[djk447]

Disclosure, I work at Timescale.

Though I didn't write this post, I'd imagine at least part of it is that it's already nearly 4000 words and a 15 minute read and we just didn't want to add another set of things to it, to be perfectly honest.

`pg_partman` is cool! I haven't used it in a while, and because it uses declarative partitioning, it has some locking issues that we address with our partitioning scheme, but implying that it is OSS and we're not in terms of things like data retention features is a bit misleading as well. The `drop_chunks` command used for data retention is in the Apache 2 licensed portion of Timescale.

[ensignavenger]

But almost all of your posts and benchmarks are based on the closed source version of Timescale. Everywhere I have seen it is always recommend to use the closed source version to get decent performance out of it.

[akulkarni]

(Timescale co-founder)

Just to clarify: Nothing on Timescale is closed-source. It is all source available, all on Github. Some of it is Apache2 licensed, some of it is Timescale Licensed. And it is all free.

[ensignavenger]

Since the Timescale License is not an open source license, it is a closed source license. You are right, it is source available, but source available is also closed source. It is closed because it is not open. And it might be free as in beer, but it is not free as in freedom.

[doctor_eval]

My recollection is that the TS license simply has protection against using the TS code to compete with TS, ala Amazon RDS.

While some people on HN feel that this is an impurity they can’t live with, I personally think it’s a small price to pay to enable development of TS to continue. In my opinion, claiming that it’s closed source is somewhat dogmatic. Many open source licenses have some kind of restrictions on use; the GPL comes to mind.

[ensignavenger]

I have always been more on the pragmatic side of the FOSS movement (open source versus the philosophical/moral stance of the FSF, but still have tremendous respect for the FSF). For pragmatic reasons I reject the Timescale License. It doesn't just prevent Amazon (that alone would be misguided enough, though) but also prevent anyone other than Timescale from hosting the software for me. That means even if Timescales current offerings lined up perfectly with my business, I would be locked into whatever decisions they make in the future which may not align. The chances for a successful community fork are greatly reduced under the restrictions of the Timescale license. It makes it impossible for the community to make contributions on equal footing to Timescale, thus anyone making contributions are just doing free work for a corporation, rather than contributing to a product the community benefits from just as much as the corporation.

[tempnow987]

Ah, I suppose you'd prefer they switched to Affero GPL v3 (which BTW IS open source and written by FSF itself) - check it out here:

https://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.en.html

This license turns out to be very difficult to use for almost developer.

[ensignavenger]

I prefer the Apache or Mozilla Public Licenses myself. But I accept the AGPL and the GPL family of licenses will consider useing software licensed under them in limited ways (it isn't clear how the AGPL interacts with infrastructure software).

[skeletal88]

The source code is available, when someone says something is closed source then it usually means that the source code is not publicly available.

Do you want amazing things? Everything can't be "free as in beer" wtf does that even mean, i don't get free beer from anywhere.

[teraflop]

"Open source" and "closed source" are not the only options. There are plenty of products out there where you're technically allowed to look at the source code, but very restricted in how you can legally use it. The "open" in "open source" is generally understood to mean that users have permission to use, modify and redistribute the software. (Without that permission, calling it "freeware", "shared source" or "source available" would be more accurate.)

That's what "free as in beer" means -- it's a well-established phrase meaning "zero monetary cost": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gratis_versus_libre

In the case of the non-Apache-licensed version of TimescaleDB, you're allowed to use the software without payment, and you can distribute unmodified copies. But you're essentially forbidden from letting users define their own schemas, or from modifying it or reusing components unless your modified version imposes that same restriction. (The exception is if you agree to transfer ownership of your changes back to Timescale.)

Nobody's saying that Timescale can't build a non-open-source database, only that they should be clear about which parts are actually open. In my opinion, describing it on the homepage as an "open-source relational database" and then promoting it by benchmarking the proprietary version is at least a little bit misleading.

[ensignavenger]

It is a phrase that Richard Stallman created, and well known in free software communities- https://www.wired.com/2006/09/free-as-in-beer/, https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html