Linux Foundation Says Yes to NoSQL Via DocumentDB

upstart writes:

Linux Foundation says yes to NoSQL via DocumentDB:

The Linux Foundation on Monday welcomed Microsoft's DocumentDB into its stable of open source projects, waving the document database's permissive MIT license as if it were an "Open for Business" sign.

The project adoption represents a response to MongoDB's 2018 decision to switch to the Server Side Public License (SSPL), which requires cloud providers to release service-related source code, something they're generally loath to do.

In the past decade, those attempting to build companies atop open source projects have often adopted somewhat restrictive software licenses that try to limit the ability of cloud giants (AWS, Google, Microsoft, etc) to offer competing services. Who wants a hyperscaler with huge market advantages using your own code to beat you?

More restrictive licenses like the SSPL, which don't qualify as open source under the OSI definition, are not particularly popular or enduring. Redis, for example, recently abandoned it and adopted the more permissive AGPL license instead after the Linux Foundation and a group of vendors planned to offer a forked version of Redis, Valkey, under a more permissive license. (The AGPL, while a FOSS license, comes with more obligations than the laissez-faire MIT license - it's kind of a middle ground between the two.)Grafana and Elastic have also added the AGPL as an option, though SSPL 1.0 and the similarly restrictive Elastic License 2.0 remain options.

Microsoft began developing DocumentDB in 2024 as a set of PostgreSQL extensions for Binary JavaScript Object Notation (BSON) data models and MongoDB-compatible create, read, update, and delete (CRUD) operations. The idea is to implement a NoSQL datastore using PostgreSQL, an open source object-relational database system.

Relational (SQL) and non-relational (NoSQL) databases rely on different techniques for data storage. The former depends upon a schema, uses structured query language (SQL), and makes atomicity, consistency, isolation, and durability (ACID) guarantees. The latter stores unstructured or semi-structured data using key-value pairs or JSON, offering high performance with less ACID assurance. As The Register has noted previously, DocumentDB brings the two approaches closer together.

When it announced the official release of DocumentDB in January, Microsoft made a point of differentiating the project's permissive MIT license from the SSPL.

"While contributions to the project are always welcome and encouraged, there are no requirements for users to commit their customizations, contributions, and enhancements back to the project," said Abinav Rameesh, principal program manager for Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB. "The MIT license guarantees complete freedom to fork the repository, use, and distribute with no obligations."

Read more of this story at SoylentNews.