<
https://thenewstack.io/how-the-team-behind-valkey-knew-it-was-time-to-fork/>
"TOKYO — Forking an open source project is never a first choice. It is
divisive, dangerous, and politically risky. But sometimes, as Valkey leaders
Roberto Luna Rojas and Madelyn Olson said during their talk here Monday at Open
Source Summit Japan, you don’t have a choice. It’s the only viable path forward
to protect an open source project.
For those who don’t know the story, a recap: In 2024, Redis, producers of the
widely used in-memory key-value NoSQL database, decided to dump its
three-clause Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD) license and replace it with
the read-only Redis Source Available License (RSALv2) and Server Side Public
License (SSPLv1). That went over like a lead balloon with members of its core
developer team.
So, they quickly decided to fork the code into the program we now know as
Valkey. Valkey is proving to be a very successful fork. With Amazon Web
Services, Google, Microsoft, Oracle and other tech powers all backing Valkey,
this open source fork is doing great. Perhaps most telling of all, Redis
decided this past May to reopen the program’s codebase under the
GNU Affero
General Public License (AGPL).
Back in 2024, however, the Valkey fork team members didn’t know that. They just
knew they had to move. This is their story.
Speaking before a full room at Open Source Summit Japan, Olson and Luna Rojas,
both longtime Redis contributors, detailed the warning signs that preceded the
Valkey fork from Redis, the steps the community took to prepare, and the
hard-won lessons they believe every open source maintainer should understand."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
