MongoDB Wire protocol: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License

Question

MongoDB Wire Protocol Specification is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License. So as per the license, we may not use or adapt this material for any commercial purpose, such as to create a commercial database or database-as-a-service offering.

But I noticed, Microsoft is using MongoDB wire protocol as a part of Cosmos DB: MongoDB API offering:

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Legal questions based on aforementioned matter:

1. Is Microsoft breaching law/rules as per CC Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 license by using MongoDB wire protocol as a part of CosmosDB offering?
2. Can MongoDB Inc. take legal action against MS Corp. on this ground?
3. What would be the repercussions (fine amount etc.) on MS Corp. if hypothetically, it loses the lawsuit?

Answer 1

1. They may or may not be violating the license. It's quite possible, even likely, that Microsoft has a license agreement of some sort in place with MongoDB that permits their use. Neither party, however, would be under any obligation to disclose this license to 3rd parties.

2. If indeed there is a violation, a legal action might eventually take place. The usual first step, however, is a demand letter. Again, unless or until a court filing actually takes place, we're in the dark.

3. Totally hypothetical here but the result could be anywhere from an agreement between the parties to damages to cease-and-desist orders. Perhaps some combination of these.

I believe Microsoft has offered this service for some years now, so the lack of any visible action on MongoDB's part seems to indicate that they are good with what is going on. Microsoft has almost certainly made an agreement with MongoDB that covers this use.

Note also that the license you refer to is not necessarily the only license that this product is offered under. Many companies, and I don't think MongoDB is any exception, offer "free" or low cost licenses for some purposes and then also offer "enterprise" licenses for commercial/large-scale use. As the licensor here, MongoDB is under no obligation to offer one and only one license option to potential licensees.