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by Orygin 42 days ago
Why isn't this a problem for other databases then? I'm sure most cloud sell some MariaDB services. Why would they be able to profit from it?

It's because the business model for ES is direct competition with AWS and others, and they got out competed. So they had to play licenses games to try and level the field.
1 comments
dns_snek 42 days ago
> Why isn't this a problem for other databases then?

It is?

- MongoDB went from AGPL to SSPL

- Redis went from BSD to SSPL

- Elasticsearch went from AGPL to SSPL

- CockroachDB went from Apache to BSL

- TimescaleDB went from Apache to Apache + TLS

- Graylog went from GPL to SSPL

> It's because the business model for ES is direct competition with AWS and others, and they got out competed. So they had to play licenses games to try and level the field.

That's why intellectual property law exist. If I spent years writing a book and you were allowed to copy it and sell it then obviously you're going to "out compete" me by default. You didn't incur any costs in producing the thing you're selling, duh!

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Orygin 42 days ago
Yes and the result is these databases got forked, and the community got rightfully mad.

But other databases don't need it, and stayed truly open source, because their business model doesn't rely on being the only hosting provider.

> You didn't incur any costs in producing the thing you're selling, duh!

Indeed, you gave it away for free, saying I could sell it... It doesn't take a business genius to know AWS can undercut your hosting services.

It goes to show that most of these companies don't really care about open source. They cared more about making money and open source was a useful facade to get people to contribute for free.

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dmantis 42 days ago
> don't really care about open source.

Exactly. You can sell the products of your work all the way you want.

But pretending to share with the world and then push back when the world actually use it under these same open terms is a hypocrisy.

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dns_snek 41 days ago
Who's pretending? If I share something with everyone for any purpose except one specific purpose that's endangering my project's existence that's not "pretending".

And even that's overstating it because there's no prohibition of any kind. Cloud providers are free to use SSPL licensed software as long as they release all associated platform code.

After all we're sharing, right?

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dns_snek 41 days ago
No "buts", this is an extremely common trend not some one-off example like you tried to claim.

Other databases are already funded by cloud companies, predate the cloud, or they're too niche to bother.

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