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

Post by killingtime74 » Wed, Jan 20, 2021, 5:04 AM UTC

StavrosK wrote: post #238

CaptArmchair wrote: post #236

I think I have grown a rather hard stance on this over the years: putting an open source license on a product isn't a business model. It's, by and large, a part of a larger business model. A license is a choice. It means you choose to not gain revenue by directly licensing the IP. Instead, you choose to put the code out there without any further legal obligations on your part as well as those who use that code. It al…

> The trouble is that Amazon simply out-competes ElasticSearch with their own product when it comes to consultancy, services, etc. I don't know if it out-competes them on those terms exactly, rather than the advantage of "Well I'm already on AWS and they offer an ES service so why not just use that".

Post by BowBun » Wed, Jan 20, 2021, 5:06 AM UTC

johncena33 wrote: post #561

samatman wrote: post #545

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This kind of critique is basically never valid. Any time I've seen it, it's glaringly obvious that HN users come down on both sides of the issue. Pattern-matching detractors of your position as dominant in a particular venue's discussion is a common partisan failure mode. Doesn't mean you have to succumb to it.

Sorry I hate to disagree. HN has lost its way last few years. The amount of FUD spread against Google on HN is mind-boggling. Every single day there is at least one anti-Google post on HN front page. Most of the content is the old broken record. I simple hide these posts from newsfeed. But the moderators have chosen to look other way. On top of that, lots of discussion has become simply low-quality. The comments on t…

Post by rossjudson » Wed, Jan 20, 2021, 5:08 AM UTC

mbreese wrote: post #474

stingraycharles wrote: post #444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think AWS is a case of someone ruining it for the rest. Yes, they’re allowed to do that and there’s nothing wrong legally, but in the end everyone will be worse off. I would be much more hesitant choosing an storage solution if I knew the parent company has problems monetizing upon it.

> more hesitant choosing an storage solution if I knew the parent company has problems monetizing You should be hesitant about choosing any mission critical product where you don't know how the vendor will make money. This is even the case with stable vendors. How many products has Google killed over the years because they could figure out how to make them profitable (enough)?

Post by anarazel » Wed, Jan 20, 2021, 5:37 AM UTC

jrochkind1 wrote: post #69

brodouevencode wrote: post #23

They kinda do the same with Redis.

I have never seen the Redis maintainer(s) complain about it though. Would be interesting to compare/contrast, what leads to the difference. They do the same with lots of products really. Postgres and MySQL too for instance. Also never seen postgres or mysql maintainance teams complain about it. What are the contextual differences that make it a point of conflict with authors/maintainers in one case but not others?

Post by lmm » Wed, Jan 20, 2021, 5:57 AM UTC

ABeeSea wrote: post #242

pjc50 wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.