It’s never been simple to be an Open Source vendor. With the rise of the cloud and the emergence of software as a service, the open source monetization model continues to encounter risks and challenges. A recent example can be found in MongoDB, the most prevalent NoSQL OSS vendor, which just changed its license from AGPL license to a new, more-restrictive license called SSPL.

This article will cover why MongoDB made this change, and the problems and risks of the new model. We’ll show how SSPL broadens the definition of copyleft to an almost impossible extent and argue that MongoDB would have been better off with Commons Clause or just swallowed a hard pill and stayed with APGL.

Why a new license?

According to a recent post by MongoDB’s CTO, Elliot Horowitz, MongoDB suffers from unfair usage of their software by vendors who resell it as a service.

Elliot claims the AGPL clause that is supposed to protect the software from being abused in such a manner isn’t enough, since enforcing it would result in costly legal expenses.

As an OSS co-founder myself, these claims seem valid at first blush. Shouldn’t vendors and communities defend themselves against organizations that just consume technology without contributing anything back? How can an OSS vendor maintain a sustainable business and how can it grow?

As InfluxDB CTO Paul Dix said, someone needs to subsidize OSS, otherwise it cannot exist. There are cases where it’s being subsidized by a consortium of companies or foundations (Linux, Apache). There are cases where very profitable corporations (Google/Facebook), who rely on their profits from other business models, act as “patrons-of-the-arts” to open source code for various reasons — for instance, to attract top talent, to be considered a benevolent brand, or attract a large user base for their other proprietary products.

Pure OSS vendors are under constant pressure since their business model needs to subsidize their development and their margins are tight. Indeed, many OSS vendors are forced to an open core approach while they hold back functionality from the community (Cloudera), provide some of the closed-source functionality as a service (Databricks) or even making a complete U-turn, back to closed-source software (DataStax).

Could MongoDB and RedisLabs (who recently changed to Apache 2 + Commons Clause licensing; the core remained BSD) have found the perfect solution? These new solutions allow them to keep sharing the code while having an edge over opportunistic commercializers who take advantage of OSS with little to no contributions.

APGL vs. SSPL: A side-by-side comparison