Redis is no longer free software

Posted Mar 21, 2024 14:29 UTC (Thu) by epa (subscriber, #39769)
In reply to: Redis is no longer free software by spacefrogg
Parent article: Redis is no longer free software

The headline talks about it no longer being free software. But you still have freedom to use, change, and share it. Another example would be Ghostscript: new releases from Aladdin are non-free, I think, but that doesn’t stop Ghostscript being free software for those people who have it as part of their Linux distribution. For a program to stop being free software you would have to lose the rights you had before — arguably that’s what happened to the old BSD with the lawsuit, but it’s very rare.

Whether a program is free software is a rather different question from whether it’s maintained upstream or has security fixes or is convenient to use. There are plenty of programs which are no longer worked on by their original programmer or anyone else. That does not stop them being free software.

Redis is no longer free software

Posted Mar 21, 2024 15:24 UTC (Thu) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link]

> Ghostscript: new releases from Aladdin are non-free, I think

AIUI, that's actually ALWAYS been the case. Ghostscript as distributed by Aladdin is open source but not Open Source. A year after release, the GPL kicks in.

Or has that changed recently?

Cheers,
Wol

Redis is no longer free software

Posted Mar 21, 2024 15:27 UTC (Thu) by lanodan (subscriber, #169017) [Link]

I'd say the core distinction is between thinking of redis as a mere program, like the stuff you'd have in a textbook.
And the more "modern" (Loosely starting in Winter '95 with AnonCVS) thing of redis as a project on the internet, most of them collaborative thanks to Free Software licences. Redis the software you have installed is and will remain Free Software after all there can't be DRM in a Free software.
But Redis the project, no longer is Free Software, which also means that the new versions (and patches) will no longer be.