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Didn’t they switch to a license with stronger mechanisms to keep the source available? SSPL, is basically AGPL but have even stronger protection from large corperations to use the code in their data centers without contributing the changes back. This is basically a move to prevent AWS/Google/Microsoft/et al, from leaching on the contributors work without giving anything back.
Or am I reading this wrong?
EDIT: Note, that the Mastodon account is to an AWS employee… so for him, this might be bad, since it no longer allows them to have their own internal fork without contributing back. Now, they will need to use a real for and maintain that them selves without leaching on the redis contributors.
The restriction doesn’t only apply to large corporations, it applies to everybody. It restricts what you can do with it so it breaks the fundamental freedoms that make up “FOSS”. As an immediate result it will be removed from Fedora and Debian because they don’t consider SSPL/RSAL to be FOSS:
https://gitlab.com/fedora/legal/fedora-license-data/-/issues/497
Fedora and debian support the corporate definitions of FOSS, so their opinions do not matter here.
it applies to everybody
I don’t think most of us want to offer services by hosting a service without contributing back the code. If they do, I am happy that it is a requirement that they give back. Only for-profit companies will have an issue with this.
Irrespective of debates on what the definition of “open source software is” or who gets to define it, it is very clear that the SSPL is not a FOSS – free and open source license – and that’s a shame. Sure, open source still means we can look at the source code, but we do not have the full freedoms to use the code for any purpose. You might retort “but I’m not a aaS provider” so my rights aren’t affected.
But that’s the thing: the erosion of free software rights is never the end, but then beginning of the end. Much like free speech, such rights must be jealously guarded. Need I mention what happens when there’s no one left to speak up?
That some users of Redis never contributed back to the project is beside the point: truly free software is free as in libre: if you want thanks for your work, release it as freemium or some other license. But a FOSS license like BSD-3 has always been thankless and the OSI is correct in calling out the SSPL for not meeting the OSI’s Open Software Definition’s anti-discrimination clause, nor the FSF’s zeroth freedom, amongst four.
Free means free. AGPL is free. But SSPL carves out an exception, making it not free. No amount of sweet talking changes this reality.
By the same argument, wouldn’t GPL and other copyleft licenses be considered non-free as well since you are not free to do whatever you want with the source? For example, incorporating it into a proprietary project, refusing to provide the source to users upon request, or not disclosing attribution, etc. The latter would even go against the terms of permissive licenses.
Clearly defining what free, and by extension FOSS, means is very relevant.
There are two concepts at play here: open-source and free software. An early example of open-source is AT&T Research UNIX, which was made source-available (for a few) to universities for research purposes, who could recompile the code and use the binaries for that purpose. Here, the use of the software is restricted by the license terms.
On the free software side, as a reimplementation if the Unix software utilities – ie all the programs like tar, ps, sh – GNU coreutils is GPL licensed, meaning any use of the compiled binaries is allowed, but there are restrictions on the distribution, of both source and binaries. As it turns out, GPL is both free and open-source (FOSS); there are fewer major examples of free but non-open source, but WinRAR and nVidia drivers on Linux would count.
Specifically, GPL and other copyleft licenses require that if you distribute the binary, you must make the source available under the same terms. If you’ve made no changes, then this is as simple as linking to the public source code repo. If you did add or remove code, you must release those alongside the binaries. If you simply use the binaries internally, you don’t need to release anything at all, and can still use them for any internal purpose.
wouldn’t GPL and other copyleft licenses be considered non-free as well since you are not free to do whatever you want with the source
From the background above, free software has always been understood to mean the freedom to use software, not necessarily distribute it. GPL complies with that definition for using the software, but also enforced a self-perpetuating distribution requirement. Unlike plain ol free software, under GPL, you must redistribute source if you distribute the software for use (aka binaries), and you must make that source also GPL.
Under this explanation, the AGPL wouldnt qualify as an open source license, since you must distribute the source if you provide a modified version as a network service.
