YugaByte, a leader in open source distributed SQL databases, announced that YugaByte DB is now 100 percent open source under the Apache 2.0 license, bringing previously commercial features into the open source core. The move, in addition to other updates available now through YugaByte DB 1.3, allows users to more openly collaborate across what is now the world’s most powerful open source distributed SQL database.
The transition effectively breaks the boundaries between YugaByte’s Community and Enterprise editions by bringing previously commercial-only, closed-source features such as Distributed Backups, Data Encryption, and Read Replicas into the open source core project distributed under the permissive Apache 2.0 license. Starting immediately, there is only one edition of YugaByte DB for developers to build their business-critical, cloud-native applications.
“Using proprietary, non-compete licenses for database features to ward off cloud providers from offering a commercial version as-a-service is short-sighted and damaging to the foundational principles of open source software. Vendors like MongoDB and Cockroach Labs who have moved to such licenses – not just for add-on features, but for their core database – have disowned the same developers whose initial trust lifted their previously open source project off the ground,” said Kannan Muthukkaruppan, co-founder and CEO, YugaByte. “Being 100 percent open source means being committed to preserving freedom of vendor choice while fostering more open collaboration among the developers leveraging distributed SQL and the committers behind the distributed SQL project.”
Enterprise users can continue to manage a fleet of YugaByte DB clusters across multiple environments and across multiple cloud platforms by leveraging YugaByte Platform, YugaByte’s rebranded commercial offering with self-managed database-as-a-service (DBaaS) capabilities. The source code for YugaByte Platform is now available in the same GitHub repository as YugaByte DB under a new free trial-only, source available license developed by the Polyform Project, led by renowned open source licensing lawyer Heather Meeker. With this change, YugaByte is the first company to adopt a license from the Polyform Project.
The default build target in the GitHub repository generates only the open source software binary to ensure that users who are not interested in the commercial DBaaS features can continue to have a frictionless experience. For users interested in collaborating with the committers on the commercial features, this change allows a more open forum to work together including discussing issues, offering design feedback and even submitting their own fixes upstream.
“Developers already trust PostgreSQL to be the most logical Oracle alternative as they move away from the monolithic database for microservices-based applications running on multiple clouds. However, PostgreSQL’s architecture is a misfit for dynamic and elastic cloud platforms and open source alternatives are restricted,” said Karthik Ranganathan, co-founder and CTO, YugaByte. “YugaByte DB combines PostgreSQL’s language breadth with Oracle-like reliability, but on modern cloud infrastructure. With our licensing changes, we have removed every barrier that developers face in adopting a business-critical database and operations engineers face in running a fleet of database clusters, with extreme ease.”
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