Redis creator signs with vendor amid community support

Just how concerned should the community be when the founder of a popular open source project signs on with one of the biggest commercial vendors in that market? That's exactly the question the editors at TheServerSide wondered when word came in that Salvatore Sanfilippo, creator and benevolent curator of Redis -- the popular, NoSQL database -- was signing on the dotted line with vendor Redis Labs.

For the open source community, change is always challenging.

Salvatore Sanfilippo, Redis creator

"For the open source community, change is always challenging," said Sanfilippo, whose new title is open source development lead for Redis Labs. "There are many examples from the past where this type of change created problems." But judging from the number of tweets congratulating Sanfilippo on the move, along with the generally positive sentiment in the Redis IRC channels, it would appear that the move isn't causing any turmoil for Redis users.

But even for Sanfilippo, the move was one fraught with trepidation. "Before I made the deal with Redis Labs, I contacted a few of the developers, long-time users and people I admire, and I asked them, 'How would you feel if I moved?'" The general sentiment was that so long as the license remains the same, as long as the development remains transparent, and so long as the needs of the Redis user are reflected in the development roadmap, then there really wasn't a problem, he said. And given the trust points that Sanfilippo has earned with his community members, there is confidence that a security badge that provides Salvatore access to the Redis Labs head office won't have any effect on his commitment to making Redis the leader in the NoSQL and big data processing space.

To hear the full interview between TheServerSide and Sanfilippo, listen to the podcast that accompanies this piece.

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