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MongoDB still have a strong hand - control of the client and particularly its exposed featureset - due to that, also control of the protocol and the ability t
by _wmd 8y ago
MongoDB still have a strong hand
- control of the client and particularly its exposed featureset
- due to that, also control of the protocol and the ability to, for example, insert legally protected strings in the style of the Apple SMC signature into the handshake.
- ability to gate new features on the presence of an object like a copyrighted text, trademark, or even a crypto signature
- ownership of the name. AWS are pissing in Mongo's pool marketing themselves as compatible, and there are a variety of ways it could be made to backfire, if it were in Mongo's interests to encourage that outcome
- AWS focuses on breadth and very rarely nails any particular service. Their hosted Postgres for example still does not expose core features years later
- Following from that, AWS services on the whole are rarely best-in-class in terms of raw performance. I imagine Mongo could continue to easily compete on benchmark results running on AWS own infrastructure
I think this is a really interesting case, far more interesting than the technical minutia of Just Yet Another AWS service. It does not sit well with me whatsoever that they're basically ripping off a much smaller company's core tech while simultaneously borrowing their trademark (in a legally acceptable manner) as part of the marketing, but I also find it hard not to see a ton of potential upside from this for Mongo
- ec109685 8y agoThe client change would never work. The client is licensed as lgpl, so if they tried to pull any funny business like that, it would be instantly forked and if’d out.
- _wmd 8y agoAs the person suggesting it, it's difficult to imagine how it could never work considering I haven't managed to figure out all the possible combinations in which such a strategy could be applied. Finally, it is quite exasperating to call this kind of strategy "funny business" in a thread about their core tech being ripped off by a megacorp
- ec109685 8y agoTheir API is core tech? That’s like saying there shouldn’t be separate implementations of Java, right?
- AmericanChopper 8y agoMongo and Amazon are both large companies, but mongo are the only ones here trying to stiff their customers. Selling a product that uses open source software is not ripping anybody off, and the only party in this situation who are upholding open source values are Amazon. The only thing I can take away from this is that if I get too successful using Mongo technology, that they’re happy to change their license to try extort money from me. I find this to be especially greasy since open source product like this become successful because of their open source nature. They exist because the community that exists around them, and for them to turn around and decide to spit in our faces by dictating how we can consume the product just makes me hope their product is forked and that they go under.