Redis is no longer OSS

Didn't they switch to a license with stronger mechanisms to keep the source available? SSPL, is basically AGPL but have even stronger protection from large corperations to use the code in their data centers without contributing the changes back. This is basically a move to prevent AWS/Google/Microsoft/et al, from leaching on the contributors work without giving anything back.

Or am I reading this wrong?

EDIT: Note, that the Mastodon account is to an AWS employee.... so for him, this might be bad, since it no longer allows them to have their own internal fork without contributing back. Now, they will need to use a real for and maintain that them selves without leaching on the redis contributors.

For the record. The SSPL that Redis switched to while technically not recognized by the OSI really isn’t bad at all.

It’s exactly like the AGPL except even more “powerful”. Under the SSPL if you host redis as a paid service you would have to open source the tooling you use to manage those hosted instances of redis.

I don’t see why anyone but hyper scalers would object. It’s a shame that the OSI didn’t adopt it.

https://redis.com/blog/redis-adopts-dual-source-available-licensing/

This is the announcement.

This is a disappointing outcome but one that I think has been coming for a while. Amazon has profited off of Redis without giving much back for quite a while (at least I recall this being a complaint of the Redis folks, perhaps others have evidence to the contrary).

This is pretty clearly an effort to bring AWS to the table for negotiations.

If you think this is bad, then you should make sure to use copyleft licenses.

EDIT: Just read the details, and it seems that this is just what they did. SSPL is like AGPL with a stronger SAAS is distribution claus. That might not be valid, according to the OpenSource definition, but unless you are planning to modify the code and provide it as SAAS I think this is no a problem.

You may not make the functionality of the Software or a Modified version available to third parties as a service or distribute the Software or a Modified version in a manner that makes the functionality of the Software available to third parties.

🫡

wtf

Well... everyone back to memcached?

Been using the KeyDB fork for ages anyway, mainly because it supports running in a multi-master / active-active setup, so it scales and clusters without the ridiculousness that is HA Redis.

all is fine, gentlemen - it has been forked

phew

RSAL seems weird and I need to research it more. But I don't mind SSPL at all. It only hurts companies who hope to use open source without wanting to give back. From my perspective that's good.

WTAF? Today is a bad day.

Read that as reddit

On another note, what other licenses do you lemmings know that impose more restrictions to prevent your software from being used for evil?

Redis is dead.

Long live Redict, which is a Redis fork maintained by Codeberg.

I do not understand why would a developer (or development team) change the licensing terms of their software for something stricter, like Redis did. Could someone tell me what the factors are?

Great timing that Microsoft just released a drop-in replacement that's in order of magnitude faster: https://github.com/microsoft/garnet

Written in C# too, so it's incredibly easy to extend and write performant functions for.

It needs to be a bit more deployable though but they only just opened the repo, so I'll wait.

where can i get an invite for the fosstodon instance?

What a disingenuous take. Just because the OSI doesn't recognize the SSPL as open source doesn't mean it's not open source.

Edit: Everyone seems to believe I'm saying that because the source is available it should be open source. That's not what I'm saying at all.

Looks like OSS to me.

Irrespective of debates on what the definition of "open source software is" or who gets to define it, it is very clear that the SSPL is not a FOSS -- free and open source license -- and that's a shame. Sure, open source still means we can look at the source code, but we do not have the full freedoms to use the code for any purpose. You might retort "but I'm not a aaS provider" so my rights aren't affected.

But that's the thing: the erosion of free software rights is never the end, but then beginning of the end. Much like free speech, such rights must be jealously guarded. Need I mention what happens when there's no one left to speak up?

That some users of Redis never contributed back to the project is beside the point: truly free software is free as in libre: if you want thanks for your work, release it as freemium or some other license. But a FOSS license like BSD-3 has always been thankless and the OSI is correct in calling out the SSPL for not meeting the OSI's Open Software Definition's anti-discrimination clause, nor the FSF's zeroth freedom, amongst four.

Free means free. AGPL is free. But SSPL carves out an exception, making it not free. No amount of sweet talking changes this reality.