Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by pizza234 810 days ago
Have you actually taken the time to understand the RSAL and SSPL?

> If you want to use a restrictive license, start your project with it, period

There is essentially only one restriction (the other is about formal notices) imposed by the RSAL, and it forbids to "Commercialize the software or provide it to others as a managed service".

> IMHO, small companies and developers ultimately lose here

This is an uninformed opinion. Nothing changes for small companies and developers. Actually, nothing changes even for larger companies, unless they are cloud providers.

Large companies can actually provide Redis as service for internal use ("as a service internally or to subsidiary companies"). Companies are even free to sell support for Redis.
1 comments
Kwpolska 810 days ago
The licence forbids

> offering a product or service, the value of which entirely or primarily derives from the value of the Software or Modified version

How do you define how much value your app derives from Redis? If Redis is the primary data store for your app, does it count?

link
graemep 810 days ago
> How do you define how much value your app derives from Redis? If Redis is the primary data store for your app, does it count?

It will be if your app is a data store service . i.e. your apps is a thin wrapper around Redis.

If your app is more than that, then its clear the value does not primarily derive from Redis.

There are inevitably grey areas (e.g. if your app is a Redis based data store but adds a lot of functionality) but 99% of users do not need to worry.

link
growse 810 days ago
> If your app is more than that, then its clear the value does not primarily derive from Redis.

This is about as far from clear as it's possible to get.

link
Kwpolska 810 days ago
How thin is “thin”? If I build a chat app on top of Redis, is it safe? There’s a tutorial on the Redis website: https://developer.redis.com/howtos/chatapp/ — is it a sign that it’s too simple to be distinct?

Or I can just migrate my app to Valkey and be sure I’m safe from lawyers.

link
graemep 810 days ago
Its a chat app not a data store, so it fails the "primary purpose" test so its safe: its pretty obvious that a chat app serves a different purpose to a key value data store.

Nothing is definitely "safe from lawyers". In some ways BSD is less safe than SSPL - no patent licensing clauses for example.

link