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

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

#241

Post by StavrosK »

35fbe7d3d5b9 wrote: post #234
stavros wrote: post #166

Apart from the general consternation about an OSS license becoming non-OSS, can we also talk about the problem that companies are formed, invest a whole lot of resources into creating a product, open-source it, and then have Amazon eat into their profits by just installing and maintaining that product as a service? No matter how you slice it, I think Amazon is bad for us end-users, and Elastic is good. Elastic could…

> companies are formed, invest a whole lot of resources into creating a product, open-source it, and then have Amazon eat into their profits by just installing and maintaining that product as a service? Why should we be mad at Amazon for adhering to the terms of the license that the ES developers chose? Software isn't born under the terms of Apache 2/MIT/BSD/a similarly permissive license. The people who developed it…

> Why should we be mad at Amazon for adhering to the terms of the license that the ES developers chose?

We shouldn't. But you can't have your cake and eat it too, and say "well these are the terms you chose so why be mad at someone following them" and then ALSO say "hey, you can't change your terms!".

They're their terms, they can change them if they want to.

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

#242

Post by ABeeSea »

pjc50 wrote: post #223
stavros wrote: post #166

Apart from the general consternation about an OSS license becoming non-OSS, can we also talk about the problem that companies are formed, invest a whole lot of resources into creating a product, open-source it, and then have Amazon eat into their profits by just installing and maintaining that product as a service? No matter how you slice it, I think Amazon is bad for us end-users, and Elastic is good. Elastic could…

This is almost, but not quite, the "Tivoization" that prompted the creation of the GPL3. The requirement to give something back and/or avoid taking profit from the work of others is something the OSS world has a complicated relationship to. GPL is quite clear that there's a requirement to pass on source changes, if not explicitly to give them back, and many people were outraged by even this limited requirement and in…

> many people were outraged by even this limited requirement

It isn’t a limited requirements. There is a very real legal risk that using GPL software in an enterprise code base means you have to open source of your entire code base. That is an unacceptable risk for almost any business so GPL software doesn’t get used.

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

#243

Post by RVuRnvbM2e »

Elastic is a 14 billion dollar company[0] with 43% revenue growth YoY[1]. Amazon may be eating into their SaaS market share but Elastic are hardly struggling. Relicensing for competitive business reasons is absolutely fine, but it's silly to pretend that they are doing this for any motive other than making more money. Certainly this is not some altruistic move on the behalf of the open source community.

I think that this attempt to take a popular open-source project proprietary is going to blow up in their faces. Users will flock to OpenDistro and this will be the beginning of the end of Elastic unless they reverse this decision.

[0] https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/ESTC/ [1] https://s2.q4cdn.com/265747582/files/doc_financials/2021/q2/...

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

#244

Post by detaro »

StavrosK wrote: post #204
VoxPelli wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think both are at fault. Amazon for provoking this and Elastic for over-reacting like this and totally break with the open source licensing, when that isn’t necessary to stop Amazon. They could do like MariaDB rather than follow MongoDB: https://perens.com/2017/02/14/bsl-1-1/ Would be much more appropriate and alienate the open source community much less.

Hmm, what's the difference between the BSL and Elastic's license?

Code converts to an open-source license after X (e.g. 4) years in BSL. Time will tell how it works out, especially for mature products it could just mean that everyone targets the 4 year old version.

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

#245

Post by brodouevencode »

rsstack wrote: post #113
brodouevencode wrote: post #23

They kinda do the same with Redis.

Redis itself is proper open source. There are a few modules, completely separate from the Redis code base, that aren't open source (even though Redis Labs will claim they are, like how Elastic claim Elasticsearch is open source). The other non-open-source-but-wants-open-source-clout is Mongo.

I think it's more about the source of the revenue stream. Redis (from what I know, which is minimal) relies more on support - they have a hosted solution but support/licensing of modules is where they really make money. Elastic relies on hosting - they've invested a lot in infrastructure.

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

#246

Post by Waterluvian »

sithadmin wrote: post #31
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…

Glancing at the referenced lawsuits[1,2], the point of contention is not that Elastic's open source code is being used. It's that a.) Elastic feels its trademark is being abused in a manner that misrepresents the relationship between Elastic and Amazon, and b.) that Open Distro incorporates code in a manner that explicitly violates Elastic's licensing. [1] https://images.law.com/contrib/content/uploads/documents/403.…

That tweet about the partnership is a pretty damning exhibit to a trademark infringement suit.

And yeah, "Amazon Elasticsearch Service" completely fooled me for about a week until Google searches revealed enough about how elastic.co isn't just a site promoting Elasticsearch, but was a provider of instance configuration.

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

#247

Post by MaxBarraclough »

prepend wrote: post #202
MaxBarraclough wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think we really need that. The current solution works relatively well: anyone using open source in a sense other than that described by the OSI, is reliably met with a hailstorm of criticism on HackerNews for being disingenuous. That's as it should be. It's a term of art in the software world, and we don't insist on legal enforcement of every term of art. I tend to capitalise the term, Open Source , to emphas…

That’s what I used to think, but now more companies use “open” with non-OSI licenses and they aren’t run out of town and told STFU. Personally, any project using “open” in the name that’s not OSI, I pretty much ignore. But it seems to be growing (eg, “open core”, “openai”, stuff like this taking about open with non-open licenses). It’s getting hard to filter out. One of the benefits I think to CCn is that it clearly…

OpenAI is a good example, see this comment from yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25820080

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

#248

Post by antirez »

brodouevencode wrote: post #23

They kinda do the same with Redis.

That's incredible. After two years and many other databases really going non opensource, Redis, the only one that really stayed BSD, is still victim of this misinformation that claims it is no longer open source. Folks, we are supposed to be a bit more informed than the average person here. We can do a little better.

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

#249

Post by ec109685 »

c0l0 wrote: post #189
longhairedhippy wrote: post #105

Could this potentially drive users to the Amazon fork? If I'm a business that may be impacted due to the licensing change, it would seem my safest (legal) option would be to freeze on the last version with a friendly license and then transition to the Amazon fork, since it will probably stay under a more open license. While maybe not the smartest technical decision, from a business standpoint it seems like a reasonab…

The notion of Open Distro for ES being "a fork" is, in my opinion and as of last I checked, overblown. Yes, they bundle a bunch of freely licensed stuff to make up for features that Elastic themselves have paywalled off (or sealed behind their free-to-use, but non-libre, custom license where they don't show/include sources either), but they rely on and effectively install the (hitherto) Apache-licensed upstream relea…

How would the captive portal intercept s3 tls calls successfully?

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

#250

Post by netdur »

picodguyo wrote: post #116

This blog post strikes me as poorly written, overly emotional, and light on reasons to care. While not Amazon-sized, Elastic is itself a rather large company. Am I supposed to be upset that you're having difficulty getting even larger because of Amazon? Considering you're the experts on this product, shouldn't you be confident in your ability to differentiate from someone offering it as an afterthought? If anything,…

he tool a loan to register trademark, he is speaking personally.
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