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Elasticsearch is open source, again

elastic.co

51–60 of 473 posts

Re: Elasticsearch is open source, again

#51

If Amazon's OpenSearch plateaus, and everyone wants to host ElasticSearch, but on their existing AWS infra/sales business inertia, this issue will fundamentally reoccur. Nothing actually changed except Elastic thinks Amazon will commit to their own fork. If Amazon doesn't, we're back to square one: Amazon hosts open source ElasticSearch, Elastic changes their license, another fork. "Amazon is fully invested in their…

I felt like that was implied by the usage of AGPL: if Amazon wanted to start using this and apply patches on top of it, the AGPL would require that they share those patches with their customers, which would allow Elastic to integrate them into main again.

I don't think that's their intention. Elastic wouldn't be able to integrate Amazon's patches back into their codebase without losing the ability to change the license in the future. Even more, since it's AGPL, they'd have to get rid of their other licenses immediately.

Re: Elasticsearch is open source, again

#53

Too late, the community all moved over to OpenSearch. I'll never forgive Elastic for locking basic security features behind their paid licence. Over the years probably millions of people had their data compromised due to that (due to people inadvertently leaving instances on the public internet - having auth enabled by default would have helped a lot)

They did? I can't stand all the missing parts around documentation and the lesser known pieces like Spark integration - horrible.

Re: Elasticsearch is open source, again

#54

Too late, the community all moved over to OpenSearch. I'll never forgive Elastic for locking basic security features behind their paid licence. Over the years probably millions of people had their data compromised due to that (due to people inadvertently leaving instances on the public internet - having auth enabled by default would have helped a lot)

I think it's pretty sad that Conglomo X can take an open source product, add some tweaks and sell/capture the entire market. Basically taking all the work that open source maintainers have done. What's the solution here?

I've always been a little sceptical as well of the grassroots (maybe, maybe not) resistance on here against any efforts to stop the big 3 from using their network effects to syphon off the revenue from these projects.

The messaging against elastic style licences and even copyleft licenses is too convenient for me to trust as being 100% genuine.

Re: Elasticsearch is open source, again

#55
post #43
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Am I the only one not buying this reasoning? Seems like there's more than is being said, otherwise they would have said this by now. I'd reckon that ELv2 had friction that couldn't be easily overcome without OSS or at the very least DOSP [0]. I personally experienced said friction with ELv2, so makes me curious. [0]: https://opensource.org/dosp

we sunk our own boat, it forced them to get on rafts and leave, and now we're declaring our own boat sea-worthy again.

So, yes, the ELv2 did introduce significant friction?

Re: Elasticsearch is open source, again

#56
post #33

Nice, maybe they can hire some humans to write more explanatory website text, documentation, pricing information—better yet, anything on their website. Elastic.co is the #1 example we use with our clients when we want to show how 'vague websites make you lose clients.' We show them the website and ask, 'What do you think of this company?' and 'What do you think they are providing as a service?' Not a single client, i…

I assumed that "website that tells you nothing" was a deliberate thing, presumably because somehow they make more money as a result. It seems to be the rule more than exception.

Re: Elasticsearch is open source, again

#57

Too late, the community all moved over to OpenSearch. I'll never forgive Elastic for locking basic security features behind their paid licence. Over the years probably millions of people had their data compromised due to that (due to people inadvertently leaving instances on the public internet - having auth enabled by default would have helped a lot)

That's hugely overblown.

Maybe 20% of the companies I work with have switched.

Re: Elasticsearch is open source, again

#58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I sell my Toyota car on the side of the road I can call it a Toyota. If I sell you ElasticSearch(tm) Service which is the actual ES code base, what’s the infringement?

> If I sell you ElasticSearch(tm) Service which is the actual ES code base, what’s the infringement? A reasonable consumer or customer might be confused into thinking a service named ElasticSearch(tm) Service is being provided by the company behind ElasticSearch. This confusion is exactly what trademarks rather than copyrights are meant to prevent. The trademark law doctrine of nominative fair use allows you to descr…

How is it different than the thousands companies selling you PostgreSQL or Redis services ?

Re: Elasticsearch is open source, again

#59
post #20
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what is preventing AWS from dropping OpenSearch and going back to just selling Elastic ?

Large tech companies care about their reputation. If they dropped their own fork and went back and started again from Elastic that would be admitting their own incompetence. So not happening.

I think the bigger risk to Amazon: what if Elastic wants to pull the rug out from under them once again? Why take that risk when Amazon is already stable? Given the duration since the fork, I suspect there are more than a couple of features differences between the products that would have to be smoothed over.

Re: Elasticsearch is open source, again

#60
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was so that AWS would create their own name for their fork: > we changed the license, knowing it would result in a fork of Elasticsearch with a different name and a different trajectory. It’s a long story. I think the name of the fork is now OpenSearch.

What could be learned from this example that might enable companies in the future to leverage trademark instead of a license change to accomplish the same thing? So much damage could have been avoided if this had been resolved differently to begin with.

Change your name, not your license.
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