Redis has announced changes to its licensing settings that will see the company adopt a more restrictive software distribution approach.
The changes, announced this week by CEO Rowan Trollope, will make versions of Redis available under the RSALv2 (Redis Source Available License) and SSPLv1 (Server Side Public License) licenses.
The dual license setup means the company is now taking an “available source” approach. This marks a departure from the company's Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD) model, which allows developers to freely use source code for commercial purposes.
'Source available' refers to software released under a distribution license which means it can be publicly accessed (and in some cases modified) but with restrictions. This typically allows developers to use code for educational purposes, for example, and prevents them from using the source code in a commercial context.
The changes will take effect starting with Redis version 7.4 and mean that cloud service providers hosting Redis solutions will be forced to enter into commercial agreements with the company to use the source code.
Redis said the motivation behind the switch to available licenses will allow the company to “sustainably provide permissive use” of the source code. Trollope noted that in recent years, the company's success has created a “unique set of challenges” in terms of marketing.
The vendor has been sponsoring “most” of the development in collaboration with the developer community. However, most commercial sales are “channeled through the largest cloud service providers,” he said.
Trollope said that these vendors, which include Microsoft, have essentially “commoditized Redis investments,” suggesting that the previous licensing setup was no longer bringing commercial value to the company.
Redis' move could spark a backlash from the open source community similar to what was seen last year in the wake of HashiCorp's licensing changes.
In August, the company announced plans to change its source code license to the Business Source License (BSL), which prohibits commercial use. The decision was heavily criticized by many in the open source ecosystem.
HashiCorp said at the time that the reason for the change was that too many vendors were profiting from the work of open source software projects.
What's next for open source after Redis license changes?
Speaking exclusively with ITPro From KubeCon 2024 in Paris, Chris Aniszczyk, CTO of the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF), seemed to lament the news of the licensing changes, although he has been somewhat short on time amid the conference furore.
While Redis' move is disappointing, Aniszczyk said it's nothing the community hasn't seen before. Redis itself has made license changes before, as have MongoDB and the aforementioned HashiCorp.
However, these situations are not the norm and should not be a major cause for concern, especially given the large volume of open source projects in the global community, Aniszczyk said.
“There are billions of open source projects, right? When HashiCorp happened, we thought: Is this a common thing? How often does this happen?
“We did our research and [found] “There have been a few projects that have re-licensed open source to basically what I call 'available source.'”
Aniszczyk told ITPro that he views the current situation with Redis through the same lens as the HashiCorp decision: individual circumstances will dictate how an organization approaches licensing.
In this case, the Redis CEO said the move will allow it to optimize the distribution of its technology and redefine its relationship with cloud providers. This aligns with HashiCorp's situation where it also viewed open source licenses as something that prevented it from delivering commercial value.
“I think what happened with these companies is… other people were using the software, maybe they were creating products, maybe they were competing with them,” he explained.
“There are ways to look at this, like, oh my God, we have this fantastic open source software, someone took it and now they're competing with me and maybe giving nothing back.”
Open source allows for competition that is good for end users, Aniszczyk said, even if it is not always good for businesses. Ultimately, however, companies should maintain their stance on the matter.
“If you think that you, as an organization that develops software, should own everything, just don't be open source,” he said.
