Comment by boucher
4 years ago
MongoDB is effectively licensed under the AGPL and seems to have no problem being used by corporations of all sizes.
4 years ago
MongoDB is effectively licensed under the AGPL and seems to have no problem being used by corporations of all sizes.
MongoDB is licenses as SSPL which is non Open Source license all together
BUT this is only if you are not paying for MongoDB. If you do chances are you're using MongoDB Enterprise which is licensed under commercial license or MongoDB Atlas all together
SSPL is a nearly verbatim copy of AGPL, except one section. It is more restrictive than the AGPL, in a way that many feel is anti-competitive, which is why it's not considered Open Source by many, but also in a way which doesn't really change the argument here IMO.
In fact, here's a diff of AGPL and SSPL, provided by MongoDB: https://webassets.mongodb.com/_com_assets/legal/SSPL-compare...
They took AGPL and modified it a bit to arrive at SSPL (See Section 13).
MongoDB - the application is. MongoDB - the service isn't.
You can use an Oracle database (however ugly its licensing is) without having an oracle license on every piece of data you expose. The same is true of Mongo license and the data it exposes as a service.
The AGPL in this case is "you use MongoDB - someone wants to know about it, the source for MongoDB is over there." MongoDB AGPL doesn't 'infect' the application it is part of.
Now, if you were to fork MongoDB and do something with that fork (FongoDB), and that deployed FongoDB would need to make it's source code available if it was accessible - not the entire application that it is part of or components that use the data that it provides.
Yes, that's the entire purpose of the AGPL. If that's the outcome this person wants for their project, they should consider the AGPL.
I'm attempting to counter the narrative that no corporation would touch any AGPL software, because it's clear that how you are using the software is an important part of the equation.
MongoDB no longer uses the AGPL licence.
Looking at https://webassets.mongodb.com/_com_assets/legal/SSPL-compare... and in particular section 13, this is an attempt to squash a cloud service from packaging MongoDB and their own custom backup and UI software without offering the backup and UI software also under the license.
https://techcrunch.com/2018/10/16/mongodb-switches-up-its-op...
> MongoDB is a bit miffed that some cloud providers — especially in Asia — are taking its open-source code and offering a hosted commercial version of its database to their users without playing by the open-source rules.
> So while the SSPL isn’t all that different from the GNU GPLv3, with all the usual freedoms to use, modify and redistribute the code (and virtually the same language), the SSPL explicitly states that anybody who wants to offer MongoDB as a service — or really any other software that uses this license — needs to either get a commercial license or open source the service to give back the community.
If I was to write blog software that is backed by MongoDB, that blog software doesn't have to be released under the SSPL.
That said, the license and its application to patches on older versions would raise some eyebrows in legal with (likely valid) concerns that an upgrade of a point release may change the license on them as it was done before. In the interest of minimizing risk for the organization, the license and the company that changes its license so easily would be ones that would get extra scrutiny and developers using it would likely be advised to ask permission rather than forgiveness when dealing with it (rather than the other way around) as the risk to the org is greater than accidentally incorporating some GPL code in a service.
Wouldn’t those corporations just purchase the commercial license MongoDB offers, though?
Maybe? The commercial version has some extra features, but if you don't need them then there's probably no need to. I imagine there is more value in paying for a support contract.