Robin Hoodization of OSS and Commons Clause License

I am borrowing the term Robin Hood from the English folklore where he strips money from the rich and gives it to the poor. I am using the term loosely and I am not making an exact mapping with the story which itself has several forms. I am using the term to imply that value is taken away (albeit legally) from one group and delivered to another group that gains from the derived value. By Robin Hoodization of OSS, I mean that hyperscale cloud providers (specifically AWS and more about it later) take the value from OSS but their contribution back to OSS is not commensurate with the value they derive from OSS. This is not just restricted to hyperscale cloud providers. Every technology company, including pure-play open-source companies, takes more value from OSS than their contribution back to the project. So, it is actually about value derivation per unit of contribution.

However, if you look at how much value AWS is deriving from open source, it is several orders of magnitude more than their contribution (code or monetary support as with CNCF membership). Imagine a scenario (circa 2006–07) when AWS was getting started. Do you think they could have convinced Microsoft across the lake to offer flexible licenses for OS and Virtualization so they can offer cloud services? The OSS license is the reason we saw innovation happening in how we consumed compute resources. OSS gave the world cloud computing. Even recently, they are the biggest financial benefactor from Kubernetes (at least based on the public information we can derive) but their contribution back to the project is minimal. They not only lag other hyperscale cloud providers but many of the startups in the Kubernetes community too.

The usual refrain from AWS advocates is that developers are benefitting from AWS’s use of OSS. Absolutely, that is the truth. AWS’s success lies in operationalizing software into an easily consumable service. They do a good job of it and that is why they are a (financially) successful cloud provider. It still doesn’t take away the fact they benefit from OSS without contributing back. They make money from operationalizing the software and it is theirs. They need to contribute code back to the OSS project and it is their responsibility.

I disagree that code has no value in today’s world. Yes, services are the way we will consume software but code is the underlying foundation of any service. The innovation happens in the underlying code along with the efficiency in operationalizing it. You cannot discount the value of the underlying code and attribute innovation to higher efficiencies. If your innovation focus is only on the business model and supply chain innovation, you may discount the value of code but most of the real innovation happens (and will happen) through code, and hence both the code and the OSS license matters for innovation (Think of the difference between Amazon’s idea of innovation and Google’s).

No, I disagree. They do not need Commons Clause to stop Robin Hoodization of OSS. One can stop such abuse with a right license from existing open-source licenses. Commons Clause is about getting a slice of profits from other vendors who use the software governed by the license. It is not at all in the spirit of open source. It is about sharing the wealth and not stopping abuse. If AWS or any other vendor adds value to open-source software, they have every right to benefit entirely from the value creation. The demand should be about contribution for the value (complying with the spirit of OSS) AWS or any other vendor realize from OSS than sharing the wealth from their business.

If I put it bluntly in political terms, Commons Clause is about socialism while some hyperscale providers’ approach borders around predatory capitalism. Yes, this comparison is not an accurate mapping but I am using it to explain the gulf between the problem (lack of contribution by some hyperscale providers) and the proposed solution (Commons Clause)

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