> Now that you have accepted our license terms ...
> "now that you have licensed ...
That is not how licenses work. Licenses cannot be forced on either party, nor can they force terms after being granted; that'd be extortion. Neither Lasercomb nor SanDisk forced their licenses or subsequent terms on their licensees, nor am I alleging (as you seem to paraphrase) that Mongo does.
The misunderstanding you seem to have is that a license term such as "If you agree to this license, you MUST ..." can be interpreted as "Now that you have accepted this license, you MUST ...". It can't. All three of Lasercomb, SanDisk, and MongoDB's SSPL use the former and not the latter.
> You are allowed to simply /not/ use Mongo. You have an out.
As did the licensees of Lasercomb and SanDisk to simply not use the respective licensed works. That did not stop those two licensors from being in legal jeopardy, and from their licenses being invalid. And when a license is invalid, _any and all_ use of the copyrighted work under that license becomes copyright infringement.
> then they just can't provide Mongo as a service.
And here you introduce another kernel of the problem with the SSPL. It does not define what a "Service" is, leaving it vague and so open to interpretation, that MongoDB Inc. can change their mind later and sue even users not providing MongoDB-as-a-service. This inability (or omission) of the license to answer the question "What is a service" leaves me as a potential user in a very gray area. This has all been discussed many times over [0].
The only safe play is to not use the copyrighted work at all. Which leaves, as I say above, "the only legally safe way to use MongoDB is to pay MongoDB Inc. to host it."
> You've misunderstood me. I mean that providers lose the ability to use closed source code in the providing of the service. The statement you were quoting was said with the presumption that "you" (in the general sense) were the provider of the service, who also owned the copyright to said closed source code used to provide said service, and that the thing lost was the ability to keep that software closed-source.
You said, "The only “safety” you lose is that of owning the copyright to closed source software". One (owning the copyright) has nothing to do with the other (keeping the software closed-source), so I don't know why you would include the former if all you wanted to say was the latter.
> What, because some committee says it isn't?
No, because it does not meet the industry-accepted definition.
> open-source in the colloquial sense, as in "I can read the source code, modify it, and run it if I wish."
1. You can't just "run it if I wish" as you please; and
2. That is NOT the definition of open-source; that is the definition of shared-source, or source-available. If MongoDB wanted to make their source available under those terms, they should have, instead of trying to abuse the term 'open source'. If you want to use a piece of software under shared-source terms, feel free, but please don't try to jam it to others as if that's open source, because such twisting of terms harms the industry.
>If conditions are imposed on you (whether by court order, agreement or otherwise) that contradict the conditions of this License, they do not excuse you from the conditions of this License. If you cannot use, propagate or convey a covered work so as to satisfy simultaneously your obligations under this License and any other pertinent obligations, then as a consequence you may not use, propagate or convey it at all. For example, if you agree to terms that obligate you to collect a royalty for further conveying from those to whom you convey the Program, the only way you could satisfy both those terms and this License would be to refrain entirely from conveying the Program.
The important bit here is:
>If you cannot use, propagate or convey a covered work so as to satisfy simultaneously your obligations under this License and any other pertinent obligations, then as a consequence you may not use, propagate or convey it at all.
That is what I mean to say when I say you have an out. As in, rather than SSPL'ing your whole stack, you can simply STOP using MongoDB, or any other SSPL'd software. Once you stop using MongoDB, then you are free not to SSPL the rest of your stack under clause 12. Under the SanDisk and Lasercomb cases, you couldn't simply un-agree to the license, because it was a software purchase, or a patent license respectively, but the SSPL is a license that is validated and invalidated and renewed automatically (see clause 8: Termination), and for which the acceptable, enforceable outcome of any litigation is always "stop providing the copyrighted work as a service".
>You can't just "run it if I wish" as you please
Name one thing I can't do with it. No, providing it as a service does not count, as I can do that, provided I manage the service with other SSPL'd code.
> Under the SanDisk and Lasercomb cases, you couldn't simply un-agree to the license, because it was a software purchase, or a patent license respectively, but the SSPL is a license that is validated and invalidated and renewed automatically (see clause 8: Termination), and for which the acceptable, enforceable outcome of any litigation is always "stop providing the copyrighted work as a service".
So what? The automatic termination of a license doesn't make it valid, nor does it stop it from being invalid. Even in the presence of the termination clause, the SSPL asserts rights over works it does not cover. _That_ is copyright abuse, exactly like in the Lasercomb and SanDisk cases. The fact that those licenses differed in other areas does not affect this fact.
But yeah, thank you for bringing up the termination clause, as it further strengthens my point that using an SSPL-licensed work is like entering a legal minefield. As I say in my parent comment, if tomorrow MongoDB Inc. decides to interpret "Service" differently than today, invoking the termination clause, suddenly I would be forced to stop using the software. This mere possibility makes it unsafe for me to use the software now.
>> 1. You can't just "run it if I wish" as you please; and
>> 2. That is NOT the definition of open-source; that is the definition of shared-source, or source-available.
> Name one thing I can't do with it. No, providing it as a service does not count, as I can do that, provided I manage the service with other SSPL'd code.
At this point, I'm beginning to suspect you're being pedantic and willfully ignoring practical realities. You're also being selective and ignoring the rest of my argument: merely being able to run your modifications under certain conditions does NOT make something 'Open Source'. And, please, read the rest of my argument, which I reproduce here for your convenience: "If MongoDB wanted to make their source available under those terms, they should have, instead of trying to abuse the term 'open source'. If you want to use a piece of software under shared-source terms, feel free, but please don't try to jam it to others as if that's open source, because such twisting of terms harms the industry"
> Now that you have accepted our license terms ...
> "now that you have licensed ...
That is not how licenses work. Licenses cannot be forced on either party, nor can they force terms after being granted; that'd be extortion. Neither Lasercomb nor SanDisk forced their licenses or subsequent terms on their licensees, nor am I alleging (as you seem to paraphrase) that Mongo does.
The misunderstanding you seem to have is that a license term such as "If you agree to this license, you MUST ..." can be interpreted as "Now that you have accepted this license, you MUST ...". It can't. All three of Lasercomb, SanDisk, and MongoDB's SSPL use the former and not the latter.
> You are allowed to simply /not/ use Mongo. You have an out.
As did the licensees of Lasercomb and SanDisk to simply not use the respective licensed works. That did not stop those two licensors from being in legal jeopardy, and from their licenses being invalid. And when a license is invalid, _any and all_ use of the copyrighted work under that license becomes copyright infringement.
> then they just can't provide Mongo as a service.
And here you introduce another kernel of the problem with the SSPL. It does not define what a "Service" is, leaving it vague and so open to interpretation, that MongoDB Inc. can change their mind later and sue even users not providing MongoDB-as-a-service. This inability (or omission) of the license to answer the question "What is a service" leaves me as a potential user in a very gray area. This has all been discussed many times over [0].
The only safe play is to not use the copyrighted work at all. Which leaves, as I say above, "the only legally safe way to use MongoDB is to pay MongoDB Inc. to host it."
> You've misunderstood me. I mean that providers lose the ability to use closed source code in the providing of the service. The statement you were quoting was said with the presumption that "you" (in the general sense) were the provider of the service, who also owned the copyright to said closed source code used to provide said service, and that the thing lost was the ability to keep that software closed-source.
You said, "The only “safety” you lose is that of owning the copyright to closed source software". One (owning the copyright) has nothing to do with the other (keeping the software closed-source), so I don't know why you would include the former if all you wanted to say was the latter.
> What, because some committee says it isn't?
No, because it does not meet the industry-accepted definition.
> open-source in the colloquial sense, as in "I can read the source code, modify it, and run it if I wish."
1. You can't just "run it if I wish" as you please; and
2. That is NOT the definition of open-source; that is the definition of shared-source, or source-available. If MongoDB wanted to make their source available under those terms, they should have, instead of trying to abuse the term 'open source'. If you want to use a piece of software under shared-source terms, feel free, but please don't try to jam it to others as if that's open source, because such twisting of terms harms the industry.
----
0: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18301116