In a significant move for the open-source community, Redis has returned to its open-source roots. Starting from version 8, the project will now be licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License version 3 (AGPL v3).
This change comes after a controversial licensing shift in March 2024, when Redis Inc. adopted proprietary licenses — the Redis Source Available License v2 (RSALv2) and Server Side Public License v1 (SSPLv1). The intention was to prevent major cloud providers such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud, and Oracle from offering Redis as a hosted service without financially contributing to its development.
In response, several companies and developers began supporting a community fork called Valkey, which continues as a free and open-source project under the more permissive BSD 3-Clause License.
The return of Redis to an open-source license — even one as restrictive as the AGPL v3 — marks a new chapter for the project, signaling a renewed focus on community collaboration while still aiming to protect its commercial interests.
Source: The New Stack
