Bilingual

Why fair source matters
a day ago
- The author critiques the ambiguity of the term 'open source' and the recent drama over Fizzy's non-compete license.
- Fair source is proposed as a clearer term that communicates the source code gift, freedoms, limitations, and sustainability goals.
- Fair source removes ambiguity, replaces meaningless terms like 'source-available', and ends drama.
- The author suggests fair source aligns with 37signals' values and can codify their 'Until the End of the Internet' policy into license text.
- Despite DHH's objection about GPL being more onerous, fair source provides an honest baseline and avoids double-speak.
Announcing support for memory and disk consumption
a day ago
- Policy enforcement now includes maximum memory and maximum disk consumption across licensed machines.
- Policies can define limits for memory, disk, and cores, enabling consistent resource constraints.
- Machines report memory and disk consumption, aggregated into license-level totals.
- Licenses support overrides for maximum memory and disk consumption, similar to cores.
- New validation codes TOO_MUCH_MEMORY and TOO_MUCH_DISK are returned when limits are exceeded, with strict policies enforcing limits at activation.
The problem with Open Core
a day ago
- Open core is not a well-defined term, with various interpretations.
- The author views open core as still open source because proprietary code can be removed from the open source-licensed core.
- Some argue that proprietary code within an open source project makes it not truly open source, but the author finds this distinction arbitrary.
- Others claim open core is only open source if the core is useful without proprietary code, but the author notes that even useless open source code is still open source.
- A minority view holds that open core is never open source, but this contradicts common usage and is not widely enforced.
- The lack of a clear definition for open core is a problem, but not a major one.
Licensing is packaging
a day ago
- Licensing is a key component of software packaging, influencing customer perception and adoption.
- Keygen's growth is attributed to reducing fear of vendor lock-in through a source-available model, not just a freemium offering.
- Fair Source licensing provides a continuity path, addressing customer concerns about long-term viability.
- Source-available models create virality and community engagement, driving adoption and market saturation.
- Closed-source lacks continuity options and distribution benefits compared to source-available or open-source models.
- Licensing is not a business model but a packaging lever; Fair Source balances openness and risk.
All Your Licensing Are Belong To Us^W You
a day ago
- Keygen, a licensing-as-a-service platform, is now open source under the Elastic License 2.0 after 7 years of being closed source.
- Two self-hosted editions are introduced: Keygen CE (free, community edition) and Keygen EE (enterprise edition with advanced features, requires a license).
- The decision to open source was driven by market demand for self-hosting, reducing the bus-factor of a single founder, ensuring long-term continuity, building trust, deterring copycats, and meeting enterprise compliance needs.
- ELv2 was chosen over AGPLv3 to protect the business from being commoditized by well-funded competitors and to avoid the complexity of an open-core model.
- Keygen Cloud (SaaS) remains unchanged, and a migration path between Cloud and EE is being developed.
How to License and Distribute a Private Docker Image
a day ago
- The blog post explains how to use Keygen to distribute private Docker images to licensed users without managing a full Docker registry.
- It demonstrates building a simple Node.js Express app, packaging it as a Docker image, and saving it as a compressed tarball using 'docker save'.
- The Keygen CLI is used to publish the image as a release, and users download it via authenticated API requests with their license key.
- Keygen automatically restricts access to releases only to users with valid licenses, simplifying timed trials and entitlement management.
<antirez>
a day ago
- Redis core remains under the vanilla BSD license; only certain Redis Labs modules changed from AGPL to a non-open-source license.
- Open core requires a modular system where proprietary parts remove something useful from the free software, which is not the case for Redis.
- Redis was made modular to allow extensions beyond its core scope, not to remove features for monetization.
- Redis Labs develops proprietary features (e.g., full-text search, JSON, graph, CRDTs) that are outside Redis's intended scope and not part of the open source core.
- The model is not open core because nothing is taken away from the free Redis; instead, new functionality is added separately.

licensing

Why fair source matters

Announcing support for memory and disk consumption

The problem with Open Core

Licensing is packaging

All Your Licensing Are Belong To Us^W You

How to License and Distribute a Private Docker Image

<antirez>