Even without a CLA, Redis was originally licensed BSD. Releasing code under a BSD license is making a promise that you are OK with people using your code for commercial purposes. If you as a developer express personal feelings of dissatisfaction that someone is doing with your gift what you gave them permission to do, in such a way that could be construed as reneging on your promise, then that would make you dishonorable and untrustworthy.
> Releasing code under a BSD license is making a promise that you are OK with people using your code for commercial purposes.
That's just a microcosm of the larger issue, isn't it? Contributors : Redis :: Redis : AWS - Redis gave Amazon the permission to host and make money off of Redis, but Redis was evidently salty about the state of affairs. I think contributors have reason to be salty too.
Well in this case, antirez literally promised[1] they wouldn't change the license of the core away from BSD, and then Redis Labs did just that, and now antirez is speaking favorably of that decision.
That post was from literally thousands of days ago and seems to be in relation to some confusion at that time.
Honestly to me you can see the tensions that led to the license change in that post. It’s largely consistent with what antirez has said in the post and in this thread.
Ok so just because something is in the past it's become irrelevant? So no promises are ever worth trusting? The creator of redis LITERALLY said "Redis will remain BSD licensed". And it's no longer BSD licensed.
You can try to be a smartass and add random caveats but that's not how language works.
Imagine if everyone thought like you did: "Sure I promise to do X" (not saying that I mean for the next 5 minutes and will then ignore my past promise)
The post title in its original context is clearly referring to the confusion discussed in the very first sentence: "Today a page about the new Common Clause license in the Redis Labs web site was interpreted as if Redis itself switched license." The title is saying that Redis core's license was not switched to Common Clause at that time in 2018. That's all. It is not titled "I promise that Redis will remain open source forever".
> This is not the case, Redis is, and will remain, BSD licensed.
True, he doesn't explicitly say for how long, but I don't think it is unreasonable to read "will remain" as "will remain indefinitely" and not as "will remain so until we change our minds".
> I don't think it is unreasonable to read "will remain" as "will remain indefinitely"
That's a reasonable interpretation. But it involves an assumption on behalf of the reader, of words that are not there. I think it's a stretch to consider that specific post a "literal promise" by Antirez.
That said, I just did more research and must admit I am completely wrong with regards to the bigger picture there. My genuine apologies. In the HN commentary on that same post [1], the cofounder/CTO of Redis Labs (Yiftach) apparently made a much more direct statement that "Redis remains and always will remain, open source, BSD license". Due to use of the word "always", that I think can unambiguously be called a literal promise that was broken by the Redis company.
People sometimes change their mind about decisions over time. That isn't the same thing as breaking a promise. You can infer a promise from any declarative statement, but that doesn't mean your inference is correct.
