
Adam Retter
adam@evolvedbinary.com
London Open Source Databases Meetup
2019-07-04


@adamretter
Database Licensing Chaos
Why do I care?
-
Open Source Developer since 2005
-
eXist-db
-
CSV Schema + CSV Validator
-
RESTXQ
-
RocksDB
-
Task.xq
-
Many other small projects and contributions
-
Philosophy - fix it and send it upstream
-
-
Recently developed FusionDB
-
Would like to Open Source it
-
Need to pay the bills
-
Need to ensure the future of FusionDB software
-

For FusionDB...
-
Originally we envisaged...
-
Dual License:
-
AGPLv3 - Gives us our "Open Source" and Freedom
-
Commercial License - Indemnity for companies that can't swallow AGPL
-
-
Would like to avoid "Open Core"
-
-
Things have changed...

Licensing Chaos!
-
CockroachDB
-
Switched core from Apache to BSL 1.1 (04/06/19)
-
-
Dgraph
-
From Apache to AGPL (26/03/2017)
-
... then to Apache + Commons Clause (03/04/18)
-
... then back to Apache (11/10/18)
-
-
Elastic
-
Originally Apache licensed
-
Elastic NV mixes Apache and Elastic Licence code in repository and builds (06/18)
-
AWS (+Netflix +Expedia) launch "Open Distro for Elasticsearch" - Apache v2 - (11/03/19)
-

Licensing Chaos...
-
InfluxDB
-
Clustering - From MIT to Enterprise License (05/04/16)
-
-
Kafka (Confluent)
-
From Apache to Confuent Community License (14/12/2018)
-
-
MariaDB
-
MaxScale etc - From GPL to BSL 1.0 (16/08/2016)
-
-
MongoDB
-
From APGL to SSPL (06/10/2018)
-

Licensing Chaos...
-
Neo4j (Enterprise)
-
From Commercial/AGPL to Commercial/AGPL+Commons Clause (13/05/2018)
-
... then to Neo4j Commercial License (15/11/2018)
-
-
Redis (Modules)
-
From AGPL to Apache + Commons Clause (22/08/2018)
-
... then to Redis Source Available Licence (22/02/2019)
-
NOTE: Core is still BSD. Redis Enterprise is entrierly proprietary
-
-
RocksDB
-
from BSD3 + Patent Grant, to dual Apache 2.0 or GPLv2 (16/07/17)
-
Who is 100% Open Source?










100% Open Source


What happened?
-
Vendors
-
Trying to find a viable business model
-
Several squarely blaming large Cloud Vendors
-
-
Cloud Vendors
-
Blaming Open Source Vendors for Closing Licenses
-
-
Users
-
Where are they?
-
How can they be heard?
-
Vote with feet?
-
The Brave New World?
-
Open Source databases are dead?!?
-
Source Available / Commons Clause
-
Not Open Source!!!
-
What are your rights?
-
-
Open Core
-
Open Source Core
-
Closed or Source Available addons/features. Do you need them?
-
-
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
- 3,114