CockroachDB Labs has recently announced a change to the license model of their distributed SQL database, discontinuing the free Core version and making the Enterprise version the only option. Having previously moved away from an open-source license, this latest change has raised further questions in the community about the future of open-source solutions managed by a single vendor.
CockroachDB has been available as self-hosted software since its inception, offered in two versions: the free Core version, designed to meet the needs of individual users or startups aiming for scalability, and the Enterprise version, tailored for larger businesses with mission-critical applications. The Enterprise version includes advanced features such as cluster optimization, disaster recovery, enhanced security, and access to expert support. Spencer Kimball, CEO of Cockroach Labs, explains why the company decided to retire the Core edition:
A growing number of scaled businesses are compromising on using the full capabilities of CockroachDB, eschewing the Enterprise license for free usage of Core (...) As the product has matured, use cases can increasingly be run in production with minimal operator overhead and support requirements.
In a popular LinkedIn thread, Peter Zaitsev, founder at Percona and open-source advocate, comments:
With CockroachDB leaving the Open Source ecosystem, there is a renewed question about the state of natively distributed Open Source Relational Databases. We still have Yugabyte and TiDB from PingCAP. Unfortunately, both of them are single vendor controlled and there is a risk of similar "evolving" on the license front. I wonder if there is any distributed Relational Database with PostgreSQL-like governance, where the risk of license change is effectively eliminated.
To support new projects and existing small customers, CockroachDB will introduce two new licensing options: the Enterprise Trial license, which lasts 30 days with community support, and the Enterprise Free license, a free, annually renewable license available to individual developers, students, academic researchers, and businesses with annual revenues under $10 million. Kimball adds:
This new structure will provide all users with the robust database capabilities found previously only in the self-hosted Enterprise license. CockroachDB will remain entirely source code available.
With CockroachDB consolidating its self-hosted product under a single enterprise license and having moved away from open-source years ago, the community is now concerned about potential changes by other vendors. There is growing debate over whether 'true' open-source projects should be managed by a single vendor. On HackerNews, Andrew Mutz writes:
Whenever an open-source project is run by a VC-backed company, it sooner or later ends up like this. Increasingly it seems that "open source" is just the teaser to get people interested and then when investors want revenue growth, the rug gets pulled.
Max Liu, CEO of PingCAP—one of the few remaining open-source distributed databases—attempts to reassure the community, writing:
Open source isn’t just a means to get mass exposure and participation of developers in a project, it’s a core value in the software world that drives trust and builds a community, a community I’m proud to be part of (...) I don’t understand why CockroachDB made this decision, but in my view, it's undoubtedly aiming at a short-term gain.
The CockroachDB license changes will take effect in November, with the release of version 24.3. CockroachDB Labs will retire the Core offering and implement the new Enterprise licensing structure for self-hosted users. The change will also apply to new patch releases of versions 23.1 and later.