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AWS gives open source the middle finger?

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Re: AWS gives open source the middle finger?

#271

Post by kemitchell »

cmmartin wrote: post #270

A major part of the success of open source has been the fact that companies have the option to fork/tweak/sell the code. MongoDB has benefited from this as much as anyone. They gained the adoption levels they have now by advertising these exact benefits. Only later did they decide you need a commercial license to provide it as a service. How many companies would have thought twice about using MongoDB had they thought…

You don't need a commercial license to provide SSPL code itself as a hosted service if you release the service-rigging code you use to do so.

As for the most typical use case, web apps, see their FAQ:

> The copyleft condition of Section 13 of the SSPL applies only when you are offering the functionality of MongoDB, or modified versions of MongoDB, to third parties as a service. There is no copyleft condition for other SaaS applications that use MongoDB as a database.

https://www.mongodb.com/licensing/server-side-public-license...

Compare their prior, public clarification on the scope of AGPLv3:

> Note however that it is NOT required that applications using mongo be published. The copyleft applies only to the mongod and mongos database programs. This is why Mongo DB drivers are all licensed under an Apache license. You application, even though it talks to the database, is a separate program and “work”.

https://www.mongodb.com/blog/post/the-agpl

Much as Kernel developers published a statement clarifying and limiting the sweep of GPLv2 copyleft, Mongo published a statement clarifying and limiting the sweep of AGPLv3 copyleft.

I've heard from a former Mongo employee that Mongo wrote several letters to users and vendors, assuring them that AGPLv3 didn't require release of their app code.

Re: AWS gives open source the middle finger?

#272

Post by spectre256 »

amelius wrote: post #138
spectre256 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I "accidentally" worked at amazon for a few weeks when a company I had just joined was acquired by them. I knew it was time to start looking when I was informed that I had to get prior permission to do ANY open source contributions even on my own hardware on my own time. That's just not feasible logistically and above and beyond the general "don't write open source that competes with us or on our our time/hardware wi…

I don't see how that is legally enforceable if they pay you only for 8 hours/day as opposed to 24 hours/day.

It might not be enforceable but it would take a very brave or wealthy individual to choose to do something that might make Amazon decide to sick their lawyers on you.

Months in court to prove innocence is still a heavy cost to pay.

Re: AWS gives open source the middle finger?

#273

Post by harrumph »

benologist wrote: post #258
harrumph wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks - I suspected you were saying as much. MongoDB aside, can you share examples of this process?

Some of the physical merchandise they've copied, they have many more brands: https://www.amazon.com/AmazonBasics/b?node=10112675011 They have been copying SaaS straight from their partners for years already too: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/03/08/amazon_copies_partn... I think you can add Heroku (AWS Beanstalk) even before that.

Thanks again!

Re: AWS gives open source the middle finger?

#274

Post by nacs »

depr wrote: post #152
peterwwillis wrote: post #40

From the movie "Revolution OS" [1], Richard Stallman explaining Copyleft: "If we put the software in the public domain, somebody else would be able to make a little bit of changes and turn that into a proprietary software package, which means that the users would be running our software, but they wouldn't have freedom to cooperate and share." "And what we do is, we say, this software is copyrighted and we, the author…

>Linus is asked at the end if he's bothered that he's not cashing out on billions of dollars of use Linus has an annual salary of $10 million, https://www.therichest.com/celebnetworth/celebrity-business/...

10 million is nothing in the scope of the "billions of dollars of use" GP mentioned and is almost a rounding error compared to how much business depends on Linux these days.

Re: AWS gives open source the middle finger?

#275

Post by h1d »

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…

I doubt AWS wants Mongo out of business or else who do they have to migrate into and all they will have left is yet another NoSQL now only used in AWS.

Re: AWS gives open source the middle finger?

#276

Post by h1d »

spectre256 wrote: post #272
amelius wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see how that is legally enforceable if they pay you only for 8 hours/day as opposed to 24 hours/day.

It might not be enforceable but it would take a very brave or wealthy individual to choose to do something that might make Amazon decide to sick their lawyers on you. Months in court to prove innocence is still a heavy cost to pay.

If the mass can side with you, you can fight with donations to represent them all.

Re: AWS gives open source the middle finger?

#277

Post by h1d »

akhilcacharya wrote: post #188
goldenkey wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

I mean...if it performs well all of that is irrelevant to the customer.

While it works.

Re: AWS gives open source the middle finger?

#278

Post by dwmw2 »

spectre256 wrote: post #10
Pfhreak wrote: post #3

I left AWS after six years of working there wholly because of their restrictive policies about developing software in your spare time -- especially if you were thinking about working on a game. I recognize this article is about a product offering of AWS, and not their internal policies towards contributing to open source, but the two are linked in my mind and I'm not all surprised to see a headline like this.

I "accidentally" worked at amazon for a few weeks when a company I had just joined was acquired by them. I knew it was time to start looking when I was informed that I had to get prior permission to do ANY open source contributions even on my own hardware on my own time. That's just not feasible logistically and above and beyond the general "don't write open source that competes with us or on our our time/hardware wi…

It's a big company, and I don't know how long ago your experience is or what your position was.

My experience, in my part of the company, in 2019, is that stuff I do outside "work" is my own business. I contribute to open source projects all over the place.

As long as I actually do my day job during the daytime, woe betide anyone (other than my wife and family) who tells me what I should be doing with my non-work hours, on unrelated software projects.

They even let me release my skunkworks Pidgin Linux client for Chime under LGPL (although I did have to ask permission for that one as I did a bunch of it during the day).

In fact even for work hours when I'm working on Linux, we've made progress. Once upon a time you had to file a ticket to legal for every patch series that was submitted upstream.

Now we have a policy (again, in our part of the company) that your internal code review submission must have a comment on the upstream status of your patch — is it already upstream, is it going upstream, and if not, WHY NOT?

And all you need in the way of permission to do so is to get the nod from myself or a number of other people right there in that code review.

Is it perfect? No.

Do we still have to catch up and make it as easy for other projects (like Xen, in my day-to-day work) as it is for Linux? Yes.

Is it a massive improvement on what it was like before? Hell yes.

Re: AWS gives open source the middle finger?

#279

Post by _msw_ »

StreamBright wrote: post #128
int_19h wrote: post #29

Amazon was using MongoDB without paying for it. MongoDB found that objectionable, and changed the license such that Amazon would either have to pay, or stop using it. Amazon stopped using it, and started using its own in-house implementation instead (presumably because it was cheaper to develop it than to pay MongoDB). So, MongoDB got exactly what they asked for. It's just that, when they forced Amazon to make a choi…

Any company bets on Amazon not being able to rewrite their software loses the bet. They even have their own CPUs because one of the CPU vendors failed to meet with their demands.

Disclosure: I'm part of the EC2 team at AWS

We launched A1 instances with our Arm-Based AWS Graviton Processors to increase the selection of technology for our customers. It has nothing to do with demands of vendors, and everything to do with increasing choice, providing access to extensive technology ecosystems like those Arm has been building with their partners, and lowering costs.

Re: AWS gives open source the middle finger?

#280

Post by tjonker »

Pfhreak wrote: post #83
cryptonector wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the approvals issue in all cases where the project clearly is unrelated to the employer's business, then what's the problem? To some degree review of external work is just the sort of thing a corporate legal department is going to push for, and it's not exactly unreasonable provided that approvals issue except where there is clearly a conflict.

I agree with you -- if there's a process and it's easy enough to get an approval, I (personally) have no problems. However, Amazon's game development policy lays out 10ish different requirements you must meet, including not working with others outside of your org, must give up ownership of IP at Amazon's request, must use Amazon services or provide feedback why you couldn't. There's no process by which any of those i…

This is not an accurate representation of Amazon's current policies.
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