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Comment by bedros | Hacker News Reader

so, for the license experts out there, what's the difference between AGPLv3 and SSPLv1

AGPL says SaaS needs to make source modifications available.

SSPL says SaaS needs to make their whole stack open source.

> “Service Source Code” means the Corresponding Source for the Program or the modified version, and the Corresponding Source for all programs that you use to make the Program or modified version available as a service, including, without limitation, management software, user interfaces, application program interfaces, automation software, monitoring software, backup software, storage software and hosting software, all such that a user could run an instance of the service using the Service Source Code you make available.”

Then I don't get Mongo's beef here - with AGPL, AWS would have had to open source any changes to MongoDB, hence potentially leading to improvements in MongoDB, and "giving back to the community".

Why would they think it was a good idea to make orgs open source their whole stack? Wouldn't this obviously result in companies moving away wholesale?

It was an explicit goal to protect the sustainability of MongoDB's R&D investment in addition to encouraging community contributions.

Source (original announcement): https://www.mongodb.com/press/mongodb-issues-new-server-side...

https://stratechery.com/2019/aws-mongodb-and-the-economic-re...

Not really - SSPL says SaaS needs to make their whole stack SSPL (which is not open source). You can't even use Linux, as it's GPLv2 (section 13 of SSPL is so poorly written it doesn't even use "Standard Interface" and "System Libraries" terms defined earlier and copied verbatim from the GPL).

No expert here, but the AGPLv3 and SSPLv1 are completely different. The only significant conditions AGPLv3 imposes beyond GPLv3 is that usage requires distribution of source. This doesn't mean you cannot use it commercially.

For some reason, many people think software freedom and commercial use are somehow exclusive, but this is only ever the case if your business model relies on the artificial scarcity of digital goods such as your source code.

[0] https://copyleft.org/guide/comprehensive-gpl-guidech2.html

[1] https://www.fsf.org/bulletin/2017/fall/respecting-freedom-is...

[2] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html

> many people think software freedom and commercial use are somehow exclusive

My understanding is that software "freedom" requires free commercial use. Allowing free personal use is not sufficient.

These concepts are not only not exclusive but one implies the other.

Just to be clear: free as in freedom, not as in beer. You can charge as much as you want for use. You can choose your customers in any way you want. However, once they are your customer, you can not deny them the source code, nor can you deny them the ability to use the code, or further distribute the source code.

The short circuit that many people make is that if you can't create scarcity for the code, then you can't make money and hence you can't have a commercial service. This is not true, but it does mean that you can't stop people from offering exactly the same service that you do, using the code that you wrote to do it.

A free software commercial service needs to work differently than most people initially think about wrt commercial services. You need to offer something that is valuable to the customer that isn't the software. Companies like Amazon, Google, Microsoft, etc are well place to profit from free software because they can offer hardware abstraction services at a price/scale that is virtually impossible to compete with.

This is really the problem that some services are running into -- if you are only offering hosting as your service then you have a problem. Generic hosting companies can undercut you (and also outperform you because hosting is all they do). You have to write the software and host it. They only have to host it.

This is again why some companies turn to "open core", where they offer more functionality using proprietary software in order to provide more reason to pay for it. Again, they are creating scarcity of the code in order sell it. But this is not a free software business. It's a proprietary software business with a free software loss leader.

Every time I look at this problem, I come back to the same conclusion. There is only one thing that a free software company can provide as a service for which they have an advantage over the competition: writing software. You somehow have to link the creating of new software to customer sales. Whether you do that via customer services, contracts, or some other clever idea that I haven't thought about, I don't think you have any choice. Usually companies can't think of a way to scale this, so they abandon the idea, but I think it's probably possible (ala Red Hat). Perhaps I'm wrong.

From:

https://www.mongodb.com/licensing/server-side-public-license...

> What specifically is different between the GPL and the SSPL and what will it be called?

> The new license will be called Server Side Public License (SSPL)

> The only substantive modification is section 13, which makes clear the condition to offering MongoDB as a service. A company that offers a publicly available MongoDB as a service must open source the software it uses to offer such service, including the management software, user interfaces, application program interfaces, automation software, monitoring software, backup software, storage software and hosting software, all such that a user could run an instance of the service using the source code made available.

> Section 13 of the SSPL reads as follows:

> “If you make the functionality of the Program or a modified version available to third parties as a service, you must make the Service Source Code available via network download to everyone at no charge, under the terms of this License. Making the functionality of the Program or modified version available to third parties as a service includes, without limitation, enabling third parties to interact with the functionality of the Program or modified version remotely through a computer network, offering a service the value of which entirely or primarily derives from the value of the Program or modified version, or offering a service that accomplishes for users the primary purpose of the Software or modified version.

So the license is closest to GPL than anything.

That’s a ridiculous anti-competitive poison pill that discourages value added services.

Yes and no. You can do it open source, or you can make a deal with MongoDB Inc.

Let's say AWS were open source, would people start renting datacenters right away? Many people argue no, because AWS is about economies of scale.

It is closest if you count the unchanged words, but Section 13 makes its nature completely different. For starters, it's not even compatible with GPL, so you can't use any GPL applications as a part of your stack (as you have to publish "Service Source Code" under SSPL).

Hey, so the SSPL is an unlicensed modified derivative of the GPL, which is a copyright-protected work of the FSF which carries this notice immediately following the copyright notice, “Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this license document, but changing it is not allowed.”

> So the license is closest to GPL than anything.

That's not close to GPL at all. GPL is "if you use our software and modify it and distribute the modifications, you must do it as open source". AGPL is "same as GPL only you must also publish modifications if you're just using it". SSPL is "if you touch our software you must open-source your whole data center". The message here is clearly "don't ever touch our software unless you're already 100% open source shop". GPL never went this far, and for a good reason - nobody in commerce would touch GPLed software with a ten-foot pole if that was the case. People are wary of GPL, but SSPL is taking it to insane length, clearly construed to disable, not enable, it's use.

SSPL is basically trying to say we are open source unless you make money, in which case pay us or you need to be open source(not the kind of open source we are, the actual kind). And at the end of the day it just means that they aren’t open source anymore, they are a proprietary shop who lets hobbyist see their source code.

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