[thayne]

Well in this case, antirez literally promised[1] they wouldn't change the license of the core away from BSD, and then Redis Labs did just that, and now antirez is speaking favorably of that decision.

[1]: https://antirez.com/news/120

[skinner_]

Wow, I wasn't aware. @jart, do you have any harsh comments on the actual reneging of an actual promise? @antirez, do you have any kind of comments?

[gavindean90]

That post was from literally thousands of days ago and seems to be in relation to some confusion at that time.

Honestly to me you can see the tensions that led to the license change in that post. It’s largely consistent with what antirez has said in the post and in this thread.

[jillyboel]

Ok so just because something is in the past it's become irrelevant? So no promises are ever worth trusting? The creator of redis LITERALLY said "Redis will remain BSD licensed". And it's no longer BSD licensed.

[evanelias]

Where is there a "promise" in that post? Where is there any wording about it remaining BSD forever?

It's a post from 2018, about a specific license confusion situation that occurred in 2018. Context matters.

[jillyboel]

In the title: "Redis will remain BSD licensed"

You can try to be a smartass and add random caveats but that's not how language works.

Imagine if everyone thought like you did: "Sure I promise to do X" (not saying that I mean for the next 5 minutes and will then ignore my past promise)

[evanelias]

Again, where is the word "promise" in this post?

The post title in its original context is clearly referring to the confusion discussed in the very first sentence: "Today a page about the new Common Clause license in the Redis Labs web site was interpreted as if Redis itself switched license." The title is saying that Redis core's license was not switched to Common Clause at that time in 2018. That's all. It is not titled "I promise that Redis will remain open source forever".