Keeping clients of OpenSearch and Elasticsearch compatible with open source
1–6 of 6 posts
Re: Keeping clients of OpenSearch and Elasticsearch compatible with open source
#2I understand Elastic's motives here, but the tactics they are using would only work if they were the bigger dog in this fight.
Forcing someone to choose a side typically alienates those being forced to choose.
The right tactic here for Elastic would have been to add new functionality to ES, and slowly roll out changes to the clients that required the new functionality. The clients would work correctly as long as you didn't do anything that implicitly used the new features, but lot of existing and new code would (it helps if the error messages implicate the server rather than the client).
This is Microsoft's famous "Embrace, Extend, and Extinguish" approach which they used over and over to great effect. Elastic here is skipping over the "Extend" step, and ends up looking both petty and ineffectual.
Re: Keeping clients of OpenSearch and Elasticsearch compatible with open source
#3I understand Elastic's motives here, but the tactics they are using would only work if they were the bigger dog in this fight. Forcing someone to choose a side typically alienates those being forced to choose. The right tactic here for Elastic would have been to add new functionality to ES, and slowly roll out changes to the clients that required the new functionality. The clients would work correctly as long as you…
It is really sad to stand by and watch Elastic cause it's own, totally preventable death-by-irrelevance. They keep going down this path, apparently blind to even the next bend.
I have a lot of respect for Shay Banon, the original creator of Elasticsearch. Very smart fellow, and extremely helpful in the support forum back in the early days.
Nowadays, I've already moved on to OpenSearch.
Re: Keeping clients of OpenSearch and Elasticsearch compatible with open source
#4I understand Elastic's motives here, but the tactics they are using would only work if they were the bigger dog in this fight. Forcing someone to choose a side typically alienates those being forced to choose. The right tactic here for Elastic would have been to add new functionality to ES, and slowly roll out changes to the clients that required the new functionality. The clients would work correctly as long as you…
It is really sad to stand by and watch Elastic cause it's own, totally preventable death-by-irrelevance. They keep going down this path, apparently blind to even the next bend. I have a lot of respect for Shay Banon, the original creator of Elasticsearch. Very smart fellow, and extremely helpful in the support forum back in the early days. Nowadays, I've already moved on to OpenSearch.
I'm not sure I understand the forces that are pressing Elastic into action at this particular juncture (by most accounts, the company is definitely sustainable), but it does seem as though they've reached a point where thinking has been worn down to a knee-jerk "We Must Do Something. This is Something, Therefore We Must Do It."
It isn't as though they are completely boxed in. There are strategies and tactics they could employ that they haven't tried yet to pick and choose among.
Re: Keeping clients of OpenSearch and Elasticsearch compatible with open source
#5I tried to use managed elk from elastic.co.
The actual product is pretty decent. They have sane defaults for security and unlike their open source product they enable security by default.
The management of it sucks. Management console is tied to a single email, theres no MFA, and the ui is only good for creating es instances. Anything production that stores data and open to public internet full stop must have MFA.
I'm not sure what elastic should have done here, but this is not the right move.
Re: Keeping clients of OpenSearch and Elasticsearch compatible with open source
#6I think Elastic caused some self inflicted wounds here but, anyone that is hoping to build a business with their product open sourced should fear Amazon. If your product is useful and popular Amazon will take it and build their own... Which I guess is fair play but feels gross at the same time?