community forks the last free version, the community developers go there, eventually a new company is formed, and within five years the old company is forgotten or limping along on some legacy contracts.
Anything to chase constant growth.
I think part of this current wave of OSS companies trying to lock down licensing is probably driven by Red Hat's current trajectory. There's a ton of "hey wait, we should totally do that too!" going on, with C*Os not bright enough to realize not everybody is going to have the monetary and legal backing of an entity like IBM to back them up.
Enshitification marches on (Score:3, Insightful)
SSPL not free (Score:4, Informative)
If you make the functionality of the Program or a modified version available to third parties as a service, you must make the Service Source Code available via network download to everyone at no charge, under the terms of this License.
“Service Source Code” means the Corresponding Source for the Program or the modified version, and the Corresponding Source for all programs that you use to make the Program or modified version available as a service, including, without limitation, management software, user interfaces, application program interfaces, automation software, monitoring software, backup software, storage software and hosting software, all such that a user could run an instance of the service using the Service Source Code you make available.
This would mean you'd have to release a bunch of GPL'd software (up to and including the Linux kernel) under SSPL, but becase the two licenses are incompatible, you can't do that.
I don't imagine anyone would be able to comply with Section 13, and therefore no one can offer Redis as a service. Except, one can assume, the assholes who hold the copyright, if they don't apply this license to themselves.
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"This would mean you'd have to release a bunch of GPL'd software (up to and including the Linux kernel) under SSPL"
It does not say you have to *change* the license of anything per se. You have to make the source code available for the other software and do it for no charge, but the GPL already permits that. This section is only a problem if the other software does not permit redistribution of source code.
Why is this problematic? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Give it time. Redis Labs already reneged on the promises made when they changed licensing on Redis modules.
From their Redis Labs' Modules License Changes [redis.com] announcement in Feb 2019:
This has no impact on the Redis core license
This change has zero effect on the Redis core license, which is and will always be licensed under the 3-Clause-BSD.
Can't trust Redis Labs anymore. They haven't gone full Oracle-mode yet, but they are headed down that path.
Open Source grows up (and gets a job) (Score:4, Interesting)
We all like the idea of Open Source. Free software, sharing, community, helping people for no reason. Great idea. Makes you feel good. Like maybe your skills aren't just going to be used to make a few rich executives richer by exploiting some dumb consumers.
But when you before an adult, you eventually have to reconcile that you are going to compromise on your ideals. You are going to walk past the smelly homeless guy on the way to work. You are going to vote for someone you hate because you hope some of their lies won't be lies. You are going to buy the gas car rather than electric because it's cheaper in the short term. And you aren't going to work out, or diet, or read the books you keep telling yourself you will.
Adulthood is when you realize that you will in fact compromise on your ideals for an easier life and sort term goals. You want to develop Open Source, because it's fun. And you want to get paid. But you don't want to work at some job you hate for 8 hours and then go home and spend another 4 hours working on Open Source.
So at some point you have to choose. And most adults choose the compromise where you continue to write your code for money, but maybe it's not as totally open source as they'd like. Compared to their other choices, this one actually seems like a no brainer. It's pretty easy to swallow. They're getting paid to work on something they would otherwise not be paid for. All they have to do is accept a compromise on idealism.
So I don't judge these people who lie to themselves and others, pretending "source available" is Open Source. I'd do the same thing. I just wouldn't pretend it was Open anymore. I'd close up the source code, probably, issue a limited use free binary, and require payment for more functionality. Because if you're gonna compromise on your ideals, you might as well get paid for it.
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