On Fri, May 02, 2025 at 05:04:51PM +0200, Bert Peters wrote: > Hi all, > > A while ago we as a distro decided to stop supporting Redis, due to > their licence change [1], and move to Valkey. Through a combined > effort, we removed all direct dependencies on redis, replacing them > with vault and patching until that worked. The announcement was posted, > and a deadline was set. > > This may or may not have caused Redis to reconsider their license > change, and have announced another relicencing, this time to the AGPL > [2] [3]. With that change, I personally believe there is no longer a > reason to remove redis from [extra], and keep it in the repos as-is. > Redis is almost but not quite compatible with Valkey, so dropping it > without good cause would be a disservice to our community. > > Now, I don't want to make light of the harm that Redis inc initially > wrought on the open source community with their license change, or > waste the work that was done to make everything work with Valkey. > Pushback like this is what caused the license change. As such, I > propose we continue to use Valkey as the implementation for all > purposes that don't strictly require Redis, and maintain Redis simply > as a package for our commynity's convenience. That way, should the > licensing change again in the future, we do not have a similar amount > of work ahead of us. This seems to me the Arch way: pragmatic and user > central. > > Now I know that this is not a universally shared opinion, so please > consider this email an invitation for discussion on what we should be > doing here. > > Cheers, > > Bert > > > [1]: > https://lists.archlinux.org/archives/list/arch-dev-public@lists.archlinux.org/message/2ERGX565GSSBUMADBG7DQJYNPJD5GUXD/ > [2]: https://antirez.com/news/151 > [3]: https://redis.io/blog/agplv3/
Hi Bert, First of all, thank you for bringing the IRC/Matrix discussion to the ML! Whatever led redis to reconsider, the way they treated us is unacceptable to me as a volunteer package maintainer. Anthraxx, then Andrew and I got contacted by a product manager from Redis. There were no apologies for the licensing issues, nor any for future coorperation - only some information about the latest Redis features and a statement that removing Redis from the official repos would not be in the interest of "the community" (whatever community is meant in this context). In contract, we've had very positive interactions with the Valkey upstream. There is a clear interest in making Valkey packaging easier for distributions. For example, we'll likely be able to remove the jemalloc patch that makes valkey/redis link against the system jemalloc in the future. So how do we proceed? I agree with Morten, that Redis upstream has proven itself abolutely unreliable. I propose we exclude redis from the official repos for one year, after which we can reevaluate its status. Contining to aintain Redis will only result in more unnecessary drama. We've already announced Redis's replacement and we should stand by that decision rather than follow upstream’s erratic direction. Best regards, Frederik
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