Licensing changes to Elasticsearch and Kibana

Post by worldsayshi » Thu, Jan 14, 2021, 4:53 PM UTC

sytse wrote: post #36

sciurus wrote: post #35

Here's the actual change: > Starting with the upcoming Elastic 7.11 release, we will be moving the Apache 2.0-licensed code of Elasticsearch and Kibana to be dual licensed under SSPL and the Elastic License, giving users the choice of which license to apply. So starting with 7.11 no parts of Elasticsearch will be released under an open source license. They aren't making everything SSPL, though. Their paid features co…

SSPL is based on the GNU AFFERO GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE https://webassets.mongodb.com/_com_assets/legal/SSPL-compare... So apart from adding the cloud non-compete clause (don't offer Elastic as a Service) there are many more restrictions added compared to Apache 2. For example I think linking can only happen with GPL3 code and it is copylefted instead of permissive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_free_and_…

Post by arpinum » Thu, Jan 14, 2021, 4:55 PM UTC

nopzor wrote: post #17

arpinum wrote: post #12

"protection against public cloud providers offering open source products as a service without contributing back". I have no issue with whatever license they choose, but let's be honest, its not about contributing back to these projects, its inserting a poison pill clause that they know cloud providers can't meet. Specifically, by contributing back they mean, per the license: "If you make the functionality of the Prog…

contributing back can mean monetarily. i’m sure elastic would be willing to sell a commercial license to a cloud provider if the deal makes sense.

Post by victor106 » Thu, Jan 14, 2021, 4:58 PM UTC

LukeEF wrote: post #30

LukeEF wrote: post #28

I can understand the motivation - AWS' approach, particularly to elastic, has been pretty awful, and migrating away from Apache/GPL/MIT is like a coming of age for the big databases (Mongo, Cockroach, Elastic...) - but calling the article 'Doubling Down on Open' stretches credibility. Be honest, treat us like adults and cut all the 'we're doing this to remain open' crap. You are a public company who wants to increase…

Special mention for this paragraph: 'we expect that a few of our competitors will attempt to spread all kinds of FUD around this change. Let me be clear to any naysayers. We believe deeply in the principles of free and open products, and of transparency with the community.' Get your offense in early and try not to mention open source!

Post by freedomben » Thu, Jan 14, 2021, 5:01 PM UTC

bevacqua wrote: post #33

shawnz wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Elasticsearch couldn't exist without the open source Lucene project which is at its core. Lucene is licensed under the permissive Apache license which is why Elastic is able to release proprietary paid modules that link with it. Now they are closing the same holes that they themselves used to create their product. Contributing back is definitely the last thing on their minds.

Elastic contributes massively to Lucene, so this is a false dichotomy

Post by andlarry » Thu, Jan 14, 2021, 5:03 PM UTC

shawnz wrote: post #37

eloff wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you expect them to do though? If they want to be viable as a business they need to place some restrictions so they can have a monopoly on some aspect in order to derive profit. If they're not viable as a business, they die and nobody benefits from that. It's this kind of all or nothing criticism that has made me rethink open source. I'm releasing a product this year, and it's going to start under a proprietar…

Agreed, if their hosted cloud services and premium features aren't viable as a business, and they don't have any intention to develop this software without a profit, then they shouldn't have positioned themselves as a free-and-open-source product in the first place.