From phk at phk.freebsd.dk Mon Sep 15 15:00:32 2025 From: phk at phk.freebsd.dk (Poul-Henning Kamp) Date: Mon, 15 Sep 2025 15:00:32 +0000 Subject: Varnish Cache 8.0 (and bonus project news) Message-ID: <202509151500.58FF0W2u021044@critter.freebsd.dk> Varnish 8.0 here is here: https://varnish-cache.org/releases/rel8.0.0.html and here are some news about the project behind it: 20 years old and it is time to get serious(er) ---------------------------------------------- Slagelse, 2025-09-15 This coming february 22nd, The Varnish Cache Project will officially be 20 years old. We consider the first surviving commit from the subversion-to-git conversion the official birthday of the Project. This is as good as any excuse to take stock and make some changes so we are ready for the next 20 years. Open Source is not what it used to be: The EU has launched a broadside of directives against software related industries, and while they have gone to great lengths to carve out a niche for Free and Open Source Software, they have wisely not chosen to make it a "Get out of jail for free" card to slap "FOSS" sticker on something. Concepts like "Maintainers", "Stewards" and "Contributors" of FOSS have formal legal definitions now, and we need to find out how we can and want to fit in. Which again means we have to find out who makes that kind of decisions for the project, both now and in the future. Many successful FOSS projects have spawned "Foundations" which are typically tax-exempt benefical/charity corporations in some country or other, but we have decided to not go there. For one thing, none of us want to take on such a task, but more importantly: We're are less than impressed by how well that model seems to work in practice. We will instead form a voluntary association, a "Forening", under the laws of Denmark, with bylaws that set out what the goal is (develop, maintain and distribute the software), who gets to make the decisions (a governing board appointed by the members), who can become members (anybody but subject to approval by the members) and that the association cannot ever hold or handle any money. The commented bylaws of the association will be ratified by the founders and made public this autumn, and the first general assembly will be on Monday February 23rd 2026 - hopefully with many membership applications to approve - more about that when we publish the bylaws. We will also, at the same time, reluctantly change the name of the project. The Varnish Cache FOSS software was initiated and sponsored by the Norvegian newspaper Verdens Gang. They hired a company called "Linpro" to handle the logistics and me to write the code. >From Linpro grew the company Varnish Software, and if anybody had, they had earned the right to use "Varnish" in their name commercially. I was deeply worried about the potential for confusion and line drawing issues between the commercial entity and the FOSS project, and as Varnish Software have grown to become a huge international company, those worries materialized. I thought I had an verbal agreement with them, that "Varnish Cache" was the FOSS project and "Varnish Software" was the commercial entitity, but the current position of Varnish Software's IP-lawyers is that nobody can use "Varnish Cache" in any context, without their explicit permission. The need to get permission from Varnish Software to use our own name has already caused some potential contributors and supporters from engaging with the FOSS project. We have tried to negotiatiate with Varnish Software for many months about this issue, but their IP-Lawyers still insist that Varnish Software owns the Varnish Cache name, and at most we have being offered a strictly limited, subject to their veto, permission for the FOSS project to use the "Varnish Cache" name. We cannot live with that: We are independent FOSS project with our own name. So we will change the name of the project. The new association and the new project will be named "The Vinyl Cache Project", and this release 8.0.0, will be the last under the "Varnish Cache" name. The next release, in March will be under the new name, and will include compatility scripts, to make the transition as smooth as possible for everybody. I want to make it absolutely clear that this is 100% a mess of my making: I should have insisted on a firm written agreement about the name sharing, but I did not. I will also state for the record, that there are no hard feelings between Varnish Software and the FOSS project. Varnish Software has always been, and still is, an important and valued contributor to the FOSS project, but sometimes even friends can make a mess of a situation. On behalf of the Varnish Cache Project, Poul-Henning Kamp -- Poul-Henning Kamp | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20 phk at FreeBSD.ORG | TCP/IP since RFC 956 FreeBSD committer | BSD since 4.3-tahoe Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence. From dridi at varni.sh Mon Sep 15 15:21:37 2025 From: dridi at varni.sh (Dridi Boukelmoune) Date: Mon, 15 Sep 2025 15:21:37 +0000 Subject: Varnish Cache 8.0 (and bonus project news) In-Reply-To: <202509151500.58FF0W2u021044@critter.freebsd.dk> References: <202509151500.58FF0W2u021044@critter.freebsd.dk> Message-ID: > So we will change the name of the project. > > The new association and the new project will be named "The Vinyl > Cache Project", and this release 8.0.0, will be the last under the > "Varnish Cache" name. The next release, in March will be under the > new name, and will include compatility scripts, to make the > transition as smooth as possible for everybody. You have my best wishes for the Vinyl Cache project! Dridi From phk at phk.freebsd.dk Mon Sep 15 15:30:30 2025 From: phk at phk.freebsd.dk (Poul-Henning Kamp) Date: Mon, 15 Sep 2025 15:30:30 +0000 Subject: Varnish Cache 8.0 (and bonus project news) In-Reply-To: References: <202509151500.58FF0W2u021044@critter.freebsd.dk> Message-ID: <202509151530.58FFUUGZ021219@critter.freebsd.dk> -------- Dridi Boukelmoune writes: > You have my best wishes for the Vinyl Cache project! Thanks Dridi, I hope you'll still be around, even though your private domain dont match any more :-) -- Poul-Henning Kamp | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20 phk at FreeBSD.ORG | TCP/IP since RFC 956 FreeBSD committer | BSD since 4.3-tahoe Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence.