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

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