Hacker News Reader

Comment by karterk | Hacker News Reader

I don't know why Antirez is on the defensive here about being open core. So what? If that's a viable model for keeping Redis sustainable, then that's all that matters.

For what it's worth, having closed sourced extensions for an open source licensed core product (in this case Redis) is the canonical definition of "open core", and this post does not really prove otherwise. Sure, there could be some minor variation here (with Redis Labs not owning Redis directly), but largely it's the same model for all practical purposes.

View on HN

He's probably worried that someone will think that RedisLabs controls what he decides to put into Redis. By saying that it's not open core, he's stating that his decisions are impartial and not governed by potential revenue loss at RedisLabs. Given how stubborn Antirez can be, personally I'm willing to accept that at face value.

It's funny that he specifically mentions not wanting to put into Redis the exact type of software that RedisLabs sells.

I'm fully willing to accept at face value his reasoning but we wouldn't even be discussing this again if there wasn't yet another blog post telling us how we all have it wrong.

My advice to Antirez is to just leave this alone for a month and I doubt anyone will still care in a week.

Yes because Redis Labs is doing basically what we agreed was not in the roadmap of the open source for years... It's not a coincidence, we basically thought that there was potential in the intersection of: (what customers asked /\ what I was not going to do). But the blog post is not defensive, I think that the discussion that started from this Redis licensing thing is truly interesting, and that "open core" is a flat way to classify certain scenarios. Usually it captures well the idea, but certain times not. For instance imagine if Redis Labs would just specialize in writing orchestration software to sell Redis as a service... It's hard to argue that this would be an open core model. And what Redis Labs is doing is kinda that in a different way, to add value outside the space of the OSS project main focus.

It seems to me that the main source of confusion is about the independence of Redis from Redis Labs.

To you Redis is an independent open-source project, to which Redis Labs generously donates your salary so that it you can work on it full time.

But to most people online, that is not immediately obvious: because of the company name, you working at Redis Labs, and them being the main sponsor, Redis is seen as the "open-source core product" of Redis Labs. https://redislabs.com/community/oss-projects/ also strongly leaves that impression - it even says that to contribute to Redis you have to sign the contributor agreement with Redis Labs.

Once you have that impression, it's natural to assume that Redis + Redis Labs modules are part of one product family, and that the roadmap for both is being planned based on the business goals of Redis Labs.

Redis labs website describes itself as the "home of Redis" and sells a product called "Redis Enterprise". If that doesn't sound exactly like textbook open core, I don't know what does.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com