CockroachDB scuttles away from open source Core offering

CockroachDB, the distributed transactional system with a mostly PostgreSQL compatible front end, plans to retire its free open source "Core" product in favor of a new Enterprise licensing structure for self-hosted users. After the introduction of version 24.3 in November, the 2015-founded database company is set to introduce a …

[FIA]

While abandoning its partly open source model, it will remain "source code available" to "help foster innovation across the ecosystem," CEO Spencer Kimball said in a blog post.

We’re not giving it away for free anymore, but if you’ve got any bug fixes or features you want to share that’d be grand.

[katrinab]

Still free to people with income of < £10m. I guess if you are earning £10m, you can probably afford it?

[F. Frederick Skitty]

I thought that name sounded familiar - Kimball was one of the original authors of the GIMP image manipulation program.

[trevorde]

Fundamental misunderstanding

Open source is a development methodology, not a business model

[Howard Sway]

CockroachDB

Cockroaches can supposedly survive a nuclear war, but it is unlikely that they will survive a move from open source to "a new Enterprise licensing structure".

[NickHolland]

Re: CockroachDB

sounds like they may not have been surviving the open source model...

[GraXXoR]

They’re basically trying to have their cake and eat it.

They leave their source open hoping that customers will offer improvements or fix bugs.

And then they alone will profit from their customers’ efforts presumably while couching the whole thing in suitably innocuous language: “This will create a synergistic ecosystem in which our clients can emphasise their own needs by influencing the direction and development of the platform for a mutually prosperous Future.”

Typical trickle down economics… ie. evaporation of the previously enjoyed lakes followed only by a constant drizzle of bollocks.

[ForthIsNotDead]

You are completely ignoring the fact that the people/companies that are *using* CockroachDB in their *commercial* projects are making money of off it, while getting their DB technology for absolutely nothing. Sounds somewhat one-sided to me. Devs need to eat. Those devs using CockroachDB in their projects are getting paid, right? Why should CockroachDB give it away for absolutely nothing?

[doublelayer]

Cockroach is making money off selling licenses to this, but the people outside their companies who fix their bugs and add new features to the code get nothing. If their devs have to get paid, why don't the external ones? Maybe the license should be changed to say that, if you've made changes to the codebase, Cockroach needs to pay you for the length of time your code's been in there? Just as users have benefited from a database that you don't necessarily have to pay to use, Cockroach has been benefiting from people who do work for free, some of which probably worked at those commercial users.

I don't think that change is advisable, but nor do I think this one is. They have the right to do this, but it is an intentional bait and switch both to the users and to the contributors. I also know that, when it backfires as many similar decisions have, they'll have no choice but to extend their groups. Well, they could go open source again, but people who already abandoned open source rarely go back on their decision and are rarely trusted if they do. So while there's a revenue cap, which already conflicts with the "commercial use" provisioned in a confusing and possibly contradictory way, that cap will probably disappear at a moment's notice at some point.

[Anonymous Coward]

And then a hyperscaler forks the last OSS version and everyone moves to that

[Crypto Monad]

That's what I'd expect to see now. In fact, if it doesn't happen, that would be very bad news for Cockroach Labs: it means that CockroachDB doesn't have much serious interest or appeal.

[xcdb]

I got the impression (from an article elsewhere) that the major license change happened back in 2019, so much less chance of that happening in this case...

[JulieM]

And this is why

And this is (yet another example of) why you need to insist on the GPL or nothing.

The GPL fundamentally understands that Not sharing is stealing.

There is nothing to stop anyone from releasing a project under the Apache licence, in binary form only, and truthfully claiming it to be Open Source. The Apache licence allows anyone to distribute the Source Code -- but it doesn't oblige anyone to release it in the first place.

I would never release a single byte of my code under such a weak licence that would allow anyone to make a minor but compatibility-breaking alteration and repackage it as a proprietary, Caged product competing with my Free original. Sure, I could keep updating my original to keep up with their shenanigans; but the simple fact is, I'm a lazy cow, and I'd rather not have to. If they really think their improvement is important enough, then they shouldn't mind having to make it available to everyone else on the same terms as I made it available to them.

[JLV]

Given that a lot of Github code is not using GPL - https://github.blog/open-source/open-source-license-usage-on-github-com - clearly not everyone feels as you do.

Plenty of open source projects exist without making use of the GPL, which basically says "our way or the highway", for linked code. MIT, BSD, etc... based-projects understand that they may get stiffed, but value the freedom it gives to their users. And many open source developers shun the GPL, for just that reason, without otherwise holding ill intents.

Personally, rather than blaming the GPL, permissive licenses, CockroachDBes or Hashicorps, I tend to blame above all big Cloud vendors that are too stingy to give anything back to the original developers whose wares they directly resell. Looking at you, Amazon and RDS.

But that still leaves us with the rather insightful "Open source is a development methodology, not a business model": as an OSS developer you still need to find a way to make money, if that's your goal. And if you are a user of OSS, best understand what your exposure is to your dependencies.