Exploring Forking in Open-Source Projects

In the past few years we’ve been witnessing tectonic shifts in the open source realm, with established projects taken off open source or otherwise turning to the dark side. On the other hand, we’ve seen active forks aiming to keep these projects open gaining momentum.

What does it mean for the Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) movement? Is this a trend or just a passing wave? What can we learn from it as vendors and as a community?

In this special episode concluding the fourth season of OpenObservability talks we will look back at the past year, including the very recent relicensing of Redis, and will discuss the state of open source with the help of open source pundit David Nalley.

David has been involved in open source for nearly two decades. He is the director of open source strategy at AWS and currently serves as the President of the Apache Software Foundation and serves on the Board of Directors for the Internet Security Research Group.

The episode was live-streamed on 28 May 2024 and the video is available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WV0ESadKuVI

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Show Notes:

00:00 - Show intro and fourth season ending

00:55 - Episode and guest intro

09:50 - Redis relicensing off open source 

16:34 - is vendor-owned open source an oxymoron?

20:00 - building business plan around open source

27:52 - what it means for users when a project relicenses

35:08 - Open Source is more than licenses and copyright

42:19 - Forks of relicensed projects to keep them open

49:55 - Open source strategy at AWS

53:39 - The role of OSS foundations

58:59 - upcoming Community Over Code and KCD Czech and Slovak  

1:00:01 - Outro

Resources:

• Open Source Definition: https://opensource.org/osd

• The Four Opens (Open Infra): https://openinfra.dev/four-opens/

• Is Vendor Owned Open Source An Oxymoron? https://horovits.medium.com/b5486a4de1c6 

• Redis is no longer open source: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/horovits_opensource-srecon-activity-7176599258156986369-3tJm/ 

• Initiating the Valkey fork of Redis: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/horovits_redis-opensource-activity-7179186700470861824-Gghq/ 

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Dotan Horovits

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Twitter: @horovits

LinkedIn: in/horovits

Mastodon: @horovits@fosstodon

David Nalley

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Twitter: https://x.com/ke4qqq

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidnalley/