AWS gives open source the middle finger? • Hacker News Board

Re: AWS gives open source the middle finger?

#171

Post by bad_user » Thu, Jan 10, 2019, 12:44 PM UTC

pas wrote: post #126

fogetti wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I don't understand it either. There is a company which puts 300 M$ effort into developing something and then another company is using the first company's brand recognition to get a competitive edge while offering zero added value (And no, hosting mongodb in AWS not a new thing, only uninformed people would assume so. When I look around I find services like Scalegrid or MDB Atlas itself which is exactly the thin…

Morally it might be questionable, if it puts MongoDB out of business and reinforces the AWS "monopoly". However, MongoDB selected a free and open source license. This was always in the cards. They went with AGPL to keep the source maximally open for end users, but that never protected their revenue stream. (Some JS SDK companies used it for that purpose, where it makes some sene, but a DB is very different.) But if t…

They recently switched to a new license, inspired by AGPL, that isn’t approved by OSI and probably not Open Source.

So they are trying to eat their cake and have it too.

Re: AWS gives open source the middle finger?

#172

Post by goldenkey » Thu, Jan 10, 2019, 12:44 PM UTC

raxxorrax wrote: post #167

tanilama wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon is really a frugal company, in a sense they want every penny they spend on you to evetually make it back to their pockets.

Always judge a company by how they treat their lowest employees. And since people at Amazon having difficulties trying to find time to take a piss, it doesn't really qualify as an employer for me personally. I like their services in AWS-land and they have really good solutions. They probably treat their developers better as long as they can be exploited. But if there is another service with comparable features, I gen…

I worked there too in 2015. The culture is toxic. The most surprising thing was the way all the AWS services are built with a grab bag of different teams with entirely different languages, copying CSS and code all over the place. There were no real standards. I still like AWS but knowing how bad the sausage is made makes me cringe a bit...

Re: AWS gives open source the middle finger?

#173

Post by throwaway1280 » Thu, Jan 10, 2019, 12:45 PM UTC

Pfhreak wrote: post #84

flukus wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> especially if you were thinking about working on a game Why games especially? That seems to be the one area the would be absolutely free of any conflict of interest with amazon.

Amazon has a game studio producing games. They've publicly announced Breakaway, New World, and Crucible as three titles. Why games are different than other areas (e.g. why aren't web services called out separately with their own policy while games are? I'm not sure.)

Yeah, it's really weird. Amazon has other IP-producing divisions, and even though Amazon Studios is very powerful, there's nothing preventing people from making their own video content. I wonder if it's just down to whoever leads that game studio pushing for such a rule.

Re: AWS gives open source the middle finger?

#174

Post by StreamBright » Thu, Jan 10, 2019, 12:46 PM UTC

troist wrote: post #136

StreamBright wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US, right? You can't do such a thing in the EU.

Have you got a source on that? Not questioning that it does sound like an EU thing, but it could come in handy at my current company if there's legislation on that and I can't seem to find any.

It is different country by country. In some countries if it wasn't done on a company equipment regarding your assignments the company cannot do anything about it and they cannot limit you to work on opensource/unpaid projects.

Re: AWS gives open source the middle finger?

#175

Post by throwaway1280 » Thu, Jan 10, 2019, 12:48 PM UTC

kerng wrote: post #66

notyourwork wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm aware of Amazon's policies. Most companies have similar clauses.

Nope, first time ever I hear about something such restrictive. That by itself would be a reason for me to not sign an employment contract with Amazon.

Yeah. Amazon loses a small but significant number of potential hires when they learn about the open source clause - often very good people, too. When I left they were actively working on trying to find a solution, as it had been a thorn in the side for years.

Re: AWS gives open source the middle finger?

#176

Post by throwaway1280 » Thu, Jan 10, 2019, 12:49 PM UTC

tanilama wrote: post #32

akhilcacharya wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I understand from coworkers from Google and other parts of Amazon the process is pretty similar to get approval outside of games.

Why is game development different?

Worked for Amazon. It was a big issue internally, but we never got a good answer to that question.

Re: AWS gives open source the middle finger?

#177

Post by michaelt » Thu, Jan 10, 2019, 12:50 PM UTC

raxxorrax wrote: post #167

tanilama wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon is really a frugal company, in a sense they want every penny they spend on you to evetually make it back to their pockets.

Always judge a company by how they treat their lowest employees. And since people at Amazon having difficulties trying to find time to take a piss, it doesn't really qualify as an employer for me personally. I like their services in AWS-land and they have really good solutions. They probably treat their developers better as long as they can be exploited. But if there is another service with comparable features, I gen…

  Always judge a company by how they
  treat their lowest employees.

Seems like a policy that gives a big advantage to industries that aren't labour-intensive.

Is Costco a worse company than Oracle, because the former has employees making $30,000 and the latter doesn't?

Re: AWS gives open source the middle finger?

#178

Post by demarq » Thu, Jan 10, 2019, 12:51 PM UTC

tobyjsullivan wrote: post #48

"AWS gives MongoDB the middle finger" would be a more accurate, less sensationalist headline. Making a business choice to not buy licenses from a single for-profit company doesn't really have anything to do with open source in general.

where art thou dang to come help us?

Re: AWS gives open source the middle finger?

#179

Post by Sahhaese » Thu, Jan 10, 2019, 1:02 PM UTC

michaelt wrote: post #177

raxxorrax wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Always judge a company by how they treat their lowest employees. And since people at Amazon having difficulties trying to find time to take a piss, it doesn't really qualify as an employer for me personally. I like their services in AWS-land and they have really good solutions. They probably treat their developers better as long as they can be exploited. But if there is another service with comparable features, I gen…

Always judge a company by how they treat their lowest employees. Seems like a policy that gives a big advantage to industries that aren't labour-intensive. Is Costco a worse company than Oracle, because the former has employees making $30,000 and the latter doesn't?

How you treat employees isn't the same thing as salaries.

There are environments where people earning $20,000 are still treated with respect and there are environments where people earning $200,000 are treated badly.

Re: AWS gives open source the middle finger?

#180

Post by sah2ed » Thu, Jan 10, 2019, 1:02 PM UTC

pferde wrote: post #154

sah2ed wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not that I agree with Amazon's policy for no open source contributions, but imagine that an employee decides to spend the 6-8hrs out of the remaining 24hrs meant for sleep on something other than sleep, what do you think will happen? That employee's productivity during those critical 8hrs of the day that is being paid for by the employer would drop like a rock, because whether we like it or not, we need time to recha…

That's... wow. Are you saying that the employers could (or even should) demand that employees do nothing else during their free time except rest, so that they are well rested for their on-the-clock time? No late night TV for you, no early morning pool swimming session, and don't even think about taking up that physically demanding hobby, because we need you 100% focused on the job!

No. I specifically said remaining hours.

To recap:

   - 8hrs for work;
   - 8hrs for leisure (daily commute, family time, hobbies etc);
   - 8hrs for sleep.

Once you take out work time & leisure time all you have left is sleep time. Sleep is unique because it is an exclusive human activity — it can’t be combined with other activities.

If someone decides to misallocate rest time, then s/he will become sleep deprived leading to low productivity. This is true regardless of whether you perform physically demanding work like farming or sit all day at a desk doing knowledge work.

A self-inflicted impairment like this is no different from abusing hard drugs or consuming too much alcohol (on or off the clock), but it is vastly different from low productivity resulting from falling ill, which is beyond any employee’s control.

Whether you like it or not, paid employment demands a certain monopoly of your time. The only way to opt out is to work for yourself.