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I have no affiliation with Redis, it's clearly still open source, it's just not free for some of their users.


It's clearly not open source. It meets no definition of open source that has ever existed. Even other things like the debian free software guidelines (which date back to 1997. Seee https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debian_Free_Software_Guideline...) would not consider this free

It's also clear the goal is to "seem" open source by reusing the license names of open source licenses.


Can you point me to the line in the license file that clearly demonstrates Redis is not open source? https://github.com/antirez/redis/blob/unstable/COPYING


As noted even in the initial comment in thus subthread, Redis itself is not under this new license, and thus still Open Source.


Redis core is still Open Source, but anything licensed with this "Commons Clause" abomination is definitely not Open Source. Of course you may choose to disagree, but like it or not, the defacto definition of what it means to be Open Source is the OSI Open Source Definition[1] which says, in part:

Open source doesn't just mean access to the source code.

<snip>

The license shall not restrict any party from selling or giving away the software as a component of an aggregate software distribution containing programs from several different sources. The license shall not require a royalty or other fee for such sale.

<snip>

The license must not restrict anyone from making use of the program in a specific field of endeavor. For example, it may not restrict the program from being used in a business, or from being used for genetic research.

If you distribute software under a license that violates those terms, you may try to call it Open Source, but the fact is, the community at large is going to call you on your bullshit.

Personally I'm not a Free Software zealot who denies that closed source, proprietary software has a place in the world. But I go back to what I said before: if you're going to distribute proprietary software, you should just call it what it is and not try to hide behind a thin veneer of "open" by creating some mishmash of license terms that is "almost, but not quite Open Source".

[1]: https://opensource.org/osd-annotated


You may be confusing the actual definition of open source and the literal interpretation of the words "open source". Open source in the context of software doesn't just mean that the source code has been published.


If something is not free, it is not open source. The difference between free software and open source is one of ideology and philosophy. In practice, they're the same.




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