Licensing: Redis Breaking Up With FOSS, Perfectly Imperfect Marriage in Blockchain and Open Source, Copyright Trolls Leverage GPL Compliance
Submitted by Roy Schestowitz on Monday 25th of February 2019 10:20:37 AM
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Not Quite “Open” Source
Open source licensing has always been a hotbed of debate. Oracle, for example, is still suing Google for copyright infringement over the use of Java APIs. And the complexity of open source licensing is about to get even worse.
Redis Labs, the commercial provider of the open source Redis project, announced another change to its licensing model today. The company, which just raised a $60 million Series E, had changed its license in December to include a new “Commons Clause,” which is an addition to existing open source licenses “allowing all permissions of the original license to remain except the ability to 'Sell' the software as defined in the text.”
The latest license, though, is even more explicit. According to TechCrunch, the license—which Redis Labs is calling the Redis Source Available License—allows users to access and use Redis Labs' code in their software, as long as that software isn't “a database product, caching engine, stream processing engine, search engine, indexing engine or ML/DL/AI serving engine.” In other words, it can't be a direct commercial competitor to Redis Labs.
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Redis Labs creates Redis Source Available License to protect business
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Redis Labs swaps out open source to protect against public clouds
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Redis Labs further changes licensing terms – to make developers happy and keep big cloud vendors at bay
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Redis Labs tweaks its restrictive licensing
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Redis kills Modules' Commons Clause licensing... and replaces it with one of their own
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Redis Labs moves from Apache2 modified with Commons Clause to Redis Source Available License (RSAL)
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Open source startup Redis Labs raises $60 million and starts planning for an IPO, as it takes a stand against
Redis LabsOfer Bengal, co-founder and CEO of Redis LabsOn Tuesday, Redis Labs announced it closed $60 million in Series E financing.
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Redis Labs closes $60 million and plans to IPO despite AWS competition
Redis Labs says it recently closed $60 million in funding. CEO Ofer Bengal talks about open source, its plans to go public, and Amazon competition.
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Database startup Redis Labs says that it's worth shaking up the open source software world if it means protecting its business from Amazon
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A Perfectly Imperfect Marriage: Blockchain And Open Source
According to Radcliffe, “The use of OSS needs to be managed, both inbound and outbound, because customers are demanding to understand how you manage compliance with the terms of OSS licenses which is likely to be part of your product.” He explains, “If you are seeking financing or an exit, your management of OSS licenses will be scrutinized closely by the investor, or the acquiring party, M&A is particularly strict since they need to ‘live’ with any mistakes.” According to Radcliffe, the failure to manage OSS may reduce the consideration in an M&A transaction or shift more of the consideration to “escrow” which is not released for one or two years.
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Copyright Trolling: Abusive Litigation Based on a GPL Compliance
Patrick McHardy, a German, is a former contributor to the Linux Netfilter project, which is licensed under a General Public License (GPL). In seeking to enforce his copyright, if any, McHardy employs the same enforcement method as does the free software community, e.g. gpl-violations.org, Software Freedom Law Center, Software Freedom Conservancy, but his goal is personal monetary gain rather than licence compliance and software freedom.
McHardy’s strategy is to approach commercial entities for minor GPL violations, such as attribution deficiencies, lack or inadequacy of a written offer, or a EULA conflicting with the GPL, for the sole purpose of obtaining an undertaking to cease and desist (any) infringing activity, including a clause imposing a contractual penalty per violation for any future infringement.
McHardy’s demands are modest at the outset, which makes them an attractive alternative to a lawsuit. However, once McHardy has secured a contractual remedy available to him, he moves on to allege another violation by the same entity, claim the penalty and sign a new agreement with an increased penalty. He comes back to the same companies multiple times, addressing one violation at a time. Since a cease and desist declaration may likely contain a non-disclosure requirement, this makes it difficult for defendants to join forces.
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