Updated: Redis inc, whose core product is the formerly open source Redis in-memory database, has prompted further unease in the community by approaching the maintainers of the most popular Rust client library for Redis with the intent either to control or to fork it.

Armin Ronacher, who controls the redis-rs entry on crates.io, the Rust package registry, posted about an email from Redis product manager Mirko Ortensi, followed by a call, in which the company expressed its desire for a Rust client with official support. The proposal was to take over redis-rs in order to add “enterprise-grade features” but continuing with community contributions and compatibility with the official community edition of Redis.

Ronacher said he understood from the call that “the name of the library constitutes a trademark violation in their mind” and that the options were either to transfer the code to Redis, or to rename the crate. He said he did not wish to be in any kind of trademark dispute. He also expressed concern for those who use the library with Valkey, an open source alternative to Redis.

In March 2024 Redis changed the licensing for its core code from the open source BSD-3 to the Redis Source Available License v2 or the Server Side Public License v1, restricting the use of that code. One of the consequences was the formation of Valkey, based on Redis 7.2.4 and continuing with the BSD-3 license.

Ortensi posted to the thread, clarifying that while he had not called the name redis-rs a trademark violation, “companies do consider protecting their trademarks where their reputation is challenged.” He also said that the Redis crate should be for Redis and that Valkey could not guarantee compatibility with Redis long-term and should have its own crate.

Valkey maintainer Madelyn Olson said that her hope was “to support both Valkey and Redis [in rust-rs] because of the overlap between the products.”

Another rust-rs committer commented, asking why Redis could not simply contribute pull requests to the existing project for the required new features, as well as support for the forthcoming Redis 8, adding that “I would feel much better about yielding governance if I saw that Redis Inc was actively contributing.”

Apache Software Foundation member Xuanwo pitched in, stating that there are other Redis-compatible services which use the Redis protocol including Apache Kvrocks, as well as others such as DragonflyDB. “If this repository is transferred to Redis, Inc., I would be concerned that Redis, Inc. might introduce breaking changes to the protocol or client itself, preventing users from using this client to access other Redis-compatible services,” he said.

Redis creator Salvatore Sanfilippo, also known as antirez, offered to talk to the Redis company about authorization “so that open source client libraries can use the name ‘Redis’ without issues.”  

It was Sanfilippo who made Redis open source in 2009, early in the life of the project, though he stepped down as maintainer in 2020. At the time, Redis said that “the core of the open source Redis project will remain under the 3-Clause BSD license,” a promise that was kept only for a few more years.

Even if Sanfilippo mitigates the trademark issue, there remains the question of whether Redis Inc will still wish to acquire or fork redis-rs for its own purposes, further alienating the open source community.

Updated to add on November 29:

Redis the company has since retreated from its original position on the open source Rust client, which it said could go on calling itself “redis-rs.” It posted a statement saying: “After discussing this with @nihohit in this thread and based on the whole conversation, we want to work together.”

This is a developing story and we’ll link to any updates.