Why the Linux Foundation Is Backing Valkey: Preserving Open‑Source Redis Amid License Changes

After Redis announced a move of its codebase to stricter licenses (RSALv2 and SSPLv1) starting with version 7.4, the Linux Foundation declared its intention to support the previous open‑source branch of the Redis memory data store.

From version 7.4 onward, Redis will be dual‑licensed under RSALv2 and SSPLv1, while older versions remain open source.

The foundation is preparing to back a new project called Valkey , positioned as an open‑source alternative to Redis for in‑memory NoSQL storage.

Major industry players such as Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud and Oracle have quickly joined the effort.

AWS chief engineer and former long‑time Redis maintainer Madelyn Olson, co‑founder of Valkey, said that the fork allows contributors to continue from where they left off and keep contributing to a vibrant open‑source community.

Google Cloud General Manager and Vice President of Database Engineering Andi Gutmans expressed enthusiasm about the rapid formation of a strong open‑source community around Valkey.

The project launched with nine contributors, including Olson and two AWS engineers, and has already earned 1,500 GitHub stars.

Valkey will be based on Redis v7.2.4 and released under the permissive BSD license.

Redis CEO Calls the Fork Unfair

Redis CEO Rowan Trollope dismissed the fork as a “cheap” move by cloud providers to avoid paying licensing fees, describing it as “underhanded.”

He noted that mainstream cloud providers have long benefited from the open‑source Redis project, making a fork unsurprising.

Trollope explained that the license change aims to establish fair agreements with cloud providers; Microsoft has already reached an agreement, while AWS and GCP have not.

Industry observers such as Adam Jacob of System Initiative remain skeptical, calling the outcome “the worst result for the Redis lab.”

Previous Linux Foundation Forks

The Linux Foundation has previously supported forks of commercial software after licensing changes, including OpenTofu (a fork of Terraform) and OpenBao (a fork of HashiCorp Vault).

About Redis

According to DB‑Engines, Redis ranks as the sixth most widely used database worldwide.

Created in 2009 by Salvatore Sanfilippo, Redis is a high‑performance key/value store used for caching, real‑time analytics, session storage, message brokering, and many other use cases.

Valkey will run on Linux, macOS, OpenBSD, NetBSD, and FreeBSD platforms.

The development team plans to follow the existing Redis roadmap, improving cluster slot migration, scalability, stability, multithreaded performance, triggers, new commands, and vector‑search support.

Linux Foundation CTO Chris Aniszczyk emphasized the importance of open collaboration that benefits everyone, not just a single organization, and noted that a foundation‑governed project reduces the risk of unexpected license changes.

Many Linux distributions (e.g., Red Hat’s Fedora) already package Redis; the new restrictive license may make continued inclusion difficult.

Another community effort, the Redict project, has also been launched to keep Redis open‑source.