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MongoDB Switches Up Its Open-Source License (techcrunch.com)
MongoDB is taking action against cloud giants who are taking its open-source code and offering a hosted commercial version of its database to their users without playing by the open-source rules. The company announced today that it has issued a new software license, the Server Side Public License (SSPL), "that will apply to all new releases of its MongoDB Community Server, as well as all patch fixes for prior versions," reports TechCrunch. From the report: For virtually all regular users who are currently using the community server, nothing changes because the changes to the license don't apply to them. Instead, this is about what MongoDB sees as the misuse of the AGPLv3 license. "MongoDB was previously licensed under the GNU AGPLv3, which meant companies who wanted to run MongoDB as a publicly available service had to open source their software or obtain a commercial license from MongoDB," the company explains. "However, MongoDB's popularity has led some organizations to test the boundaries of the GNU AGPLv3."
So while the SSPL isn't all that different from the GNU GPLv3, with all the usual freedoms to use, modify and redistribute the code (and virtually the same language), the SSPL explicitly states that anybody who wants to offer MongoDB as a service -- or really any other software that uses this license -- needs to either get a commercial license or open source the service to give back the community. "The market is increasingly consuming software as a service, creating an incredible opportunity to foster a new wave of great open source server-side software. Unfortunately, once an open source project becomes interesting, it is too easy for cloud vendors who have not developed the software to capture all of the value but contribute nothing back to the community," said Eliot Horowitz, the CTO and co-founder of MongoDB, in a statement. "We have greatly contributed to -- and benefited from -- open source and we are in a unique position to lead on an issue impacting many organizations. We hope this will help inspire more projects and protect open source innovation."
So while the SSPL isn't all that different from the GNU GPLv3, with all the usual freedoms to use, modify and redistribute the code (and virtually the same language), the SSPL explicitly states that anybody who wants to offer MongoDB as a service -- or really any other software that uses this license -- needs to either get a commercial license or open source the service to give back the community. "The market is increasingly consuming software as a service, creating an incredible opportunity to foster a new wave of great open source server-side software. Unfortunately, once an open source project becomes interesting, it is too easy for cloud vendors who have not developed the software to capture all of the value but contribute nothing back to the community," said Eliot Horowitz, the CTO and co-founder of MongoDB, in a statement. "We have greatly contributed to -- and benefited from -- open source and we are in a unique position to lead on an issue impacting many organizations. We hope this will help inspire more projects and protect open source innovation."
The summary almost goes into the differences between AGPLv3 and SSPL, but then decides to fill space with a meaningless quote instead.
What are the practical differences?
That is a broad category that includes a *shitload* of software that has nothing to do with the source code of Mongo DB.
The lawyer who devised that nonsense clearly has some pals in the field who are looking forward to big lengthy but more importantly expensive legal discussions on the subject.
If I write some robotics software to rotate backup tapes for my MongoDB centric service, that'd be part of the 'backup software' and 'storage software' according to that definition, but it's hardly a very clear direct derived work, so how can the license I receive to use MongoDB apply to it?
I'm scared to use MongoDB because people I trust have told me it's just incompetent at being a database. "It's total clown town" was what one person told me. Then there's this:
http://cryto.net/~joepie91/blog/2015/07/19/why-you-should-never-ever-ever-use-mongodb/
So I could maybe see using it as a very fast NoSQL database hosted locally for free, for something like an internal discussion board or something where some data loss is survivable. But this article is about people who are paying money to use hosted MongoDB?
Either MongoDB is better than I have heard, or else these people are stupid or at least deceived. Who are these people and how many of them are there?
P.S. I'm not trolling or trying to be funny. I want to know who chooses MongoDB over something like Postgres.
Just make the software impossible to use without hiring their consultants.
The SSPL to AGPL comparison makes it crystal clear that this new SSPL is a slightly modified AGPL, with the FSF copyright notice and preamble removed and a MongoDB copyright notice added in its place, with not much more than one section rewritten. Did the FSF give permission for this, and if not, by what logic would this be allowed?
Mongo is shit. UniFi uses the DB for its UniFi Controller application. I've seen more corruption with it than I care to keep track of; and all of it is the result of bad MongoDBs not mounting. There's ways of fixing it, but it's far easier to just shit-can the DB and start fresh with a backup of my config.
Life is not for the lazy.
The prohibition on providing the software as a service appears to conflict with, or at least be trivially bypassed by, section 9 which states that to run the software you don't have to accept the terms of the license. Section 9 conforms with the law as written: running the software, and making the copies needed to run it, are explicitly not an infringement of copyright (USC Title 17 section 117(a)(1)). If I don't have to accept the license to do something, I'm not bound by it's terms merely because I do that something.
printf(" %s, %s", name, screed);
Something something host file
This sounds like massive overreach. As in, you run an as-a-service shop, and suddenly you have to either open source every bit of code in the entire building, or pay mongodb for a commercial licence. That means any shop offering hosting-anything with mongodb anywhere in the picture will have to pay up, driving up costs.
Oh and it might cause interesting conflicts with other licences. Open source things you don't even have the source for? IOW, run any non-open s/w in the building anywhere at all and you no longer qualify for mongodb-foss-edition? Open source things that you wrote yourself and so own the copyright to? Syeah, no. run away from this shitshow as fast as you can.
I wouldn't be surprised if many people suddenly discovered they didn't need mongodb that badly after all, now that their hosters had to hike their prices to pay for all the commercial licences they suddenly needed.
I am deeply confused. The first line of their comparision with AGPL shows that they have just taken the FSFs copyright of the license and claimed it as their own.
After that the license says "Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this license document, but changing it is not allowed", followed by a pile of text showing all the changes that Mongo have made.
Surely, Mongo is in violation of the the FSF copyright? You can't take someone else's work and use it as you want without their agreement?
This is in response to an AC comment with an obnoxious thread title, so I am starting a new one. But it made the claim that these sort of moves are "bastardizing the word freedom". Here's my response
Freedom means different things to different people, that's why there are different licenses. From the earliest days of the open source movement there have been arguments as to what "free" should mean. The BSD/GNU approaches are an example of that early division. Licenses are designed to reflect the intentions of the developers who choose them. The developer is free to choose whatever license they believe best achieves that. And to suggest that all code should be released only under one license, that only reflects one viewpoint, would ironically end up taking away the freedom of the developer to make that choice.
Open sourcing code is done for many reasons. Some people want to change the world. Some corporations do it for strategic reasons. And all the reasons in-between. But overall the world is better off because the idea of open sourcing took over, and that would not have happened if the GPL3 was the only license allowed. In fact having so many licenses is one of the features that allowed open source to take over. It could fill so many roles because there were so many approaches.
Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a difficult battle. - Plato
Would these be the imaginary rules that MongoDB investors thought up when they realized their company wasn't a unicorn? I don't see how AGPL would prohibit a cloud provider from spinning up hosted instances of a server.
There is a lot of talk about the meaning of a switch from AGPL to SSPL from the consumer side.
Or: How does it affect me if I use the new version?
My question is: What about dependencies?
It's perfectly legal to re-license source that you own the copyright; that's literally the exclusive right you have as the copyright holder.
However, it DOES NOT mean that you can keep using dependencies (written and owned by others) that might be GPLv2, GPLv3, or AGPLv3 licensed.
The GPL licenses are pretty clear: If you incorporate GPL code, your finished work must also be GPL licensed if you wish to distribute it.
Does MongoDB have absolutely NO other GPL'd dependencies?
Is it just me, or is SAAS hype? It appears that the big vendors want SAAS to succeed because they want to nickel and dime you for everything you do.
It would be like "Fee-Based Legos": you can snap together components easily to get an application/system up and going relatively quick, but you pay rent for each Lego block you use. The big IT co's would love this because you'd get hooked on most of the components such that you have to pay if you want to keep your software up without reworking much of it. And they'll probably jack up prices for older versions, meaning you gradually either pay more, or spend time constantly reworking your software for the newer versions.
The big IT co's appear to have found this more profitable than the pay-once approach because they push it with existing products. For example, Adobe stopped selling one-time-pay versions of their graphics suite (except maybe for students). If you want their graphics suite, you have to pay for a subscription.
Another annoyance of SAAS is that you have to often convert back and forth between JSON or XML and your shop's language. It's a lot of interface busy-work. If you make a programming-language-neutral service, then you are pretty much stuck building and managing such conversions. In some cases it can be made somewhat automated using reflection and other tricks, but such often has annoyances and glitches.
Table-ized A.I.
MongoDB is web scale!
The issue of the license text being infringing of FSF's copyright needs to be addressed. I doubt FSF is going to give permission for this use of their text. There is a possible 17 USC 102(b) argument, but most sources (Nimmer, Adams) disagree, and I don't know of any case law. This might require a full rewrite, and IMO OSI would face a risk of being a contributory infringer simply by hosting a copy of the current text on their site. The legal ambiguity of that might be sufficient reason for rejection.
I am most concerned with the second paragraph of section 13, and its conflict with OSD #9 and #6. The definition of how those pieces are coupled needs to be tighter. Management software, backup software, etc. may be used as part of the offering of a service, but they don't create a derivative work, nor are they combined into the same program. So, we get a restriction on works that are simply aggregated together (#9) or a restriction on use of the program if the data is backed up using a non-Open-Source backup program (#6).
Bruce Perens.
it means it's webScale.
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=mongodb+i...
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Just prior to the part you quoted, it tells WHO it applies to.
It applies to people who use it to offer a cloud database service. It doesn't apply to those who offer a different service, which happens to use the database.
The new Section 13 of the SSPL reads as follows:
âoeIf you make the functionality of the Program or a modified version available to third parties as a service, you must make the Service Source Code available via network download to everyone at no charge, under the terms of this License. Making the functionality of the Program or modified version available to third parties as a service includes, without limitation, enabling third parties to interact with the functionality of the Program or modified version remotely through a computer network, offering a service the value of which entirely or primarily derives from the value of the Program or modified version, or offering a service that accomplishes for users the primary purpose of the Software or modified version.
âoeService Source Codeâ means the Corresponding Source for the Program or the modified version, and the Corresponding Source for all programs that you use to make the Program or modified version available as a service, including, without limitation, management software, user interfaces, application program interfaces, automation software, monitoring software, backup software, storage software and hosting software, all such that a user could run an instance of the service using the Service Source Code you make available.â
If your service is nothing more than just MongoDB, with backups provided, than yes you have to either comply by releasing your backup script, or buy a MongoDB license.
If your service is something other than just a cloud database, and specifically if it doesn't allow users direct access to the database, it's not intended to apply to you.
The wording could certainly be better.
That'll make it easier to shut down suggestions that we use that in our projects. Thanks, MongoDB!
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
This is nothing to do with open source values or promotion of open source software. This is about monetizing software. They want to have all the benefits of open source software, including a community of free contributors, and to monetize their work. This is very similar to MySQL when they changed the license of the client libraries from LGPL to GPL and then complained that anything that acted as a client or interfaced with MySQL DB data had to either itself be open source or get a commercial license.
Software as a service, and using open source software integrated to provide a commercial service isn't new. Software as a service is far older in the server market that MongoDB applies to than it is in the home market. People have been able to pay for LAMP stacks nicely set up with glossy front ends and control panels for more than a decade, certainly long before MongoDB existed. The fact they are just now, once they have a successful open source product that has a certain amount of industry adoption, taking this step shows this is all about getting themselves money and not standing up for principles.
They are using a so-called open source license as a weapon and I hope they get spanked for it in the marketplace.
If lawyers were never wrong, we'd have no need for courts. Which means they're wrong half the time, or at least the adopt unsupportable arguments half of the time.
Case law has overridden him on the GPL question, thanks in part to my pro-bono testimony. But courts and lawyers still take him seriously. And me, sometimes.
Bruce Perens.
I don't doubt that, as Bruce Perens here suggests, there are some problems with the new license language (hey, corporate lawyers wrote it), but I think you take is pretty close to the money.
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
It means it doesn't use joins.
It can also use /dev/null for storage, which is extremely fast plus you never run out of space.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
There are critical legal differences between "free software" in the sense of the GPL, "free as in speech" licenses, and "open source". It's unfortunate that whoever the original article cited failed to make the distinction, because it's a powerful one.
Postgres + the key/value extension (or even just a simple key/value table) suffices for most MongoDB use-cases. In a lot of use-cases you already have a Postgres kicking about anyway, so throwing some key/values on it makes far more sense than using a separate DB for it. In really small setups (like UniFi), Redis would probably suffice, although that's less of a like-for-like sort of swap.
I'd imagine if you're looking at TB of key/value data then MongoDB might have an advantage. Otherwise, you (probably) don't need it.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
They just bought MLab. This may be aimed at competition to force them to buy licenses.
I see what you mean. That wording sucks.
Unfortunately, the full license says "you may use, modify, and distribute MongoDB without buying a license if you comply with the terms ..."
If you can't comply with the terms, you have no license to the software.
Imagine I say to you "you can have all the money in my bank account if you take me to the moon". That's a condition you can't meet. You can't to take me to the moon, so therefore you can't have all my money. Your inability to take me to the moon does NOT mean you get all my money without meeting the condition.
You can:
Comply with what we think they MEANT to say (risk here)
Buy a license
Not use MongoDB
1. Doesn't the GPL have a stipulation, that if the text of the licenses is amended or modified, that you need to refer back to the original license?
2. I see why they're getting picky about it, but do these guys really have anything to offer? Okay, you get the source code for a service. What's useful there? Are these guys actually doing anything to change or improve the product? Something more than a graphics treatment? Do we know that? I'm skeptical.
This signature has Super Cow Powers
Why do I have a feeling that contributors would be holding their breath for a long time over that one?
This signature has Super Cow Powers
There have been times when parts of licenses and other contracts have been invalidated.
Support my political activism on Patreon.
Few purchased a new version every year. The usual pattern was buying the desktop version for X dollars, and then upgrading every 2 or 3 years via the upgrade price, which was typically about 1/2 to 1/3 of X.
But anyhow, the choice of single-purchase is now gone.
So far Adobe has no significant graphic design suite competitors. If one formed, they may just lower their subscription price rather than give a single-purchase option.
Table-ized A.I.