They say it's under the Apache 2 licence, so it is open source.
EDIT: I was wrong. They actually released binaries under the Apache licence, not the source code. Which is, mildly said, deceptive. I don't even have an idea what that actually means.
They say the binaries are being made under Apache 2.
They don't say anything about the source code being published. That's why (to me) this is so interesting. I've never seen binaries released without source code before.
What is even the point of releasing binaries under Apache 2? When I patch the binaries, do I need to release a hexdiff too to fulfill my Apache obligations? Very weird.
Making your product available for free isn't a publicity stunt, it's a huge step for a business. And, in practice, it's not that much different for the average user if only the binaries are Apache licensed. When was the last time you needed to open up the Postgres source code and modify something?
If it wasn't a publicity stunt, it certainly had the effects of one: I've never heard of Datomic before and here they are at the top of hackernews!
> And, in practice, it's not that much different for the average user if only the binaries are Apache licensed. When was the last time you needed to open up the Postgres source code and modify something?
Sure, if you're playing a game it probably doesn't make a difference. If I'm building my IT infrastructure on a product, tt makes a huge difference if I get a an open-source-licensed "binary" or access the to source:
- the package they distribute contains no less than 960 different jars. Most of those are the standard apache-project-everything-and-the-kitchen-sink-style dependencies. Say I'd like to update log4j because it contains a catastropic vulnerability that datomic decide not to fix. (not that that sort of thing ever happens)
- or say Datomic decides to abandon the product altogether or goes out of business
- or say I'm not happy with their quality of service contract around their DB they support and would like to work with a different company
Rich Hickey started Datatomic (along with Stuart Halloway & Justin Gehtland). He also created the Clojure programming language and has been on Hacker News numerous times with many popular talks. In fact they all have made famous contributions.
Many businesses use Microsoft SQL Server or Oracle and don't need access to the source. I'm not saying open source isn't nice, but it is absolutely not a requirement for IT infrastructure.
I'd imagine people rely on many cloud services that are in fact, not open source.
Again, with your hypotheticals—when was the last time you needed to do any of that with Postgres or another FOSS DBMS?
For the vast majority of use cases, a FOSS DBMS and a free-as-in-beer DBMS are indistinguishable. If you're in a category where they're not, then don't use Datomic, but this is still far more than a publicity stunt.
We must be working in a different world. In all my career I've not once worked with a serious business that did not have a support contract for their database system open source or not.
Most of those had escrow agreements for central closed source components with vendors in case the vendor went out of business. (obviously only for things perceived as critical and from companies with some perceived risk of failure).
And god knows how many times have I experienced companies biting themselves because they bought into a product that turned out not to deliver what was promised after the contracts were signed.
Free beer binaries are not mutually exclusive of Enterprise support agreements featuring all those things you mentioned above _for people that need that_.
Completely agree. I'm fine with a free beer license. The context of the post is that the binary is licensed using an Open Source license which leads to confusion.
Never. On the other hand, I have considerable confidence that I could do so, and that if something goes wrong with upstream development, someone is likely to do so.
If I use a free-binary-but-no-source product, I’m much more likely to get stuck.
(Of course, as a regretful MySQL user, I am pretty stuck, but largely because MySQL is, in many respects, a terrible product. It does, quite reliably, get security updates at the kind of general maintenance that keeps it working no worse than it ever did.)
Today I looked up pgvector's NixOS availability. For the past 15 years I have relied on postgis source being available and improved by the community for my day to day business.
My point is that the option to modify the source results in software bein available and community maintained in a way that binary only isn't. Even if I change the source myself just twice a decade.
Someone (forget who but he worked there) was giving a presentation of Datomics in some downtown (NYC) bank circa 2014 iirc. Per the presenter -- iirc someone asked a specific technical question -- even people working for the company don't get to see the full source. Only a small team has access to the full source, and he said he wasn't one of them.
But Maven Central has strict rules around what can be published there. I just double checked and it's a requirement to publish the source as well as the binaries:
it seems you're right, but it also says the following, so i'm confused on whether it's a hard requirement?
"If, for some reason (for example, license issue or it's a Scala project), you can not provide -sources.jar or -javadoc.jar , please make fake -sources.jar or -javadoc.jar with simple README inside to pass the checking. We do not want to disable the rules because some people tend to skip it if they have an option and we want to keep the quality of the user experience as high as possible."
I guess they don't claim to be open source, they're claiming to be free, which is - in itself - awesome.
Last time I checked, you couldn't push binaries to maven central, without also releasing the source. That may have changed.