Redis modules and the Commons Clause [LWN.net]

Redis modules and the Commons Clause

Posted Aug 22, 2018 21:20 UTC (Wed) by armijn (subscriber, #3653)
Parent article: Redis modules and the Commons Clause

The GPL family of licenses has always explicitly allowed selling the software. AGPL3 for example says in section 4:

"You may charge any price or no price for each copy that you convey,
and you may offer support or warranty protection for a fee."

which the Commons Clause is now trying to take away. Possibly it is not compatible with section 7 of AGPL 3, and then people could just remove Commons Clause for Neo4J Enterprise and use plain AGPL3:

"If the Program as you received it, or any part of it, contains a notice stating that it is
governed by this License along with a term that is a further restriction, you may remove that term."

and all that would be left is a bitter taste.

PS: I am not a lawyer, this is not legal advise, etc. etc.

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Redis modules and the Commons Clause

Posted Aug 23, 2018 3:04 UTC (Thu) by bkuhn (subscriber, #58642) [Link] (2 responses)

IANAL either but I don't think one needs to be a lawyer to figure out what's going on with that. The main issue is that it's hard to know without digging into the code, but when I read that text that mentions combination of Commons Clause and AGPL'd code, I suspect what's happening is that Commons Clause parts are coming only as part of the Enterprise edition, which is not the demo-ware version that's AGPL'd on GitHub.

The thing that makes me most concerned about these situations is that none of the people that get trapped into one of these predatory business practices of “try the AGPL version and if you like it get the Enterprise one” have enough background knowledge on what's happening to even begin considering the creative solutions you're suggesting. Companies and individuals with the resources to research and understand these things just avoid codebases like this. Their target market are, as other poster have said in this thread, small to medium businesses who just won't know what they're getting into until their stuck.

This is a problem, BTW, with any copyleft relicensing business model. The Commons Clause is almost a complete red herring for the companies that already have proprietary relicensing going on. I suspect they like it mainly because they sense solidarity with other businesses that are trying to build a block of businesses that can give “something akin but not really Open Source is good enough” legitimacy. What we've learned here that if one company or a small group of companies hold all the copyrights on software that you rely on, be worried, even if the license seems ok.

Redis modules and the Commons Clause

Posted Aug 24, 2018 7:23 UTC (Fri) by kronat (guest, #117266) [Link] (1 responses)

I respectfully disagree with Mr. Kuhn's position. You seem capable of guessing what is better for all other people, without actually caring to understand their position. In particular, in your blog entry, there are roughly two passages in which you state your opinion in the way Catholics politicians want to make abortion illegal for everyone, regardless of the reasons, just because they believe that the right way is the only one they think. Well, I believe there are cases in which maybe the freedom 2 and 3 gives too much power to who is just exploiting the work done by others.

More philosophically, I do not understand BSD license: its permissiveness allows a company to take/use/modify a project (and I'm thinking about small projects, done in the spare time, and things like that) without even the share-alike requirements of the GPL. But I don't want to forbid the using of BSD license, or making defamatory statements against who is using it, just because I don't understand it or I do not believe in it. I will, more honestly, avoid contributing to projects which are distributed under BSD license.

Going back to my first paragraph, I would like to ask if freedoms 2 and 3 make sense in today's environment. What I feel is that one of the most logical ways to develop is to distribute the software under the freedom 0 and 1. Then, anyone that wants to share their improvements should do it by passing the changes upstream (for free or by receiving compensation in doing so). I believe who created the software and who maintains it has more power than who arrives later and make a contribution, but I don't see this reflected in any license. The problem is that only in recent times big fishes (adapt the definition of "big fish" to the size of the project we are considering) have discovered plenty of software that they can use "for free", while their creators and maintainer have to do two jobs to pay bills (well, apparently it is not the case of Redis by looking at the amount of money they received these years).

Redis modules and the Commons Clause

Posted Aug 24, 2018 15:12 UTC (Fri) by bkuhn (subscriber, #58642) [Link]

Your comments were interesting, kronat. My responses are below:

kronat wrote:

I believe there are cases in which maybe the freedom 2 and 3 gives too much power to who is just exploiting the work done by others.

This seems more of a general criticism of non-copyleft licensing, not of the four freedoms. I agree with you that licenses that fail to ensure freedom 2 and 3 in perpetuity generate other types of problematic power imbalances, but that particular issue seems orthogonal.

But I don't want to forbid the using of BSD license, or making defamatory statements against who is using it, just because I don't understand it or I do not believe in it. I will, more honestly, avoid contributing to projects which are distributed under BSD license.

Neither do I. I've licensed some of my own copyrights under 2-Clause BSD before. I have also not made defamatory statements about anyone; I criticized bad policy and pointed out manipulative strategies in use to advocate for that policy.

I believe who created the software and who maintains it has more power than who arrives later and make a contribution, but I don't see this reflected in any license.

The goal of copyleft is to give equal rights to the original author and all later contributors and users. No copyleft license is perfect, and if you have ideas for how to improve copyleft licenses to address some of its flaws, Fontana's coypleft-next project might be a good place to do that.

there are roughly two passages in which you state your opinion in the way Catholics politicians want to make abortion illegal for everyone, Catholics politicians want to make abortion illegal for everyone, regardless of the reasons, just because they believe that the right way is the only one they think.

The analogy is not apt nor accurate. I did not argue that it should be illegal for Redis or anyone else to publish software under the Commons Clause. I said that it is bad policy, and exploits a power relationship granted by existing copyright laws in a way that I find inappropriate and bad for society. I have never argued that proprietary software should be illegal. Even though I'm morally opposed to proprietary software, I don't think (e.g.) changing copyright law to only allow FOSS licensing would be successful in eradicating proprietary business models.