Shulou(Shulou.com)06/02 Report--

Introduction:

Database manufacturer Redis Labs this week moved its Redis modules from AGPL to a license that combines Apache v2.0 with Commons Clause, limiting the software covered by the license. The license change means that the self-developed Redis modules-RediSearch,Redis Graph,ReJSON,ReBloom and Redis-ML-will no longer be open source software, but source code availability (source available).

The new license limits the cloud provider's ability to provide these Redis modules to customers, and Redis Labs may be the only service vendor to include these add-ons. However, the Redis database code is still licensed by BSD.

Redis Labs is not the only company to make such a change. In May, the Neo4j diagram database added Commons Clause to its AGPL license.

Yiftach Shoolman, co-founder and CTO of Redis Labs, said: "over the years, cloud providers have made hundreds of millions of dollars from selling cloud services based on open source projects, but these projects are not actually developed by themselves, such as Docker,Elasticsearch,Hadoop,Redis and Spark. This discourages the community from investing in developing source code because any potential benefits go to cloud providers rather than code developers or their sponsors."

Redis's license license change has aroused heated discussion in the open source community, and people's concerns are mainly focused on these aspects: is Redis still open source? What exactly does the new Commons Clause contain? What is the direct impact of protocol changes on users? Below, the editor will answer in detail for you some questions about the change of the Redis open source agreement.

What changes have been made to the Q:Redis protocol?

A: in order to give you a better understanding of the change points, the editor specially combed the following table for your reference:

Before the change

After Chan

Remarks

Redis Core

BSD

BSD

No change

Redis Modules

AGPL

AGPL

No change

Redis Modules (founded by RedisLabs)

AGPL

Apache 2.0 with Commons Clause

Modules involved: RediSearch, Redis Graph, ReJSON, Redis-ML, Rebloom

Table 1.Redis protocol change scope

Q: what exactly is the new Commons Clause?

Introduction to A:Commons Clause v1.0:

This Software is provided to you by Licensor in accordance with the terms defined below, provided that the following conditions are met.

Without restricting other conditions in the license, the rights granted under the license do not include and do not grant you the right to sell the software.

To sum up, "sale" means any or all rights granted to you under the license to provide fees or other remuneration to third parties (including, but not limited to, the cost of hosting or consulting / support services related to the software). The value of the product or service comes wholly or substantially from the functionality of the software. Any license declaration or attribution required by the license must also include this Commons Cause License Condition statement.

To put it simply: no sales, no business environment.

What does the Q:Redis author think of this?

Antirez, author of A:Redis, said: "for the Redis module I will develop, such as Disque, I will choose AGPL."

We live in the cloud age, so using new licenses will force other SaaS companies to resubmit their improvements. However, this does not apply to Redis itself. Redis is the result of 10 years of collective efforts and is the basis on which we can do other things together, which must have as many possibilities as possible, even with the BSD license. "

How does the Q:Redis China user Group (CRUG) interpret this?

The original intention of A:Commons Clause is to resist some bad behavior. For example, companies that use source code but do not compensate for open source code maintenance, but this License is very controversial in the open source world. If the vice president of OSI VM Brasseur complains that Commons Clause's sales ban is not clearly stated, it may face legal problems. The president of OSI believes that such licenses deprive the freedom of software.

Indeed, the new license has a big impact on commercial companies that use Redis Module. Instead of providing a solution that supports open source software, Commons Clause turns open source software into proprietary software and puts the open source contributions of all developers under the control of Redis Labs, because Redis Labs is the only service vendor for these components.

This limits the ability of other commercial companies to provide these Redis modules to customers. It remains to be seen whether Redis Labs can get more benefits from Commons Clause.

Q: what is the performance of cloud service vendors?

A: DCS, Huawei's cloud distributed cache service, provides Redis services on the cloud and provides users with the basic capabilities of Redis Core, but does not provide Redis Module-related capabilities. The change in the agreement will not affect users. While actively participating in open source activities, Huawei Cloud respects the intellectual property rights of open source code, strictly complies with the requirements of open source agreements, and provides users with better cloud services.

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