The Linux Foundation accepted Microsoft's DocumentDB as an open source project under the permissive MIT license. The adoption responds to MongoDB's 2018 move to SSPL, which forces cloud providers to release service-related source code and prompted license-based defensive strategies. Many projects have used restrictive licenses to curb hyperscalers from offering competing services. More restrictive licenses like SSPL have proven unpopular; Redis moved from SSPL to AGPL amid plans for a permissive fork. Microsoft developed DocumentDB as PostgreSQL extensions for BSON models and MongoDB-compatible CRUD to implement a NoSQL datastore on PostgreSQL. Relational and non-relational databases employ different storage techniques.
The project adoption represents a response to MongoDB's 2018 decision to switch to the Server Side Public License (SSPL), which requires cloud providers to release service-related source code, something they're generally loath to do. In the past decade, those attempting to build companies atop open source projects have often adopted somewhat restrictive software licenses that try to limit the ability of cloud giants (AWS, Google, Microsoft, etc) to offer competing services.
More restrictive licenses like the SSPL, which don't qualify as open source under the OSI definition, are not particularly popular or enduring. Redis, for example, recently abandoned it and adopted the more permissive AGPL license instead after the Linux Foundation and a group of vendors planned to offer a forked version of Redis, Valkey, under a more permissive license.
Microsoft began developing DocumentDB in 2024 as a set of PostgreSQL extensions for Binary JavaScript Object Notation (BSON) data models and MongoDB-compatible create, read, update, and delete (CRUD) operations. The idea is to implement a NoSQL datastore using PostgreSQL, an open source object-relational database system. Relational (SQL) and non-relational (NoSQL) databases rely on different techniques for data storage.
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