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by dnndev 909 days ago
What’s wrong with licensing?
4 comments

MongoDB’s SSPL is neither an open source license[1] nor, most likely, a free software one[2]. Its definition of offering the licensed software as a service is so broad most Linux distributions[3–6] flat out refuse to ship MongoDB (not even in a nonfree repository or the equivalent) so as to (among other things) avoid placing the operators of their package mirrors in legal jeopardy.

[1] https://blog.opensource.org/the-sspl-is-not-an-open-source-l...

[2] https://opensource.stackexchange.com/q/13888

[3] https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=915537

[4] https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/MongoDB_Removal

[5] https://bugzilla.opensuse.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1122267

[6] https://lists.archlinux.org/archives/list/arch-dev-public@li...

https://www.mongodb.com/licensing/server-side-public-license...

I am not sure really.

"It should be noted that the new license maintains all of the same freedoms the community has always had with MongoDB under AGPL - they are free to use, review, modify, and redistribute the source code. The only changes are additional terms that make explicit the conditions for offering a publicly available MongoDB as a service.

Obviously, this new license helps our business, but it is also important for the MongoDB community. MongoDB has invested over $300M in R&D over the past decade to offer an open database for everyone, and with this change, MongoDB will continue to be able to aggressively invest in R&D to drive further innovation and value for the community."

Encryption at rest is not supported in the community/free version of MongoDB.

We built an email service (IMAP support added a month ago) and wrote a WebSocket to SQLite layer to solve our encryption at rest needs for storage.

See our deep dive at https://forwardemail.net/blog/docs/best-quantum-safe-encrypt... for insight.

I wonder, why would you want DB-managed encryption instead of just putting its storage directory in a LUKS-encrypted volume?
Note Percona Server for MongoDB is drop-in replacement for MongoDB and supports Data at Rest Encryption, on SSPL version

https://docs.percona.com/percona-server-for-mongodb/5.0/data...

Really? How many open source databases do you offer? Some may say it’s not right for randos to complain when you give something away and they complain that it’s missing basics. I just happy someone else wrote most of what I need and I can extend it if needed.