[tsimionescu]

MongoDB was already AGPL, but that didn't suffice. Amazon simply took the free version of MongoDB, as is, deployed it on its systems in a scalable way, and sold that to customers. They gave the code for MongoDB away, per the terms of the AGPL.

Hence, the need for a new license.

However, they seem to have kept the deployment infrastructure as a trade secret, and since that didn't interact directly with MongoDB's interfaces, it șes that it really didn't come under the scope of the AGPL.

[klez]

Companies did that for years with Linux, Apache, MySQL etc., and noone got riled up enough to produce this mess.

I think another commenter got it right: this is a fuss created by commercial entities that wanted to have their cake and eat it too.