Why don’t you like Postgres’ license? It’s as permissive as a license gets.

Building non-open extensions on top of it, it's not the license I don't like, the bad taste is that they use something open extend it and keep part of it closed.

The license allows it but on the flip side it's vendor lock-in predicated on using something open as the base.

Fully proprietary no issue with that, full open, no issue with that, building proprietary on top of open is where the bad taste comes in.

For completeness, it's not them specifically either, the other cloud companies do similar things and I suspect in part the reason they don't open these extensions up is because the others will but then they are doing the same thing themselves.

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zombodb 19 minutes ago | parent [-]

When one develops using open-source software they have an obligation to follow the licenses. They also have a moral obligation to be respectful of the work upon which they’re building. And they have a social obligation to help improve that software where they can.

Those that develop on top of open-source have no obligation to give you their work for free.

You’d be surprised as to the amount of open-source contributions TIN drove towards Postgres, LLVM, and pgrx. And you’d be speechless at the amount of upstream work across all sorts of open-source PlanetScale does. Postgres 18.6, for example, is better for you today, in part, because of TIN. You’re welcome.

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xyzzy_plugh 2 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

Everything else aside

> Those that develop on top of open-source have no obligation to give you their work for free.

This is a pretty narrow view of open source.

Just as a simple example, GPLv3 and AGPLv3 are both considered Open Source and, depending on how you hold them, may obligate releasing work to customers essentially for free.

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noir_lord 12 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

> You’re welcome.

I didn't say thank you and don't presume I would, Planetscale acting in their own self interest by improving postgres upstream isn't deserving of thanks, any more than Intel upstreaming a bunch of Linux kernel work is or myriad other examples.

Corporations acting in their self interest isn't worth giving thanks for, neither is the work of the people paid to do work on their behalf.

I don't expect my employer to thank me, I expect them to pay me, I don't expect users of software I was paid to write to thank me because I did it for the money not out of altruism towards those users.

	▲	zombodb 2 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		It’s clear that we’re on opposite ends of open-source ideology. Good luck out there! 2026 is wild times!!