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They're allowed to license Mongo on whatever terms they see fit, but we're also allowed to judge them on the licence terms they choose.

If they had a source-provided, not-for-commercial-use hobbyist/educational licence and a proprietary licence, nobody would bat an eyelid. What they seem to be doing instead (this might or might not be correct, but is definitely the point the article is making) is burdening their "open source" licence with enough gotchas that it becomes quite unclear as to whether it's allowable in a commercial production environment (while still getting to claim it's Open Source Software), thus pushing people towards the proprietary licence without outright demanding it — which might be 100% legal, but is also profoundly dishonest.

I think that it is interesting that this is enabled by a CLA. If the project would have used a Developer Certificate of Origin (DCO) this relicensing would not have been possible. When Debian started to use GitLab they asked us to replace our CLA for the open source code to a DCO. They saw the risk of relicensing and addressed it.

Relicensing is still very much possible with DCO. You just put contributions under the license they were originally submitted and use whatever license you want for owned code. Essentially providing a separate license(s) for contributions.

I agree that they might have a legal right to do this, but it doesn't mean this is aligned with the interests of the general free software / open source community and thus it is entirely their right to shun, criticise and disapprove of this move and this licence. Particularly so because they are (arguably) violating an implicit social contract it had with its contributors in the past.

This might be a good thing in the end because it exposes a new downside to CLAs and might make people think twice before signing them in the future.

> If the outside world wants more open source code, I don't see why they'd giving MongoDB any flak for this. All this license will do is result in more open-source code. After all, isn't that the point all along?

It would be a good thing if we could reasonably expect the effect to be that companies might release more open source code as a result. Yet the licence is so vague and broad that the much more likely intention (and effect) is that other companies will be forced to buy the proprietary licence to avoid the impracticability of using code under SSPL. I also don't think this kind of overreach in what is required to be open sourced just because you're using a component X is acceptable.

Companies don't open source their products, especially their core business products, because they are awesome and want to contribute to the community (at least the majority of for-profit ones).

They do it because:

* The users demand it (you can be sure that MongoDB wouldn't be even remotely as popular if it started life closed-source)

* Because it generates free marketing and helps build a community

* Because it allows paying developers less or attract stronger talent

* Because it allows leveraging the community's talents to make the code better (I.E. getting outside contributors)

When you change the license, you break the unspoken contract between your users and contributors and the company, which is just a form of bait and switch.

> 1. MongoDB has the right to do whatever they like

Well, no, obviously not. They have to stay within legal bounds. But of course they can have any obscure license that is legal if they want.

The thing they get flak for is trying to deceive the public.

> 2. This License Means More Open Source Code

This license is only open source in a very obscure interpretation of the word. It's basically doing a lot of legal gymnastics to say "we don't want Google+Amazon to sell services based on our database, but we still want to call it Open Source". These two goals are fundamentally incompatible.

> This license is only open source in a very obscure interpretation of the word.

It's "open source" in the dead-obvious meaning "the source code is open for inspection". I'd argue it's all of the extra baggage that the OSI have read into the words "open" and "source" that are considerably more obscure. Neither the word "open" nor "source" implies "free for commercial exploitation to all and sundry"

The source isn't very useful if you're not allowed to run the software.

Being able to compile and run the software for whatever propose you want isn't obscure.

The phrase "Open Source" is not necessarily just the summation of the constituent words "open" and "source". "Open Source" is a unique concept with a unique meaning... and the de-facto definition of that concept, is the OSD[1].

Similarly, there are are de-facto terms for the "the source code is open for inspection" (but not otherwise Open Source) models: things like "Source Available"[2] and "Shared Source"[3].

People trying to muddy the waters are generally being intentionally disingenuous because they want the general goodwill and positive buzz associated with being Open Source, without actually, ya know, being Open Source.

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

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Source-available_software

[3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shared_Source_Initiative

> The phrase "Open Source" is not necessarily just the summation of the constituent words "open" and "source". "Open Source" is a unique concept with a unique meaning... and the de-facto definition of that concept, is the OSD[1].

The use of the phrase "Open Source" predates the very _existence_ of the OSD by years[1], so it's somewhat laughable to claim that people are "trying to muddy the waters and being intentionally disingenuous" for simply not complying with the OSI's attempt to retroactively redefine the phrase to mean something other than the conventional and obvious meaning.

[1] The OSI was formed in February of 1998. The OSD had been drafted 9 months prior, in mid 1997. If, as claimed, the meaning of the phrase "Open Source" sprung forth from the ether with the OSD, then why, pray tell, is it dead easy to find uses prior to 1997 in which people are obviously referring to the ability to see the source-code and obviously _not_ referring to the ability to exploit it commercially?

For instance, here's a post from 1993 on comp.os.ms-windows.programmer.win32 (https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/comp.os.ms-windows.pro...):

> If a developer wants money for shareware, paying the fee should automatically grant the user a copy of the source code for their personal use. Restrictions could prohibit modifying and redistributing binaries, but should allow distribution of "deltas" for bug fixes, etc.

> Anyone else into "Source Code for NT"? The tools and stuff I'm writing for NT will be released with source. If there are "proprietary" tricks that MS wants to hide, the only way to subvert their hoarding is to post source that illuminates (and I don't mean disclosing stuff obtained by a non-disclosure agreement). Open Source is best for everyone in the long run.

Or this email from 1996 (http://www.xent.com/FoRK-archive/fall96/0269.html):

> Caldera Announces Open Source for DOS.

> ...

> Caldera believes an open source code model benefits the industry in many ways.

> ...

> Individuals can use OpenDOS source for personal use at no cost. Individuals and organizations desiring to commercially redistribute Caldera OpenDOS must acquire a license with an associated small fee.

I guess somebody should travel back in time and tell them they're "muddying the waters and being intentionally disingenuous"?

Or maybe, just maybe, it's the OSI that muddied the waters by trying to redefine a term to add their own ideological baggage to it.

Just because OSI wasn't formed as a legal entity until 1998 doesn't mean that the people involved weren't around and involved in those earlier discussions of "open source". All OSI did was formalize what was in common usage. And sure, you can cherry pick a few exceptions where individuals used the term in different ways. That has little or nothing to do with contemporary usage.

And in today's vernacular (dating back to at least 2000 or so) the de-facto definition is the OSI definition. A few lone-wolf dissenters don't change that.

Languages don't work like that. You don't just come up with a definition and try to force everyone to use it. People learn definitions from how they are used and mentioned in the things they encounter.

In reality almost no one is aware that OSI definition exists and those who do can't even remember what it is exactly. So, no, de-facto definition of open source is definitely not an OSI definition, but mostly literal meaning of open source software with most people presuming freely usable software as well to some degree. Take SQLite for example, it's open source, but not OSI open source and everyone is ok with that. Because this is where common meaning is. And trying to claim authority over it just invites bad PR for OSI. I guess OSI is already that irrelevant and it's pretty much consequence free to use a proper common meaning of open source.

You don't just come up with a definition and try to force everyone to use it.

Right, and nobody did that.

In reality almost no one is aware that OSI definition exists and those who do can't even remember what it is exactly.

I haven't found that to be the case. At least not for people who are actually involved in the open source community to any serious level. Maybe for casual bystanders.

This is why "Open Source" is terrible terminology for Free/Libre software.

But not as bad as “free software”, which was well-established before the FSF for, and has continued to be used (even now) widely for, gratis software.

> These two goals are fundamentally incompatible.

They are very much compatible. Even more so, than permissive licenses that don't protect users of services from lock in.

I think you've missed the point of most of the uproar. I haven't seen anybody claiming MongoDB doesn't have the right to use whatever license they like. I have however seen lots of people claim that it's a bad decision to use this latest license.

And people are free to criticize decisions all they want. It's really no different from the usual claims of bad technical decisions by MongoDB. Now people are just saying they're making bad business decisions too.

The rights discussion is largely irrelevant at this point.

You're forgetting to mention that open source != free software.

I have no problem with the license itself, because it maintains the four freedoms. So from a free software perspective it's fine, and that's the spirit of GPL. However, if I was a business owner, I would never run software under that license because it may create unforeseeable license conflicts. As far as I can see (correct me if I'm wrong), any software running on the SaS stack would have to be compatible with GPL, and there are plenty of open source licenses that you might want to or need to use that are incompatible with GPL. For example, it seems that strictly speaking only fully FSF approved GNU/Linux distributions are compatible with that license.[1]

Or maybe I'm misinterpreting the license requirements? (IANAL)

[1] https://www.gnu.org/distros/free-distros.en.html

I'm pretty sure that the new license does not "maintain the four freedoms".

I don't know if the FSF will approve of this new license, however by the Free Software definition it should be even more damning, first of all because it violates Freedom 0. The corresponding rule in OSI's definition is less strict ;-)

The "spirit of the GPL" has nothing to do with this license. The GPL is just a "copyright license", meaning that it's concerned only with distribution and with derived works, where distribution and "derived works" are defined by the copyright law.

The GPL is in fact very business friendly and that was by design.

I think you're right and I was wrong. It does violate freedom 0 and probably will not be approved for that reason by FSF.

This won't lead to more open source code. Reading the actual clause lists a myriad of potentially implicated kinds of software, all of which must be open source licensed, and not just that but also under SSPL.

Let's forget about the potential concept that GPLed software like the Linux kernel could very well be implicated, as LWN points out. Regardless, this clause is a literal legal minefield, and I would bet my life savings companies are going to buy commercial licenses rather than open their internal code under SSPL.

I'd rather bet my life savings that at least some such companies are going to reject both these options (SSPL or commercial licence) and just keep using the last MongoDB version that was released under GPL, possibly maintaining a fork of that version just as MariaDB has done.

That wouldn't really be the worst outcome, either. Well, it would be for MongoDB themselves, but to the rest of the open source community, it would mean a much less restrictive version of MongoDB would be available and maintained, which to me seems like a win.

Open Source needs a definition and that definition has been governed by OSI: https://opensource.org/osd just like how Free Software has been governed by FSF: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html

Yes, we need an organization that governs over such a definition and over compliance, because otherwise the term becomes meaningless, due to being sexy for marketing purposes. Back in the day companies like Microsoft actually tried to hijack it via restrictive "shared source" licenses. And those cute little projects on GitHub without a license? Those are a legal minefield ;-)

Developers are not lawyers, we don't read the fine print. That's why we have to rely on certain freedoms when hearing the term Open Source. And one of those freedoms has been the freedom to run the program without restrictions. And another freedom has been the freedom to distribute the program along with other programs, without imposing restrictions on those other programs.

AGPL has been in my opinion restrictive enough that I don't think it is Open Source to begin with — smarter people than myself disagree, but this new SSPL is a farce because it extends those restrictions far beyond derived works. So I hope SSPL doesn't get approved by either OSI or FSF.

The GitHub repository lists 350 contributors.

Many of those are third-party I'm sure. So how many of them are happy with MongoDB's bait and switch? For that matter, how many people that advocated for MongoDB over the years would have done so in the knowledge that MongoDB is not Open Source?

> MongoDB has the right to do whatever they like

Sure, but that's not an argument. We also have the right to complain about it, to campaign against it and to stop using it.

The truth is the company behind MongoDB tries to eat their cake and have it too. Well, that's not how things work. Either you're developing Open Source and are thus happy with other companies profiting from your work, or you stop developing Open Source, but when you do, don't be hypocritical about it.

So, you don't like for the term "open source" to include anti lock-in conditions to protect users freedoms and only ok with it if the license permits lock-in exploitation of users via hosted services? That's the kind of open source definition I strongly disagree with.

The creator certainly has all those rights. On the other hand, it's definitely a goal here to have people use the software - that is, after all, a somewhat necessary precondition to making money off it. Given the difficulties with legally complying here, I'm not sure anyone who comes across this whole thing will want to touch MongoDB with 30ft pole, let alone make it a core component of their project.

From a company perspective, the current legal answer to "What happens if I use this under SSPL for <insert side project website here>?" appears to be "the entire site might have to be under SSPL - we don't know". So much for that, I'll use something else.

From an OSS perspective - it's generally considered that to maximise OSS, you want to allow supporting software (compilers, DBs, etc) to be used in commercial/proprietary systems. This can't be, not with a license like this.

> This License Means More Open Source Code

You're going to get flak for this because you're factually incorrect. The SSPL is not an open source license. It might as well contain a clause that says "Thou shall not compete with MongoDB." As far as I can tell it was submitted to the OSI in bad faith.

> The SSPL is not an open source license.

So far this is just your opinion. If the OSI will approve it has yet to be seen...

Be that as it may, my opinion is informed. Like the Commons Clause before it the SSPL is an effort at undermining open source. It violates the Open Source Definition in letter and in spirit.

The OSI isn't going to approve it and Mongo damn well knew this when they submitted it.

> The SSPL is not an open source license.

It seems like it is to me, it's just extremely protective of the source code owner's rights.

> "Thou shall not compete with MongoDB."

Sounds to me like, "thou shall not offer MongoDB, and your own custom tooling, in your cloud without talking to us about licensing fees or making your cloud tech open source."

> It seems like it is to me, it's just extremely protective of the source code owner's rights.

It is effectively impossible to follow the conditions of the license -- according to the interpretation by Bradley Kuhn and others this would require you to provide the source code for Linux under this license if you run MongoDB on Linux. Linux is GPLv2 and has thousands of copyright owners -- it is not possible for any individual to relicense it to any other license.

If you have an "open source" license (which violates the one of the entries in the OSI definition -- "License Must Not Restrict Other Software") which cannot be followed by anyone then it's obviously not an FOSS software. It doesn't matter that in theory it would be FOSS, what matters is whether it is FOSS in practice.

Individuals interpretations of this are unlikely to matter much until such a clause is tested in court. The interpretation that the license is as broad as Mr Kuhn claims may be true, but it may not be.

Personally I think that both Mongo and Redis doing this is great as it shows the danger posed when a company can just relicense a project at will, which IMHO is the greater issue here. If Mongo felt the need they could amend their license again if it was tested in court and the court ruled against them. Individuals and companies should be aware that with some of these license agreements they could change at any time.

Ultimately governance of a project matters. We have seen somewhat of a split in the Cassandra community between Apache Cassandra and DataStax. That may ultimately prove to be beneficial as a new set of organizations has started to contribute. Having an organization like Apache to provide oversight and help draw a firm distinction between an open source project and a vendors proprietary offering was crucial there.

"Redis doing this" -> Redis is BSD licensed, but Redis Labs modules that were never part of Redis itself changed license. Note btw that when something is BSD can be relicensed by everybody, both the original copyright owners or anyone else.

I have never used Redis so I cannot comment on what is in Redis vs whatever Redis Labs modules are. I did observe that when the license was changed there was much gnashing of teeth about the license change so clearly at least a subset of potential users were surprised or upset about the license change.

I do think much of conversation about license changes is missing what I think the main risk of taking a dependency on an open source project where the license can be changed by the primary contributors with little to no oversight from anyone. And indeed Oracle has demonstrated that this is an issue for software that while proprietary has been free.

It may still be the right thing to do to use Redis or MongoDB or the Oracle JVM. Users may be fine with the new licensing terms. Maybe things fork and go their own way. Maybe people wake up to the risk they actually run when signing a contributor agreement (depending on what it contains). I just think there is too little real analysis of the true risks that exist when taking a dependency on a component which might not be supported under the expected licensing terms in the future.

> when something is BSD can be relicensed by everybody

Relicensing is not something that the BSD license permits. The license family is permissive, but a user doesn't have the right to strip out the copyright notice and call it a day.

I think they meant sublicense, which is something that the BSD license permits (though not as explicitly as MIT) because otherwise you wouldn't be able to use BSD code in GPL projects.

> Individuals interpretations of this are unlikely to matter much until such a clause is tested in court.

If the interpretation is reasonably plausible and untenable for a user, they just won't use the SSPL licensed version of the software.

So, yes, they will matter substantially.

For a big-money cloud provider, it's probably less risky to fork and maintain their own version from the GPL version (and share it to get code from the community).

> It seems like it is to me, it's just extremely protective of the source code owner's rights.

And you'd be mistaken. It isn't open source because (among other reasons) it discriminates based on your purpose for using the software. This tickles freedom zero of the free software definition and point six of the open source definition.

> It seems like it is to me,

It directs licensing of software that is not a derived work of, or part of a combined work with, the software offered under the license, in violation of criterion 9 of the OSD.

(OTOH, it might be Free Software under the FSF Free Software Definition.)

> This License Means More Open Source Code

I don't think that will happen. I think they will just sell more commercial licenses, which seems to be the entire (valid imo) point of this license change.

To me, that feels more like a hidden contract. Giving away for free a software only to require the user to do the same.

That's why I prefer BSD-style licenses - when they write "free", they mean "free".

And that is why BSDs will never be as big as Linux, companies don't like to give free beer back to the tap.

Also why all new open source OSes done companies are all based on BSD/MIT licenses like Zephyr, RTOS, Fuchsia, ...

When we get back to PD, Shareware world, don't start complaining companies don't contribute back.

That's kind of the point though. BSD is truly free, and that means there are a lot of proprietary products which benefit massively from it and create worthwhile products with clear monetization strategies and thrive. Sure, they might not contribute back, but the point of the open source was often to share code to improve the state of the art and provide useful code for people so they don't have to start from scratch. Apple took BSD licensed code to make macOS, and it helped them, they contribute some OS code to Darwin, but there are probably lots of happy mac users who benefit immensely from that BSD code. There are lots of people who do BSD code and improve it, just as there are GPL people. Popularity is not always [i.e. almost never] a measure of correctness, principle, or goodness. I like BSD, because any code I release, I hope it helps someone somewhere to do something useful for the world [even when proprietary], and if it does, then great.

Apple isn't the best example. They generally do publish the modified source code to FOSS projects they do, and sometimes they don't add their own license clause, so the changes can get merged back.

It is a good example, because that’s exactly how the BSD license works - it doesn’t force you to give your changes back, but there are other incentives to do so, such as not having to maintain your diffs forever.

"Truly free" is in the eye of the beholder: is a country with laws against slavery more or less free than one without them?

I release my code as open-source because I don't want my end users to ever end up unable to fix bugs in the code they're using. I don't want my code used in something like macOS where users are stuck using what they're given; it might help those users in the short term, but I believe it leaves them worse off in the long term.

Yes, this is the sense of "truly free" that leads to people in the U.S. being able to marry children, not having healthcare taken care of etc. That's a true 'freedom' to go bankrupt, but am not sure that's a 'freedom' many actually want.

I think most of the commenters on my post misunderstood me very much. I think people should be free to license under GPL, AGPL, SSPL, VXMPL, or whatever the heck they want. I like BSD personally, and it meets my requirements, but someone who has a different need can do what they want. I think GPL has worked well for Linux, and I'm glad they did it the way they did; I think it is less free than BSD, but in a good way for their project and purposes. I think having both a GPL licensed OS and a BSD licensed OS is great. We have diversity of licenses for different purposes and different ideologies, and it enriches the market in a lot of ways. I think forcing everyone to use the same copyleft licenses for everything based on a radical ideology is a dangerous and useless endeavour; and that sort of ideology is completely _not_ free in every sense of the word. Do what you want, set your rules for your project as you wish, we are all better for it.

I guess it all comes down to whether one thinks free as in beer is "freer" than free as in freedom. Freedom has a price.

I don't think you were misunderstood. But, I think the way you think of freedom is that one has an absolute freedom do do whatever, including infringing on other freedoms whereas others disagree.

By analogy; if one is free to rob someone, they're more free in absolute terms than they're free if they can't do that, but then the person who is about to get robbed isn't free to feel secure. So in other words, the robber is more free, but at the expense of the robbed.

In that sense, the BSD license is more absolutely/selfishly free for the individual, whereas the GPL is more freedom-perusing for the entire community.

> the point of the open source was often to share code to improve the state of the art and provide useful code for people so they don't have to start from scratch

Was that the point of free software? I thought that the point was freedom: that users be permitted to use, modify & redistribute the software they use. Inclusion of BSD-licensed code in proprietary software fails at that: a macOS user is unable to use macOS without paying for it; unable to legally modify it; and even if he did modify unable to legally distribute those modifications.

BSD-licensed code is awesome for vendors of proprietary software who want a head start; it's not so great for users.

You're forgetting that those businesses that depend on your software are your users.

The first step of making useful software is by having users. If nobody uses your software because of licensing reasons nobody will ever contribute to it and it might as well not exist. On the other hand if there are users then there is a chance that a subset of the users will contribute back voluntarily.

Trying to do business with desktop software proves otherwise regarding contributions.

Not true - if you compare various cases of GPL vs BSD, the theory of GPL helping the project just doesn’t hold. See MySQL vs Postgres, or GCC vs LLVM, or various MTAs.

LLVM in particular lacks many improvements done by embedded OEMs, one of them being Sony which has only contributed parts of the PS4 toolchain.

Perhaps. But GCC lacks those same improvements from Sony, simply because Sony went with LLVM instead, doesn’t it?

That is exactly the point, with GCC the community would have enjoyed those improvements.

With LLVM, Sony gets to cut down their compiler research budget, and the community sees whatever Sony feels like giving back, minor improvements without the juicy optimizer sauce that actually matters.

Personally I don't care, given I use mostly commercial stuff nowadays, but I do see the return of shareware long term.

Then MIT/BSD license advocates can consider how much those licenses are actually worth to the overall community.

No - with GCC those improvements never got written, because the license used by GCC prevented it from happening in the first place. The decision whether to share the code usually happens before choosing the codebase to build upon, not the other way around.

In this specific case, Sony would have been forced to actually spend money doing a compiler from the ground up instead of cutting costs down costs while giving a few crumbs back to keep the plebe happy.

What I find ironic with the current anti-GPL trend is the eventual return of the shareware model, then lets see how well the MIT/BSD folks will appreciate it.

Only if you assume the only choices were 1. using GCC or 2. writing from scratch. Thing is, this assumption obviously doesn't match reality. Absurd assumptions -> absurd conclusions.

And no, BSD has nothing to do with shareware. Shareware was never about sharing sources; meanwhile, BSD-licensed projects are fine with respect to sharing - just take a look at Postgres, LLVM, FreeBSD, X11, or Python. GPL is an attempt to protect from a threat which was never real, and by doing so it makes life harder for everyone.

I have plenty of crufty shareware CDs and most likely unreadable floppies with source code on those .zip and .arj files.

FreeBSD vs what Linux has achieved, LLVM still lacking many of the hardware targets supported by GCC don't seem to be doing that great in company contributions. The others I don't know well enough to comment on.

Lets check again in about 10 years to see how far they managed to develop themselves.

Maybe I will be wrong, maybe not.

There are many GPL-licensed operating systems. You could as well compare FreeBSD with Hurd and make the opposite conclusion.

Hurd is not a UNIX clone and that plays a big role in adoption.

How so? You mean the microkernel thingy? It somehow didn't hurt adoption of the most successful desktop Unix out there. The main thing that plays a role in adoption is whether something actually works.

> And that is why BSDs will never be as big as Linux, companies don't like to give free beer back to the tap

BSDs will (perhaps) never be as big as Linux because Linux had first mover advantage in the FOSS operating system world, and hasn't (yet) fumbled it badly enough to be displaced.

OTOH, Postgres and SQLite do quite well (with plenty of contributions from big downstream users and sellers), despite being permissively-licensed, and (in Postgres case) despite having a GPL competitor that used to be much further ahead of it in acceptance.

BSD was the first mover, getting contributions until the suit happened.

A suit that was settled in about 2 years, and Linux also had its own set of suits.

Most companies that use BSD seldom give anything back thanks to the license.

MySQL is not a competitor to Postgres when one cares about real SQL support.

> MySQL is not a competitor to Postgres when one cares about real SQL support.

Which almost no one does, at least not as the sole decision factor. Even while being recognized as better on that dimension, Postgres was far behind MySQL for a number of reasons and caught up because of much stronger contribution from downstream users.

Just to be clear with regards to BSD vs the GPL - the GPL "free" does not refer to cost.

"One could see this change as being just another company trying to go proprietary without actually looking proprietary." -- I think this is the key, they have a right to do what they want and monetize as they want (and I think it is good to monetize), but it somewhat of a misnomer to call them "open source" in the sense of code-sharing freely according to some philosophies.

They of course have the legal right to do this and given that they require contributors to hand over copyright, they have no legal right to complain about this either. As the only copyright holder, Mongo gets to license their contributions anyway they want.

Of course the latter practice is very common with this style of licenses and doing a bait and switch like this on the license is always a bit controversial, no matter what the intentions. AGPL style licenses without copyright transfer agreements are very uncommon as re-licensing becomes near impossible without full agreement of all copyright holders. This means none of them are able to use the software they worked on other than under the strict terms of the license, which typically precludes many potentially interesting ways of using the software. AGPL as a license is only interesting if you can opt out from it. This is only possible if you own the copyright.

The article seems to suggest it can't be used with even Linux b/c Linux isn't under the SSPL. So the license seems to in effect make the software effectively unusable

Which in a way isn't their fault.. there is a weird license lock-in that seems to happen with licenses and it really forces your hand to use a particular license for practical reasons

I know for instance Clojure is all under the EPL - so it makes it a weird licensing issue to use it with GPL code (The way I understand it is that you can, if you basically treat it all like GPL code.. maybe?)

Because MongoDB is no longer open source. It is a sham license that says it is open source, but isn't, forcing pretty much everyone to use the proprietary license.

> This License Means More Open Source Code

Probably true, non-open source code provokes multiple open source compeitors when successful, so this non-open (per OSD criterion 9) license will, when used, probably provoke more open source code to be written.

The reaction you speak of is called “bitter zeal” in classical spiritual direction. One gets upset because someone else does good but “not as I understand it or not within my group.”

Nothing new under the sun.

> will always have an obligation to their own interests first,

The producer will usually favor its own interests. Not always. You could have used SQLite. No one forced you to use Mongo.