MongoDB Major Change to Licensing
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@scottalanmiller said in MongoDB Major Change to Licensing:
If you make the functionality of the Program or a modified version available to third parties as a service...
Here is where things get tricky...
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Define third parties in the IT world. This license applies to IT, not to the developers. This is new ground for licensing and really hard. Does an MSP hosting your software for you qualify as a third party? What about a colocation facility? What about a database as a service vendor? What about your IT department? What if that IT department is staffed by contractors rather than employees? I wrote last year about why internal IT was still a third party. This is a grey area requirement that could potentially sweep up nearly anyone and everyone using the product.
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Define "as a service." What software isn't delivered to end users as a server? None. Because that's just how software is. At the end of the day, IT provides software as a service to the end users of the company. If you are a one man show, you still do this to yourself. So this is a meaningless phrase here. Everyone is caught by this portion if they want them to be.
So the question is... is there anyone, anywhere, that can use MongoDB and be confident that they can't be caught by the clause?
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@tonyshowoff said in MongoDB Major Change to Licensing:
@DustinB3403 said in MongoDB Major Change to Licensing:
@scottalanmiller said in MongoDB Major Change to Licensing:
@DustinB3403 said in MongoDB Major Change to Licensing:
It's targeting profitiers, not internal uses.
Those are one and the same. No one runs software internally if not for profit from doing so. You can't find a way to differentiate these two.
Sure I can, MongoDB and my company "Dustin's Dough" have a database.
My customers aren't accessing that database. Hence no third party, hence no need to open source everything or purchase a license.
That's my point about vague language, again let's say that's protected and the intent, it's fairly easy to make an argument especially to non-technical arbiters or other legal-minded people that because the customer used your software and your software accesses the database, therefore your customers are.
Right, exactly, if you use this for your internal CRM, and your CRM helps you close sales, and closing sales makes you money, you've made money from the services of MongoDB. Now that closed source CRM you bought... legally you have to buy the company and open source their product which might cost you billions!
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@DustinB3403 said in MongoDB Major Change to Licensing:
@scottalanmiller said in MongoDB Major Change to Licensing:
@DustinB3403 said in MongoDB Major Change to Licensing:
It's targeting profitiers, not internal uses.
Those are one and the same. No one runs software internally if not for profit from doing so. You can't find a way to differentiate these two.
Sure I can, MongoDB and my company "Dustin's Dough" have a database.
My customers aren't accessing that database. Hence no third party, hence no need to open source everything or purchase a license.
That clearly doesn't clearly protect you. And what about the internal users?
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@tonyshowoff said in MongoDB Major Change to Licensing:
@DustinB3403 said in MongoDB Major Change to Licensing:
@scottalanmiller said in MongoDB Major Change to Licensing:
@DustinB3403 said in MongoDB Major Change to Licensing:
It's targeting profitiers, not internal uses.
Those are one and the same. No one runs software internally if not for profit from doing so. You can't find a way to differentiate these two.
Sure I can, MongoDB and my company "Dustin's Dough" have a database.
My customers aren't accessing that database. Hence no third party, hence no need to open source everything or purchase a license.
That's my point about vague language, again let's say that's protected and the intent, it's fairly easy to make an argument especially to non-technical arbiters or other legal-minded people that because the customer used your software and your software accesses the database, therefore your customers are.
What?
This seems pretty straightforward to me. If you have a service of some kind that you sell directly to a third party (not mongoDB and not for internal purposes) then either purchase a license or open source the entire service.
Yes it's insane.
But nothing here states that if you offer a service, and use it internally and no paying customer is accessing, then there is no need to open source anything or purchase a license.
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@scottalanmiller said in MongoDB Major Change to Licensing:
@DustinB3403 said in MongoDB Major Change to Licensing:
@scottalanmiller said in MongoDB Major Change to Licensing:
@DustinB3403 said in MongoDB Major Change to Licensing:
It's targeting profitiers, not internal uses.
Those are one and the same. No one runs software internally if not for profit from doing so. You can't find a way to differentiate these two.
Sure I can, MongoDB and my company "Dustin's Dough" have a database.
My customers aren't accessing that database. Hence no third party, hence no need to open source everything or purchase a license.
That clearly doesn't clearly protect you. And what about the internal users?
Internal users aren't paying customers! FFS!
@JaredBusch get in here.
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@DustinB3403 said in MongoDB Major Change to Licensing:
@tonyshowoff said in MongoDB Major Change to Licensing:
@DustinB3403 said in MongoDB Major Change to Licensing:
@tonyshowoff said in MongoDB Major Change to Licensing:
@DustinB3403 said in MongoDB Major Change to Licensing:
@scottalanmiller said in MongoDB Major Change to Licensing:
@DustinB3403 said in MongoDB Major Change to Licensing:
No. . . only if I was selling a service that used MongoDB as the backend would I be forced to purchase a license or Open Source everything. If I ran a mongoDB internally and not sold it as a service I wouldn't have to contribute or open a single line of code for whatever I built internally that uses MongoDB.
You sure? "As a service" doesn't imply selling it to third parties. Software is delivered "as a service" internally, too. And it's not just selling, but using. This license is broad, very broad. So broad that I think you might be completely missing how it risks tainting literally everything.
This change specifically targets MongoDB as a service that a (not mongoDB company) is selling a service and profiting from.
Intent isn't the same thing as result, especially if you scare people away with vague language
Sure, I agree wholeheartedly. But the conversation and license change is specifically businesses who are using MongoDB as a backend to whatever service they are selling to a customer.
It's targeting profitiers, not internal uses.
Let's say that's accurate, fine, but we're already moving to another key-value store in our product because of this (among other reasons but this is a good reason to never look back) and also the potential for it to get worse. What if they decided to further lock that down based on some other reason or decided to suddenly start trying to license to closed source products/services that simply use it so they can make money from that?
Again, I agree, but I'm stating what the license change is stating. It's targeting businesses that use MongoDB as a backend for whatever service they are selling to a third party.
Either open the source for the service you sell, or buy a license.
Yes, we get the requirement. It's always "buy a license." We aren't saying they offer no means of using their product. It's that they offer no reasonable one and that everyone should consider abandoning MongoDB completely as this is so limiting.
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@DustinB3403 said in MongoDB Major Change to Licensing:
@scottalanmiller said in MongoDB Major Change to Licensing:
@DustinB3403 said in MongoDB Major Change to Licensing:
@scottalanmiller said in MongoDB Major Change to Licensing:
@DustinB3403 said in MongoDB Major Change to Licensing:
It's targeting profitiers, not internal uses.
Those are one and the same. No one runs software internally if not for profit from doing so. You can't find a way to differentiate these two.
Sure I can, MongoDB and my company "Dustin's Dough" have a database.
My customers aren't accessing that database. Hence no third party, hence no need to open source everything or purchase a license.
That clearly doesn't clearly protect you. And what about the internal users?
Internal users aren't paying customers! FFS!
@JaredBusch get in here.
Sometimes not, sometimes they are, but why does that matter? The license doesn't say paying customers, you said that. But it's not a factor here.
Nearly all internal users are paying customers in real businesses, how could they not be?
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The intent is, if you sell a service to a THIRD PARTY, that you need to purchase a license or open source your shit.
Pretty straightforward.
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@DustinB3403 said in MongoDB Major Change to Licensing:
The intent is, if you sell a service to a THIRD PARTY, that you need to purchase a license or open source your shit.
Pretty straightforward.
Where does "sell to" come from? I don't see them EVER saying you have to sell something to get caught here.
The INTENT is unknown and anything but clear. The RESULTS we thought were pretty clear, but you seem to see limits that the rest of us don't see in the license. So any clarity you perceive, is in opposition to the clarity the rest of us see... which only proves a lack of clarity.
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@DustinB3403 said in MongoDB Major Change to Licensing:
The intent is, if you sell a service to a THIRD PARTY, that you need to purchase a license or open source your shit.
Pretty straightforward.
No, not straight forward, it doesn't say sell, it is providing and not being open source. And it isn't straight forward because it's poor legal language and potentially ambiguous. You have to remember that if ever it came up in arbitration, as most technical disagreements do, the judge or whomever is likely to not going to understand the distinction. Just because it's closed source doesn't mean it's being sold.
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@scottalanmiller said in MongoDB Major Change to Licensing:
@DustinB3403 said in MongoDB Major Change to Licensing:
@scottalanmiller said in MongoDB Major Change to Licensing:
@DustinB3403 said in MongoDB Major Change to Licensing:
@scottalanmiller said in MongoDB Major Change to Licensing:
@DustinB3403 said in MongoDB Major Change to Licensing:
It's targeting profitiers, not internal uses.
Those are one and the same. No one runs software internally if not for profit from doing so. You can't find a way to differentiate these two.
Sure I can, MongoDB and my company "Dustin's Dough" have a database.
My customers aren't accessing that database. Hence no third party, hence no need to open source everything or purchase a license.
That clearly doesn't clearly protect you. And what about the internal users?
Internal users aren't paying customers! FFS!
@JaredBusch get in here.
Sometimes not, sometimes they are, but why does that matter? The license doesn't say paying customers, you said that. But it's not a factor here.
Nearly all internal users are paying customers in real businesses, how could they not be?
"as a Service"
You can offer "dicks as a Service", and would then be required to offer your source code.
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If Dustin buys software X for his company, which is closed source, and chooses to deploy MongoDB as his database, once any user (e.g. customer, or third party) person inside his company accesses that system, he has run afoul of the "as a service" and the "third party" wording. No money changes hands, no selling, no outside people.
Now he has to provide source code that he does not own.
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@DustinB3403 said in MongoDB Major Change to Licensing:
@scottalanmiller said in MongoDB Major Change to Licensing:
@DustinB3403 said in MongoDB Major Change to Licensing:
@scottalanmiller said in MongoDB Major Change to Licensing:
@DustinB3403 said in MongoDB Major Change to Licensing:
@scottalanmiller said in MongoDB Major Change to Licensing:
@DustinB3403 said in MongoDB Major Change to Licensing:
It's targeting profitiers, not internal uses.
Those are one and the same. No one runs software internally if not for profit from doing so. You can't find a way to differentiate these two.
Sure I can, MongoDB and my company "Dustin's Dough" have a database.
My customers aren't accessing that database. Hence no third party, hence no need to open source everything or purchase a license.
That clearly doesn't clearly protect you. And what about the internal users?
Internal users aren't paying customers! FFS!
@JaredBusch get in here.
Sometimes not, sometimes they are, but why does that matter? The license doesn't say paying customers, you said that. But it's not a factor here.
Nearly all internal users are paying customers in real businesses, how could they not be?
"as a Service"
You can offer "dicks as a Service", and would then be required to offer your source code.
Exactly, nothing in there about selling or third parties or outside companies.
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@scottalanmiller said in MongoDB Major Change to Licensing:
If Dustin buys software X for his company, which is closed source, and chooses to deploy MongoDB as his database, once any user (e.g. customer, or third party) person inside his company accesses that system, he has run afoul of the "as a service" and the "third party" wording. No money changes hands, no selling, no outside people.
Now he has to provide source code that he does not own.
Third party in this case is clearly not employes of the same company that created whatever magical interface is using the MongoDB.
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Remember that "as a service" is a requirement for the definition of cloud computing, and the majority of cloud computing is internal and not to outside companies and not with money changing hands. The BULK of "as a service" doesn't comply with the selling / outside customer assumption that you are making.
It's a common approach, but not the most common approach. The majority of software "as a service" is from the IT department to the rest of the company.
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@DustinB3403 said in MongoDB Major Change to Licensing:
@scottalanmiller said in MongoDB Major Change to Licensing:
If Dustin buys software X for his company, which is closed source, and chooses to deploy MongoDB as his database, once any user (e.g. customer, or third party) person inside his company accesses that system, he has run afoul of the "as a service" and the "third party" wording. No money changes hands, no selling, no outside people.
Now he has to provide source code that he does not own.
Third party in this case is clearly not employes of the same company that created whatever magical interface is using the MongoDB.
Not clear in any way whatsoever. Please show where in that license it made third party defined?
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@scottalanmiller said in MongoDB Major Change to Licensing:
Remember that "as a service" is a requirement for the definition of cloud computing, and the majority of cloud computing is internal and not to outside companies and not with money changing hands. The BULK of "as a service" doesn't comply with the selling / outside customer assumption that you are making.
It's a common approach, but not the most common approach. The majority of software "as a service" is from the IT department to the rest of the company.
Yes, and internal employees are not 3rd party to the MongoDB and the Business who created a piece of software internally and use it internally as they (that business) are 1 entity.
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God damn I want to be at the first litigation of this license.
FFS.
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Legal definition...
third party
n. a person who is not a party to a contract or a transaction, but has an involvement (such as a buyer from one of the parties, was present when the agreement was signed, or made an offer that was rejected). The third party normally has no legal rights in the matter, unless the contract was made for the third party's benefit.
In a contract, the term third party does not even imply, let alone mean, an outside company.
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@DustinB3403 said in MongoDB Major Change to Licensing:
@scottalanmiller said in MongoDB Major Change to Licensing:
Remember that "as a service" is a requirement for the definition of cloud computing, and the majority of cloud computing is internal and not to outside companies and not with money changing hands. The BULK of "as a service" doesn't comply with the selling / outside customer assumption that you are making.
It's a common approach, but not the most common approach. The majority of software "as a service" is from the IT department to the rest of the company.
Yes, and internal employees are not 3rd party to the MongoDB and the Business who created a piece of software internally and use it internally as they (that business) are 1 entity.
Legally they are, and that is very clear from legal terms. I don't know where you are getting this, but there are no grounds for thinking that internal users are not third party.
