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Licensing changes to Elasticsearch and Kibana

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Re: Licensing changes to Elasticsearch and Kibana

#111
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…

Yep. It may totally make a "business sense" but positioning as great for Open Source community and "Doubling Down on Open" stinks

[deleted]

Re: Licensing changes to Elasticsearch and Kibana

#112

This is an alarmist headline. The SSPL license to which they are switching only requires your code to be open sourced if you are providing Elasticsearch itself as a service. This change is directed at cloud providers who take open source software and then provide them as a service for payment without contributing to the project. If you are using Elasticsearch on your backend to build search-enabled products or websit…

TFA explains why Elasticsearch switching to SSPL is indeed a cause for concern. Money quotes: > Basically, it’s a hostile proprietary license masquerading in open source clothing. By using an SSPL project in your code, you are agreeing that if you provide an online service using that code then you will release not only that code but also the code for every supporting piece of software, all under the SSPL. > It’s not…

Wait? Would even my devops pipeline fall under it?

Or my monitoring? Deployment and management in kubernetes for example?

Re: Licensing changes to Elasticsearch and Kibana

#113
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

This. I feel so much for the hundreds of open source developers who toil everyday only to have AWS make so much money out of it, to make the largest shareholder the richest man on earth, while contributing nothing back to any of the open source projects. This has to be fixed or we will see less and less developers open sourcing quality products

It's not open source though.

Re: Licensing changes to Elasticsearch and Kibana

#114
post #89

> It can remain on version 7.10, but then it will no longer receive future updates Does this mean anyone using version 7.10 or lower is not bound by SSPL license and Apache2 still applies?

I think this is true in general. Any code that is made available an open source license is available under that license in perpetuity.

Re: Licensing changes to Elasticsearch and Kibana

#115

Honestly, every relevant FOSS project should adopt a similar license to prevent exploitation from corporations.

They would no longer be FOSS if they did that.

In practice it would only affect corporate thieves, so I think it's actually necessary to protect the open source ecosystem.

Re: Licensing changes to Elasticsearch and Kibana

#116

This is an alarmist headline. The SSPL license to which they are switching only requires your code to be open sourced if you are providing Elasticsearch itself as a service. This change is directed at cloud providers who take open source software and then provide them as a service for payment without contributing to the project. If you are using Elasticsearch on your backend to build search-enabled products or websit…

The author says in the end that the problem is not Amazon. Then links to a post where he suggests that companies maintaining the open source should have "invested the resources to build stronger communities around them. They would have reached out to Amazon, encouraged them to contribute back to the projects, and helped them to do so." Of course, they should "encourage" Amazon not to steal their product and business…

Of course, they should "encourage" Amazon not to steal their product and business model. Right.

It is not possible to steal something from someone who deliberately and freely offers that thing to you.

Re: Licensing changes to Elasticsearch and Kibana

#117

This is an alarmist headline. The SSPL license to which they are switching only requires your code to be open sourced if you are providing Elasticsearch itself as a service. This change is directed at cloud providers who take open source software and then provide them as a service for payment without contributing to the project. If you are using Elasticsearch on your backend to build search-enabled products or websit…

The license is quite long. https://www.mongodb.com/licensing/server-side-public-license

Trying to determine what offering as a service is or implies is a bit difficult. If Discord used it to enable full text search, does they need to release their management layers too? Why or why not? How excited to defend your rationalization/decision to the court are you, if some disagreement arises?

The ask, that companies open source their management layer, concerns me because it's unclear in many circumstances what does & doesn't need to go into that box. A management layer is often a rather sprawling piece of software. Trying to disentangle & release the Elastic Search or Kibana management layer from the other management /deployment/control systems could be quite onerous.

I do think the intent is not "bad", but it's so hard & murky, there's so much peering into the crystal ball to guess whether, some day in the future, a once "open source" company that may, a decade down the road become aggressive/ligitious (not presently the case!) continues to find your particular use does or not does qualify as offering the product as a service, and does or does not expose you to a long complex obligation.

Re: Licensing changes to Elasticsearch and Kibana

#118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It means that any “derivative work” will need to also open the management layer under SSPL. The management layer is AWS, so this puts OpenDistro in a tight spot. I’m not sure forking would work - as Elasticsearch evolves Amazon would not be able to copy features anymore. In the search space, this would be a very hard pill to swallow.

The source code for the various components that make up Open Distro is already freely available under an Apache 2.0 license. This change will have zero direct impact on Open Distro. The SSPL restrictions apply when the licensed software is used to provide a service. It is the AWS Elasticsearch Service that will be directly impacted. It will be limited to Elasticsearch 7.10.x as a foundation. Unless of course AWS make…

> The SSPL restrictions apply when the licensed software is used to provide a service.

Wrong. It only affects code going forward. Elastic can't change the license of existing code.

Re: Licensing changes to Elasticsearch and Kibana

#119
Are there any known instances where a company offering Mongo or another SSPL-licensed app as a service has complied with section 13 by releasing the “Service Source Code” of everything supporting the service?

If not, that basically confirms the OSI's rejection of the SSPL as an open source license -- If that provision is too onerous to be followed, it might as well say "you can't offer this as a service".

Re: Licensing changes to Elasticsearch and Kibana

#120
post #89

> It can remain on version 7.10, but then it will no longer receive future updates Does this mean anyone using version 7.10 or lower is not bound by SSPL license and Apache2 still applies?

Yes. Any version released under a given license remains under that license, it cannot be retroactively changed.
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