[tspiteri]

The BSDL does not make much economic sense to the company open sourcing their code; a new competitor would fork the code, make closed improvements, and merge any changes from the open source code. That means that the competitor is always gaining by a one-way flow of improvements.

To use open source code, the more permissive the license the better. But to actually open your own code, BSDL is a very tough sell.

That's also why they use the AGPL. With database systems, even if they were under the GPL, some competitors could just modify the system and run it on their own server with improvements, and offer just the service to their clients. Again, the improvements go one way only: since the competitor would not distribute the modified system, as it's running on their servers, they would not need to distribute source changes. With the AGPL, that loophole is closed.

[gtrubetskoy]

>> The BSDL does not make much economic sense to the company open sourcing their code

If this were true then Cloudera, Horton and a whole bunch of other companies would be out of business, yet in reality they are doing really well. All that AGPL is doing for Citus is:

1. Turning away people (customers) who are religious about licenses.

2. Eliminating any possibility of this code ever being integrated into PostgreSQL

[wstrange]

Cloudera and Hortonworks have raised a ton of VC money, but it is not clear (yet) that they have viable, profitable business models.

[hercynium]

I hope that at least Cloudera will profit and thrive. Having used plain Apache components, then Hortonworks, then Cloudera... They are far and away the superior distribution, regardless of whether or not you are an "enterprise" customer.

My $employer paid Hortonworks for a support contract and I have no qualms declaring publicly that it was a total and utter scam. (We are a Java shop and know our shit)

If I go into too much detail I'll write countless pages like my internal report on why we needed to switch, but the bottom line is that Cloudera's products are well and honestly documented, while, as of last year, Hortonworks' products are simply one land-mine after another.

Their management platform (Cloudera manager) being closed-source is barely a mark on the comparison analysis when you compare it to Ambari in practice. Ambari is a bad joke and I'd rather do without it after spending significant time using it and trying to extend it.

And I could go into excruciating detail as to how Hortonworks abuses the Apache License to try and force lock-in. It's disgusting and pathetic.

[gtrubetskoy]

I have no experience with Hortonworks, but Cloudera certainly tries hard, even though it too has plenty of issues, but then the whole "Hadoop Echosystem" is in such fast-moving flux, it's understandable.

Cloudera also makes (Apache Licensed) Impala, which IMHO is a pretty cool product.

Another company worth mentioning is Databricks, which leads Apache Spark development.

[X86BSD]

So you take a BSDL codebase, fork it, close it, make proprietary changes, profiting from the BSDL codebase, then slap the PG community in the face by open sourcing it under a more restrictive license hoping to benefit from the community you just slapped in the face but restricting competition.

They are of course free to release their code under any license they wish. I just think releasing code under the *GPL when you profited from a liberal BSDL is a douche nozzle thing to do. But knock yourself out! This tells me all I need to know about the company.

[tspiteri]

I don't agree with you. The PG community is, I think, fine with that: that's exactly what the BSDL allows that the GPL doesn't, and they chose the BSDL. If the PG community don't like that, I really don't understand why they chose the BSDL.

[mixedCase]

If the pg community did not intend their database to be used that way, they would've chosen a copyleft license. Have you considered that this is part of their intention?

Would CitusDB have been created at all were it not because they could sell a propietary fork as they have been doing in the past?

[icebraining]

I also have qualms about distributing changes to non-copyleft license code under a copyleft license, but it seems strange to make this the "slap in the face" moment - wasn't distributing them under a proprietary license even worse?

[X86BSD]

No that IS what the BSDL allows for. I wasn't arguing that they shouldn't have made a commercial product on BSDL code. That also was within their rights using said BSDL code. It's just my opinion that to do that, then release your proprietary "bits" under the GPL or variation thereof with more restrictions than what you started with instead of the same BSDL you used to start your business is a dickheaded douche nozzle thing to do. But again they are free to do that, it's within their rights! Just don't be shocked when people like me call you out for what you are. Keep on rocking Citus! Stay classy.

[icebraining]

I understand you weren't saying they don't have the right to do so, I just find it weird that you consider distributing it under the AGPL to be douchy, while not considering the distribution under a proprietary licence to be (even more) douchy.

[anonbanker]

A relicense is a relicense. When you impose new rules on a product, especially if you weren't the original author, is rude.

I'm a GPL zealot, to the point that I've used the GPL as a weapon and as a shield against others in multiple capacities ("You own all my code when you employ me? Sure, as long as I get to dictate the license"). However, I would never take someone's 2 or 3-clause BSD-licensed product, and relicense. Those of us that value sofware freedom value the rights of other licenses that believe the same.

We all see why it was done in this case, however; In order to ensure software freedom in the cloud (someone else's computer), there isn't another license to use. the BSD license completely breaks down in this use scenario, and the best we have is AGPL.

I'd say cloud usage is to 3-clause BSD what Tivo was to GPLv2.

[manigandham]

Entire industries have profited from BSDL licensed code without contributing anything back. This is the point of BSDL.