My understanding is that it is only true for Redis versions post licence change _and_ produced by Redis the company. The amazons of the world can still take a BSD version of Redis and host it for money, they can even start maintaining forks under BSD or other licenses. The gamble from the Redis Co here is that newer versions provide enough additional value for customers to either pay them directly or amazons to provide it as a service in their clouds and pay money to Redis the company as per the licensing agreements.