El gran error de Redis Labs al cambiar su estrategia de licenciamiento open source

Redis Labs, the company behind the popular open source database Redis, has recently made changes to its licensing strategy in order to address the issue of cloud providers profiting from open source projects without contributing back to them. While Redis Core remains under the permissive BSD license, certain components of Redis Labs' software will now be licensed under a new "Commons Clause", making it proprietary and preventing cloud providers from offering Redis-as-a-Service without paying Redis Labs.

The rationale behind the new licensing strategy

Redis Labs' decision to introduce the Commons Clause stems from the concern that cloud providers are leveraging successful open source projects to generate significant revenues, while contributing little to the actual development of the software. By adding the Commons Clause to specific components, Redis Labs aims to prevent free riding and ensure that the company receives compensation for its contributions to the open source Redis.

According to Redis Labs, cloud providers offering Redis as a managed service over their infrastructure have been benefiting financially from the software, even though they have not played a significant role in its development. While the permissive BSD license currently allows this practice, Redis Labs believes it should be changed to reflect the company's contributions and rights to profit from its efforts.

Alternative strategies for inhibiting free riding

The Commons Clause approach taken by Redis Labs, while rational, has drawn criticism for being unnecessarily complicated. Several well-established strategies already exist for addressing free riding by cloud providers within the open source ecosystem.

One such strategy is the Affero General Public License (AGPL), often referred to as the "AWS GPL". The AGPL closes the "network exception" of the GPL, requiring code contributions when the software is used to provide services over a network. This approach achieves the same goal as Redis Labs' Commons Clause, but in a more straightforward manner.

Another commonly used approach is the Open Core model, employed by companies like Cloudera, MongoDB, and DataStax. In this model, the core of the code remains open source, but additional modules or tooling are licensed under a proprietary license. While this approach is similar to what Redis Labs is doing, it avoids the licensing complexities introduced by the Commons Clause.

Encouraging contributions to proprietary projects, which seems to be one of Redis Labs' goals, is challenging. Developers are typically more inclined to contribute to open source projects rather than proprietary ones. By using a licensing strategy that is openly proprietary, Redis Labs may have a better chance of attracting contributions from the developer community.

Will Redis Labs' new approach be effective?

While Redis Labs' licensing strategy may not have a significant long-term impact on the company's prospects, its doubtful whether the approach will bring the desired benefits. Critics argue that Redis Labs would be better off focusing on integration and multi-cloud capabilities rather than alienating its user base and potential customers with a complex licensing scheme.

Ultimately, the success or failure of Redis Labs' new approach remains to be seen. However, it is clear that the company's aim to address the issue of free riding by cloud providers is a rational response, even if the execution may be viewed as clumsy.

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