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Elasticsearch is open source, again

elastic.co

241–250 of 473 posts

Re: Elasticsearch is open source, again

#241
post #69

I'm pretty happy with this, since they are keeping the option to use the Elastic License. Now everyone can be happy. To me, it's weird that the AGPL is any more "open source" than the Elastic License. The AGPL requires you to publish all of your source code if you make any changes to the product; the Elastic License just says, "don't use our code to make a direct competitor to Elasticsearch". I find the former to be…

Your users might want to benefit the same rights that you are listing. Hence the GPL family of licenses.

Re: Elasticsearch is open source, again

#242
post #119
post #69

I'm pretty happy with this, since they are keeping the option to use the Elastic License. Now everyone can be happy. To me, it's weird that the AGPL is any more "open source" than the Elastic License. The AGPL requires you to publish all of your source code if you make any changes to the product; the Elastic License just says, "don't use our code to make a direct competitor to Elasticsearch". I find the former to be…

For the most part I don't think people are against shared source or closed software existing, being sold, being marketed, etc. There's really only two things people viscerally don't like: - Marketing a project that isn't open source as open source. Debate about what the "definition" is or why it matters all you want; taking a term and using it in a way that contradicts the vast majority of domain experts is bullshit.…

BUSL is the worse of both world imho. People are not willing to send patch or contribute to something that is not yet open source and vendor thus does not get any benefit of having openly readable sources.

Re: Elasticsearch is open source, again

#243
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Change your name, not your license.

I think they are saying: trademark your product name (open source in this case), make sure it's used only as approved. Altho i believe it does go back to the license attached to the product.

Source code license doesn't matter, Mozilla did this with Debian, that's why Iceweasel was a thing.

Re: Elasticsearch is open source, again

#244
The change of Elastic license resulted (or perhaps coincided) with the massive growth of other tools like Meilisearch, Quickwit, Loki, typesense, and more.

In a way, their original open source license was suppressing innovation. I know this is not a popular opinion in some circles of pure OSS aficionados but it seems the evidence is to the contrary

Re: Elasticsearch is open source, again

#245

The change of Elastic license resulted (or perhaps coincided) with the massive growth of other tools like Meilisearch, Quickwit, Loki, typesense, and more. In a way, their original open source license was suppressing innovation. I know this is not a popular opinion in some circles of pure OSS aficionados but it seems the evidence is to the contrary

I am biting here because I don't understand the train of thought. How would such a license suppress innovation? What evidence?

Re: Elasticsearch is open source, again

#246
It's an interesting move for sure but I don't think it's enough. A move back to the Apache license would open up the landscape for a reunification with the now dominant fork, which is Opensearch. But that's not going to happen with AGPL + copyright transfers. AGPL + copyright transfers vs. SSPL is a choice between getting stabbed or shot from a legal point of view. It's a hard no either way for a lot of corporate legal departments.

I also don't think this will inspire a lot of companies or developers to start contributing changes to the Elasticsearch code base again; which is something that ground to a halt earlier. I saw my modest contributions under the Apache license being locked up behind this bullshit license and I learned my lesson: I'm never signing another contributor license again. My trust was violated. Not lifting a finger to help them.

Elastic suffered a self inflicted fork of their developer community three years ago and Opensearch has become the default search solution for a lot of developers and companies. Opensearch replaced Elasticsearch as a neutral ground for open source researchers to rally around. I don't see that changing in any material way because of this license change.

It's interesting that they are doing this though because clearly they are feeling the pressure and basically people using the opensource argument was cutting off their stream of new users. I consult in this space and Opensearch has become the default choice for new users. It isn't even close. Why would you pick Elastic as a first time user? They don't even consider Elasticsearch because it's all closed source and proprietary and Opensearch does the job. I don't think this change is enough to change that.

IMHO their next logical step is embracing/acknowledging Opensearch and moving their efforts to join Opensearch and supporting that. That's a huge community of users, developers and companies that's just sitting there without delivering any revenue to Elastic. It's stupid; they are competing with their own product and leaving a lot of money on the table. Elastic has all the core skills to support that community but they are just sitting on their hands now pretending it doesn't exist. They must be starting to feel the pressure to just toss in the towel and grab a chunk of that market. This our way or the highway position sure has resulted in a lot of people choosing the highway.

Re: Elasticsearch is open source, again

#247

The change of Elastic license resulted (or perhaps coincided) with the massive growth of other tools like Meilisearch, Quickwit, Loki, typesense, and more. In a way, their original open source license was suppressing innovation. I know this is not a popular opinion in some circles of pure OSS aficionados but it seems the evidence is to the contrary

I am biting here because I don't understand the train of thought. How would such a license suppress innovation? What evidence?

For all those new search projects named in my OC to be viable, ES had to stop being “open source”. Before that it was not worth trying because there was one single dominant player in the market giving search away for “free”.

The same is happening with Redis after their license change.

Re: Elasticsearch is open source, again

#248
post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I let the customers choose by themselves. And guess what they choose every single time after checking license cost from Elastic.

If you're referring to the SSPL (it's unclear), it can be used without obligations when a service uses it as a storage, rather than providing it as a service to the clients. Since the latter case is essentially cloud companies, I'm confused by the business nature of the "hundreds of customers"; if they're not cloud companies, Elasticsearch pre- or post-license change makes no difference.

SSPL is also preventing DevOps/services companies to deploy for their customers, it's not affecting only cloud providers.

Re: Elasticsearch is open source, again

#249
post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I let the customers choose by themselves. And guess what they choose every single time after checking license cost from Elastic.

Do you tell them that it's deploy OpenSearch or buy an Elastic license, not mentioning that they could also legally deploy their own Elastic?

If only they had the skills to deploy and maintain it sure. But they don't so they ask services companies/DevOps to do it for them. No need to be AWS to be affected by SSPL

Re: Elasticsearch is open source, again

#250
Yes, awesome news.

I made a career with Solr, but building my product, Wide Angle Analytics, on top of Elastic search, made me realize how much more robust and polished ES actually is.

With restoration of Open Source alignment I am confident we will continue building with ES as we are very happy with it.

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