When Your Open Source Tool Turns to the Dark Side

Oct 8th, 2022
  • Overview

Imagine waking up one morning to find out that your beloved open source database, which lies at the heart of your system, is being relicensed. What does that mean? Can you still use it as before? Could the new license be infectious and require you to open source your own business logic? This doom’s day nightmare scenario isn’t hypothetical. It is, in fact, very real, for databases and other OSS, with several examples over the past year alone.

On this talk Horovits will review some of the less known risks of open source, and share his lessons learned from Elasticsearch’s recent relicensing move, as well as other case studies from the past year. If you use OSS, you’ll learn how to safeguard yourself. If you’re in the process of evaluating a new OSS, you’ll learn to look beyond the license and consider additional criteria. If you’re debating open-sourcing a project, you’ll gain important perspectives to consider.