Tuesday, August 27, 2024

Replace Redis with Valkey

Dear OpenBSD maintainers,

I am writing to suggest replacing Redis with Valkey in OpenBSD ports due
to the licensing changes Redis made in March of this year that
negatively impact user freedoms.

Starting with version 7.4, Redis has moved from the permissive BSD
3-Clause License to a dual licensing model under the Redis Source
Available License (RSALv2) and the Server Side Public License (SSPLv1)
[1]. These licenses impose restrictions that particularly impact cloud
usage and broader software distribution, effectively removing Redis from
the open source category as defined by the Open Source Initiative (OSI)
[2] [3].

This shift undermines user freedoms, including the ability to freely
use, modify, and redistribute the software without complex legal
conditions. In response, Valkey [4] has emerged as a fully open source
fork of Redis, maintained under the original BSD 3-Clause License. It is
supported by major industry players such as AWS, Google Cloud, and the
Linux Foundation [5].

I am aware that the current Redis port in the tree is still at version
6.2.14, but I think that when it comes time to upgrade to a newer
version, users would benefit from replacing Redis with Valkey, or trying
to replace Redis with Valkey as a dependency in as many ports as possible.

I look forward to your feedback on this suggestion.

Best regards.

[1]: https://redis.io/blog/redis-adopts-dual-source-available-licensing/
[2]:
https://www.osnews.com/story/139113/redis-license-change-and-forking-are-a-mess-that-everybody-can-feel-bad-about/
[3]:
https://www.missioncloud.com/blog/redis-licensing-change-what-aws-customers-need-to-know/
[4]: https://valkey.io/
[5]:
https://linux.slashdot.org/story/24/03/28/213213/linux-foundation-launches-valkey-as-a-redis-fork/

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