Adam Retter
adam@evolvedbinary.com
London Open Source Databases Meetup
2019-07-04
@adamretter
Database Licensing Chaos
Why do I care?
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Open Source Developer since 2005
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eXist-db
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CSV Schema + CSV Validator
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RESTXQ
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RocksDB
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Task.xq
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Many other small projects and contributions
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Philosophy - fix it and send it upstream
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Recently developed FusionDB
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Would like to Open Source it
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Need to pay the bills
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Need to ensure the future of FusionDB software
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For FusionDB...
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Originally we envisaged...
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Dual License:
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AGPLv3 - Gives us our "Open Source" and Freedom
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Commercial License - Indemnity for companies that can't swallow AGPL
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Would like to avoid "Open Core"
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Things have changed...
Licensing Chaos!
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CockroachDB
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Switched core from Apache to BSL 1.1 (04/06/19)
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Dgraph
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From Apache to AGPL (26/03/2017)
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... then to Apache + Commons Clause (03/04/18)
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... then back to Apache (11/10/18)
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Elastic
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Originally Apache licensed
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Elastic NV mixes Apache and Elastic Licence code in repository and builds (06/18)
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AWS (+Netflix +Expedia) launch "Open Distro for Elasticsearch" - Apache v2 - (11/03/19)
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Licensing Chaos...
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InfluxDB
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Clustering - From MIT to Enterprise License (05/04/16)
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Kafka (Confluent)
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From Apache to Confuent Community License (14/12/2018)
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MariaDB
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MaxScale etc - From GPL to BSL 1.0 (16/08/2016)
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MongoDB
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From APGL to SSPL (06/10/2018)
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Licensing Chaos...
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Neo4j (Enterprise)
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From Commercial/AGPL to Commercial/AGPL+Commons Clause (13/05/2018)
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... then to Neo4j Commercial License (15/11/2018)
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Redis (Modules)
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From AGPL to Apache + Commons Clause (22/08/2018)
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... then to Redis Source Available Licence (22/02/2019)
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NOTE: Core is still BSD. Redis Enterprise is entrierly proprietary
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RocksDB
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from BSD3 + Patent Grant, to dual Apache 2.0 or GPLv2 (16/07/17)
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Who is 100% Open Source?
100% Open Source
What happened?
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Vendors
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Trying to find a viable business model
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Several squarely blaming large Cloud Vendors
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Cloud Vendors
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Blaming Open Source Vendors for Closing Licenses
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Users
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Where are they?
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How can they be heard?
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Vote with feet?
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The Brave New World?
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Open Source databases are dead?!?
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Source Available / Commons Clause
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Not Open Source!!!
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What are your rights?
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Open Core
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Open Source Core
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Closed or Source Available addons/features. Do you need them?
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Where/Who is the community?
fusiondb.com
Database Licensing Chaos
By Adam Retter
Database Licensing Chaos
Lightning talk given at London Open Source Database Meetup - 4 July 2019 - London
- 2,990