Amazon: Not OK – Why we had to change Elastic licensing • Hacker News Board

Re: Amazon: Not OK – Why we had to change Elastic licensing

#141

Post by pas » Tue, Jan 19, 2021, 3:34 PM UTC

signal11 wrote: post #49

z77dj3kl wrote: post #38

"And to be clear, this change most likely has zero effect on you, our users. It has no effect on our customers that engage with us either in cloud or on premises." No, that's just not true. So many users, from small hobby side-projects, to large open source projects, and mega-corps care about the licensing of dependencies, each for their own reason, and will not want to build on top of proprietary software that impos…

If you're a paying customer, you are probably fine. If you're using SSPL'd Elastic (or Mongo DB, the risks are the same) for anything serious -- i.e. beyond a hobby, get legal advice ASAP. SSPL isn't an OSI certified license; many would call it at best a 'shared source' license because of the riders attached. [DELETED because, as user `gpm` points out, OSI doesn't own 'open source' as a trademark, sorry about that --…

It's especially ... ironic, that they think Amazonification is not-ok, but Enterprizificaion (open core) is a-ok.

That said hosting ES is basically the same as building a carwash, or a gas station, or let's say a printing house. You get the machinery and build your own support services around it.

Even the unit economics are not that different. AWS spent probably millions of dollars to push the marginal price down. The initial cost of procurement for machinery might be zero for ES as opposed to buying a printing press, but none of the aforementioned sectors are limited by the cost of machinery. In case of brick and mortar services the cost of land, labor, construction, and logistics are all a lot more important.

Yes, okay, but what about AWS's advantage, their "moat"? Elastic will never be able to match that. This is the same problem that plagues the browser, phone OS (and other) markets. Google can easily spend a billion USD each year on fiddling with Chrome and Android. Mozilla, Canonical, KDE, and others can't.

AWS has the platform advantage, Google has money.

It seems these market forces virtually force ES to become a "public good" like the Linux kernel. (Or Elastic could try to fork it and stop using any kind of free/open/available license. And try to find business niches.)

But at this point the cat is out of the bag. Likely no amount of license engineering will be sufficient to overcome AWS' advantage.

Re: Amazon: Not OK – Why we had to change Elastic licensing

#142

Post by MaxBarraclough » Tue, Jan 19, 2021, 3:35 PM UTC

colechristensen wrote: post #117

prepend wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they need one. Comically, this is why trademarks exist to prevent people from confusing the market with similar and reused terms. I think we need a CreativeCommons-like trademark for open source software before it’s too late.

I think there are valid differences in opinion in what “open source” means and an organization with an agenda shouldn’t try to own the terminology.

> I think there are valid differences in opinion in what “open source” means

Disagree. It's a well standardised term of art: it means what the OSI define it to mean. It's pretty precise, and is not a meaningless marketing term like premium. Similarly free software (and especially Free Software) means what the FSF defines it to mean.

When people start using these terms to mean whatever they feel like it should mean, it muddies the waters for those of us trying to have serious discussions about these topics. Tellingly, such redefinitions are generally broader than the accepted OSI definition, so as to include whatever product someone is trying to push.

Re: Amazon: Not OK – Why we had to change Elastic licensing

#143

Post by wg0 » Tue, Jan 19, 2021, 3:35 PM UTC

jnsaff2 wrote: post #33

richardARPANET wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

*Oracle

I've been at the receiving end of Elastics selling tactics and pricing. Elastic is the new Oracle was my conclusion. IIRC the pricing was along the lines of $12k per CPU Core or GB of RAM. Straight from the nineties.

And Mongo is something similar as well. Just running single instance (on infrastructure that you pay for) might cost about 3k or more per month.

Re: Amazon: Not OK – Why we had to change Elastic licensing

#144

Post by tw04 » Tue, Jan 19, 2021, 3:35 PM UTC

Pet_Ant wrote: post #95

> Our license change is aimed at preventing companies from taking our Elasticsearch and Kibana products and providing them directly as a service without collaborating with us. I feel like I just said this a few days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25796849 The main value of open source to businesses is that support is truly commodified and there is no one with a stranglehold on it. ElasticSearch is trying t…

I'll be honest, I've never heard a single business say the reason they use open source is because support is commodified. It's generally cost or functionality, and quite frankly they want a go-to support expert, not a list of support options.

Redhat didn't become huge because people had all sorts of options for third party support. In fact, I can't say I've ever come across a single enterprise who: uses third party support for their RHEL installed base, has asked for third party support for their RHEL installed base.

Re: Amazon: Not OK – Why we had to change Elastic licensing

#145

Post by Havoc » Tue, Jan 19, 2021, 3:36 PM UTC

patrickaljord wrote: post #9

Their license literally says they have the right to use this code as they're doing, shouldn't be mad at them for that. Imagine putting a sign on your lawn that says people can walk on your lawn and are even allowed to poop on it if they feel like it and then getting mad at them when they do so. That being said, I support their right to change their license to whatever they like if it helps them survive as a business…

>Their license literally says [...]

Hence the license change yes?

Re: Amazon: Not OK – Why we had to change Elastic licensing

#146

Post by dvfjsdhgfv » Tue, Jan 19, 2021, 3:36 PM UTC

z77dj3kl wrote: post #38

"And to be clear, this change most likely has zero effect on you, our users. It has no effect on our customers that engage with us either in cloud or on premises." No, that's just not true. So many users, from small hobby side-projects, to large open source projects, and mega-corps care about the licensing of dependencies, each for their own reason, and will not want to build on top of proprietary software that impos…

So what would be your advice for them in this situation? They are developing a product for Amazon for free, Amazon is making tons of money on it and they don't receive anything back.

Re: Amazon: Not OK – Why we had to change Elastic licensing

#147

Post by un_ess » Tue, Jan 19, 2021, 3:36 PM UTC

signal11 wrote: post #93

prepend wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they need one. Comically, this is why trademarks exist to prevent people from confusing the market with similar and reused terms. I think we need a CreativeCommons-like trademark for open source software before it’s too late.

I think "OSI Approved Open Source License" could easily be an OSI trademark, if it's not already. Ironicallly, like many other organizations, Elastic themselves have used OSI's approval as a benchmark for 'open source'[1]: > Is X-Pack now open source? > Updated on 2018-04-24 with a link to the Elastic License > Open source licensing maintains a strict definition from the Open Source Initiative (OSI). > As of 6.3, the…

https://opensource.org/trademark-guidelines lists OSI's policy for trademark usage.

3. Usage that Require Prior Written Approval 3.1. Distributing software under a license approved by OSI ("OSI Approved License")

Re: Amazon: Not OK – Why we had to change Elastic licensing

#148

Post by greyhair » Tue, Jan 19, 2021, 3:37 PM UTC

colechristensen wrote: post #103

prepend wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find these kind of obscure, “don’t worry” posts to increase my worrying. Part of the simplicity of open source is that it’s available for easy audit. Having to hire lawyers to use a product means I probably won’t use it. I also think having people saying “we’re open, but read the fine print” is not good for open source collaboration as it increases confusion and complexity. Elastic is moving the way of a commercial…

Yup. If you, understanding your product, your users, and your licensing, write a post for your users not to worry, it means that you thought about your changes and came to a well informed position that there was reason for worry.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy starts out with "Don't Worry". By the end of the sixth book in the trilogy find it was right to worry all along.

Re: Amazon: Not OK – Why we had to change Elastic licensing

#149

Post by prepend » Tue, Jan 19, 2021, 3:37 PM UTC

eznzt wrote: post #47

Jonnax wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These things seem like Amazon went beyond just selling their hosted version of Elasticstack: "When the service launched, imagine our surprise when the Amazon CTO tweeted that the service was released in collaboration with us. It was not. And over the years, we have heard repeatedly that this confusion persists. NOT OK." "So imagine our surprise when Amazon launched their service in 2015 based on Elasticsearch and cal…

> "So imagine our surprise when Amazon launched their service in 2015 based on Elasticsearch and called it Amazon Elasticsearch Service. We consider this to be a pretty obvious trademark violation. NOT OK." I don't understand. If I have an ISP and I offer mysql servers, can't I call that offering "Eznzt MySQL Service"?

I’m confused too. IANAL but this seems like it’s a clear use of trademark.

Amazon sells Hershey bars through its site. I don’t think it needs to get permission to say “here’s the subscribe and save service to buy Hershey bars.”

I think the confusion is whether ElasticCo is endorsing or part of the service offering. So it should be clear that the offering isn’t by ElasticCo.

Back to the chocolate example, as long as Amazon doesn’t make it seem like Hershey is endorsing their site or offering the product they should be clear. I’ve seen this tucked into the fine print on stuff where it says that just because they are selling Hershey it has nothing to do with Hershey the company.

It seems odd that the company wouldn’t want it to be called AWS ElasticSearch as that’s what it is. ElasticSearch software sold as a service by AWS. Calling it something else is more confusing.

Re: Amazon: Not OK – Why we had to change Elastic licensing

#150

Post by spinningslate » Tue, Jan 19, 2021, 3:37 PM UTC

whitepaint wrote: post #90

josho wrote: post #45

This is fine. No seriously. Hear me out. If you are a proponent of capitalism then this is how the system works. The little fish grow into big fish. The big fish eat the little fish. The ecosystem suffers. It has always been this way. Many of us remember Microsoft in the nineties. Fewer will remember the phone or oil industry doing the same. Don’t fight this issue. Fight the system that tolerates this pattern. Money…

There are no better alternatives. And about the ElasticSearch, they should have just used a different license.

> There are no better alternatives.

That's a strong claim - evidence?

> And about the ElasticSearch, they should have just used a different license.

Hindsight and all that. Not saying I fully agree with Elastic's approach, especially the license uncertainly it creates as noted elsewhere in the thread. But Amazon seems to have gone beyond "hey, this open source, nothing to stop us offering it" here. From The CTO's suggestion Elastic was a partner, to questionable trademark infringement, to potential copying of closed source code. If you read the article, it's notable that Elasticsearch continue to have working relationships with Azure and Google among others.

So there's more to this than just "should've used a different license".