{"id":167143,"date":"2025-05-02T11:41:03","date_gmt":"2025-05-02T11:41:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/linuxiac.com\/?p=167143"},"modified":"2025-05-02T14:18:07","modified_gmt":"2025-05-02T14:18:07","slug":"welcome-back-to-the-open-source-family-redis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/linuxiac.com\/welcome-back-to-the-open-source-family-redis\/","title":{"rendered":"Welcome Back to the Open-Source Family, Redis"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Long story short: Redis<\/a> hit the scene in 2009 as an open-source project offering a free, in-memory key-value data store. It was so well-designed that over the next 15 years, it became the go-to solution for just about any software that needs that kind of functionality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That brings us to 2024, when a single decision sent shockwaves through the open-source community. Redis chose to change its licensing model<\/a>, switching to RSALv2 and SSPLv1<\/a>. The goal was to prevent large cloud providers such as AWS, Azure, GCP, and others from offering Redis as a service without contributing to its development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, as you can expect, this move effectively meant Redis could no longer be considered truly open source.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The response was lightning-fast. Big tech companies<\/a>, including Amazon, Google, and Oracle, forked Redis to create Valkey<\/a>, an open-source alternative licensed under the BSD license, to maintain the original open-source ethos and ensure continued community-driven development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What Redis might not have anticipated is that this move would also lead Linux distributions to remove Redis from their repositories<\/a>. In its place, they’re offering the new alternative\u2014Valkey\u2014which, backed by some of the biggest names in tech, has not only lived up to expectations but even surpassed Redis in some areas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the end, it all comes down to visibility. When you lose that valuable free exposure\u2014millions of developers discovering your software just because it\u2019s the default option in various Linux distro repositories\u2014it changes the game a bit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That brings us to yesterday, when news surprised everyone\u2014but in the best way possible: Redis announced it\u2019s going back to open source.<\/strong> As of May 1, 2025, the project is available under the GNU Affero General Public License v3 (AGPLv3<\/a>), a free, copyleft license based on the GNU GPL version 3 and the Affero General Public License.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This results in a tri-licensing model<\/a>: Redis 8 (already available<\/a>) ships under AGPLv3, while the previous RSALv2 and SSPLv1 options remain for those who prefer them. It’s worth noting that this release comes with some really great new options:<\/p>\n\n\n\n