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Yikes, the wording around consulting seems especially worrisome - are they effectively prohibiting third parties from providing redis technical support? This move will likely kill the project as it is today.


I don't understand how a copyright license can restrict consulting. If Redis Labs distributes redis to Alice, and Alice hires Bob for redis consulting, neither Alice or Bob are distributing Redis so the license terms are irrelevant to them.


I second this. How could a software license prevent me from learning about how a piece of software works and selling my own knowledge and experience to a third party.

IANAL but I couldn’t possibly need a license to install/redistribute Redis to talk to someone about how Redis works.


This is limitation around selling software/product not consulting, per bottom of post:

"...if your product is an application that uses such a module to perform select functions, you can use it freely and there are no restrictions on selling your product. However, if what you sell is basically the functionality of the module packaged as a cloud service or on-prem software, Commons Clause does not allow it."


Consulting is specially called out in the actual license as a no-no: "including without limitation fees for hosting or consulting/ support services related to the Software"


Consulting is explicitly called out as prohibited in their "Commons Clause":

> For purposes of the foregoing, “Sell” means practicing any or all of the rights granted to you under the License to provide to third parties, for a fee or other consideration (including without limitation fees for hosting or consulting/ support services related to the Software), a product or service whose value derives, entirely or substantially, from the functionality of the Software.

(Emphasis mine)


But the blog post is just a blog post.

Legal people are going to go by what the actual license says - and that is vague.


The second paragraph of the article specifically includes consulting and support.




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