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Comment by tedivm | Hacker News Reader

I don't think your baker metaphor holds up though, because a major component of open source software is that people outside of the companies support it.

A better metaphor would be if the bakery had started by using volunteers to create all the recipes, and then the baker decided that people could only use those recipes if they followed his terms so that the baker could stop other bakeries from competing. This obviously upsets the people who contributed to the recipes thinking they would be open for anyone to use.

Mongo started as an open source project, used that openness to build community (and indeed their product itself), and then pulled the rug out from under everyone to gain a competitive advantage.

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If MongoDB started as a community OSS then I am wrong in this case, but about other open-source companies companies that want to protect their rights in not getting exploited by other for-profit entities that might use the product and profit from it? even AGPL guaranties nothing in most real-world cases.

Well here's the question- how are they getting exploited? If I release code for people to use for free, and people use it, where's the exploitation?

I can understand why some people would not choose to give their code away for free, but trying to be both open source while having the benefits of being closed source seems like they are trying to exploit the open source community.

this is totally beyond me. So a company making a profit from a product made by another company by just hosting it is not exploitation? Does this happen in any industry? A company that makes product for free and another takes it as is and sells it is not an exploitation?

It isn't exploitation because it is literally part of the definition of open source that other people can use and profit off of the work. Linux has made more than one company rich- do we think Red Hat is exploiting Linux?

It's also unfair to pretend that companies who are setting up managed services are universally not contributing back- by open sourcing their code MongoDB has been able to benefit off of the issues that these other companies have found, often without having to do more than review a pull request.

There are benefits of open sourcing your code, just as their are downsides. Companies like MongoDB can't have their cake and eat it to- by closing their source code like they have they are exploiting the open source community. They spent years taking the benefits of the community, with the community having given them these benefits with the assumption that the community would be able to benefit from the openness of their code. MongoDB deciding to no longer offer a true open source option for their software is exploitative and a slap in the face to every open source developer.

If someone were promoting a cause--say a business just trying to get the word out there about their new offering--were sitting at a table with a box that said "free mugs", would you consider it exploitative to take the entire box of free mugs, scrub off the company's logo, and begin selling them to people? Would you at least say that it's kind of scummy, or at the very least ethically questionable?

Being technically within the bounds of your agreement and being exploitative are not even close to mutually exclusive.

>It's also unfair to pretend that companies who are setting up managed services are universally not contributing back- by open sourcing their code MongoDB has been able to benefit off of the issues that these other companies have found, often without having to do more than review a pull request.

It's also unfair to pretend that you know for certain that the benefit of this exchange was significantly in favor of MongoDB compared to the detriment they experienced from having their work repurposed.

It is not a good defense of OSS to say that this is working as intended.

But it is working as intended. The point of open source is that I can do whatever I want with the source code — no ifs, ands or buts.

Your mug analogy isn’t great. Mugs are finite in number and cost money to produce, whereas software is infinitely and freely distributable. Google running a managed MongoDB service doesn’t directly impact Mongo’s bottom line.

Furthermore, Mongo’s own managed service almost certainly runs Linux in its infrastructure. Google is one of the largest contributors to the Linux kernel, whereas Mongo makes no notable contributions. Why is it okay for Mongo to profit off Google’s open source labor without compensating them, but not vice versa?

Software is only free to infinitely distribute so long as people are willing and able to make it. That's where the money comes in. There is zero marginal cost of production but there is very real upfront cost that must be recouped. It's not magic. You'll notice that quite a lot of software has historically been sold for actual money, and still is. So I think the mug comparison is quite apt, even if we'd rather it weren't.

MongoDBs use of Linux is not adversarial to Google and does not make it impossible (or even slightly difficult) for Google to benefit. In that situation, it definitely feels like the "rising tide lifts all boats" situation that OSS was intended to create. If MongoDB's use of Linux was somehow adversarial and somehow significantly affected Google's bottom line, you can bet your ass Google would change how it uses and contributes to Linux.

I don't think this is a consistent argument. In your first paragraph you say there's an upfront cost to developing software that must be recouped, whereas in the second you say that MongoDB's use of Linux is okay because it's not adversarial to Google. But how does that help Google recoup the upfront cost? They’re taking advantage of Google’s upfront investment without compensating them for it.

Cloud vendors' use of MongoDB is also only adversarial because MongoDB chose this particular business model. They could have charged all users like Microsoft and Oracle, released separate community and enterprise editions like MySQL, or charged for support like SQLite. It's fine that MongoDB wants to monetize this way, but it doesn't mean that anyone has to accommodate them.

I also want to say that I'm not opposed to people charging for software! It's just that MongoDB seems to want to reap the benefits of being open source, while still restricting how people can use their software.

>I don't think this is a consistent argument. In your first paragraph you say there's an upfront cost to developing software that must be recouped, whereas in the second you say that MongoDB's use of Linux is okay because it's not adversarial to Google. But how does that help Google recoup the upfront cost?

Nothing helps them recoup this. Open source is a public good, IMO. It doesn't benefit the creator nearly as much as those who can consume it. I'm not trying to say I think it's okay one way or another that Google isn't making money on its Linux contributions. I'm saying Google is okay with their position because no one is using their contribution to the public good against them, and they would have made those contributions to the Linux codebase anyway (because it benefits them to do so) so why not help everyone? Again, rising tide lifts all boats kind of thing. That's the difference here. Google wants Linux to be better because it makes their platform better. But Linux being better is not the product they offer. And the world having a better Linux doesn't undermine their product. At least, not in the same way that offering MongoDB managed infra for cheaper than Mongo can undermines Mongo's product.

I think you're trying to say fair is fair, and the license must be applied evenly and consistently or your reneging on the deal. Which I think we can all agree on. Where we differ is that I think it's okay to change your license if it's killing you.

I'm even okay with changing your license (although I understand why people who made contributions to what they thought would continue to be an open source project would be mad). All I'm saying is, MongoDB is no longer "open source" in the same sense that Linux/nginx/MySQL/etc are. It's not a slight against MongoDB that — for example — Homebrew would remove them from their core package repository, which only includes software with OSI-approved licenses.

The other sticking point for me is the idea that it's "exploitative" for cloud vendors to run managed MongoDB instances without paying them. MongoDB has existed for over a decade, but their own managed service only came out in 2016 — before that, they offered an enterprise version and support. So were cloud vendors offering a managed MongoDB before still exploiting them? Or did it only become exploitative once MongoDB decided to enter that market, too?

People sell Linux laptops, which has Ubuntu “as is”. This is not generally an exploitation.

That behavior also falls directly in line with Canonical's intended distribution of Ubuntu and the business model that surrounds it. Not quite apples to apples.

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