Are cloud providers exploiting open-source? An exploratory study of Redis license change

On March 20, 2024, Redis Inc. changed the Redis project’s license from the permissive Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD) license to a dual licensing model under the Redis Source Available License (RSALv2) and the Server Side Public License (SSPLv1). The official rationale for this change was to restrict cloud service providers from offering Redis as a managed service without contributing back. The license transition drew widespread attention within the open source community and raised concerns from some developers and organizations about its implications for project governance, contribution dynamics, and long-term sustainability. Analyze the contribution distribution within the Redis repository by examining the behavior of developers with different motivations, evaluate the changes that occurred during the license change period, and assess whether cloud providers are exploiting the open-source project. This study categorizes developers’ motivations based on collaboration behavior data. By leveraging developer profile information, contributors are categorized into three motivation types: company-driven, community-driven, and communication-driven, enabling an analysis of trends across different contributor groups. The study primarily relies on project evaluation metrics from the Community Health Analytics Open Source Software (CHAOSS) community, along with collaboration metrics, to examine changes within the Redis repository. Since 2017, cloud providers have consistently contributed to the Redis open-source project. During the license change period, there was a notable decrease in contributor participation and influence, particularly among company-driven and community-driven developers. Several core contributors transitioned to the newly established Valkey project. Following the license change by Redis Inc., the community experienced a certain degree of fragmentation, with major cloud providers migrating to the Valkey fork. Cloud providers have recognized the importance of the community and are willing to invest resources into the open-source projects they participate in, ensuring better collaboration and alignment with upstream development for their cloud services.