With SSPLv1, does that mean one can sell redis hosting as long as everything used to manage it is open source? It says it’s based on AGPL. So if say digitalocean open sourced all their api’s and UI they could still offer managed redis. It seems like the answer is yes but then the blog post also says

Under the new license, cloud service providers hosting Redis offerings will no longer be permitted to use the source code of Redis free of charge.

That sounds like no.

While debatable, It’s often cheaper to pay someone to host than to do it yourself. Imagine a 1 sysadmin small devshop that doesn’t want to pay for 24/7 on call support but does have devs working in different time zones. Or a big enterprise that needs support (perhaps someone to blame). Joke about corporate culture if you want, but often it’s less stressful to blame a vendor than an employee or the internal culture. It may take 10 minutes to set up. Hours a month to maintain. Weeks to get permission to install it. Time to hire support sysadmin staff. Time to explain why kubernetes/simple vm/heroku/shiny new thing would make hosting it easier.

Why not github? Perhaps the person or org just likes open source. Distrusts Microsoft. Wants the option to self host as a bail out strategy. Or just dislikes github. Competition is great.

This argument applies to most open source apps with hosting options. I’m a fan of this model.

For me it’s easily paying subway fare, seeing notifications, leaving my phone home for a quick errand (but could make a call if absolutely necessary). I have a small child, so having hands free abilities is great. If I could degoogle it and run only open source linux/android, I would. But nfc payments will never work with such a thing even if the software existed.