[kite_and_code]

To the founders of mito, regarding the mito GPL license:

What is your take on that regarding usage inside cloud provider's notebooks like AWS, GCP, Azure, Databricks?

Is it allowed or not allowed by the license? And who should/can control the usage since users can install any kind of Python library in those environments.

And, separately from the maybe ambiguous legal answer: What is your personal intention with the license?

Disclosure: I am employed by Databricks.

[narush]

Hiya kite_and_code - thanks for the question + good to see you here :)

Our understanding of our license is evolving - we're first time open source devs, and as I'm sure you know it can be a tricky process. That being said: we totally support Mito users using Mito from notebooks hosted in the cloud!

Currently, we have quite a few users using Mito in notebooks hosted through AWS, GCP, etc. We’re aiming to be good stewards of open source software, and want to see Mito exist where ever it is solving users problems!

We’ve had lots of folks in lots of environments request Mito, and are actively working on prioritizing supporting those other environments. We added classic Notebook support last month (funnily, I thought it’d take weeks to support, and it took 2 days lol) - and are looking into VS Code, Streamlit, Dash, and more!

EDIT: due to comment below, I edited this comment for clarity that we 100% support users using Mito from notebooks in the cloud!

[kite_and_code]

I can totally relate that finding a suitable open-source business model is a fuzzy journey.

Nevertheless, from the user perspective I would love to hear a more clear answer - at least for e.g. the next 6-12 months.

Currently, it seems like you are tolerating usage inside the cloud providers without taking a clear stance. I think this creates fear, uncertainty, doubt and slows down mito adoption within the cloud.

I would appreciate a clear statement in the near future around your thinking on how mito should be made available in those environments. After all, the clouds are an environment to where more and more users are migrating to. Or at least use it in parallel to local setups.

I can understand if you don't want to answer on the spot in case you don't have a clear stance yet. In this case, please take your time and let us know when you made your decision.

Really love what you're doing and the innovation that you are pushing for! <3

[narush]

Oh, sorry I wasn't clear! We totally expect that users will use Mito in notebooks on the cloud cloud, and we are in support of this usage!

Ideally, we will continue to extend our support to these environments over time, as currently there are lots of environments where users want Mito but we don't support it yet (notebooks api differences, etc) - a good example being AWS Sagemaker.

I'll edit my answer above to be more clear about this as well. Thanks for the ask for clarification!

[mbreese]

> Our understanding of our license is evolving

As a potential user, this is pretty troubling. I can understand your intentions, but if the license doesn’t match your intentions (and if you don’t completely understand the license), how can we be sure our workflows will be supported/possible in the future?