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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

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 thing that AWS is claiming to justify their decision). So yeah, you are right, I can't see how could that be wrong either.

zodiac 8y ago
Even assuming that AWS adds no value, what exactly is wrong with offering a "no value added" hosting service and charging for it?
- bonzini 8y ago
  In fact hosting is already a value added, or no one would use it.
robbyt 8y ago
Realistically, I think that a large portion of that 300M went to sales and marketing at MongoDB... However, I agree with everything else you said.
gaius 8y ago
300 M$ effort into developing something If only they had! But MongoDB is 1% technology and 99% marketing, they had no technological moat to speak of. See also: Docker.
glogla 8y ago
Is this a recycled comment? I have deja vu.
Someone 8y ago
”while offering zero added value (And no, hosting mongodb in AWS not a new thing” That switches the subject from “do they add value?” to ”are they the first?”. I would think the existence of other companies offering something similar is an indication that it adds value.
pas 8y ago
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 they had started with something proprietary uptake would have been very likely much less. And people would have continued to use mysql or Cassandra if they really needed something "webscale".
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- bad_user 8y ago
  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.
  - pas 8y ago
    It's not OSI because it places even more restrictions on usage than AGPL did, but this is very much matter of context and interpretation. If GNU would have created it it would have been welcomed by GNU-ers a lot better. I sort of agree with their sentiment, but of course they are late to the have-cake-will-have-it-and-eaten-it-too party, as now AWS was able to fork the last AGPL-ed version and be done with it.
- h1d 8y ago
  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.
  - pas 8y ago
    I think AWS already identified a lot of "DB tech locked" Mongo users who wanted AWS stamped mongo, or at least they now can undercut/compete-with Atlas. Even if MongoDB goes out of business, or becomes less popular AWS benefits as they can keep selling to these "legacy" customers their super-stable AWSgoDB, and said customers will just eat it all up without thinking.
weego 8y ago
This is literally the future open source promised and people wanted: the freedom for a business to be flexible in regards to technology and not get tied into unpleasant vendor contracts and demands. There's no point in, or place for, spirit of the system vs letter of the system discussions or calls to morality. Mongo does not deserve to survive / exist if it can't make it's offering better than a competitors. Would Mongo even exist as a company if it had launched as a contract only vendor? Pretty much not... so it can't demand to play both sides.
- eeZah7Ux 8y ago
  > This is literally the future open source promised and people wanted: the freedom for a business to be flexible in regards to technology and not get tied into unpleasant vendor contracts and demands. Oh the irony. Open source is just a development model, while Free Software, if anything, it meant to provide freedom to all users, not just business. Reinforcing the public cloud oligopoly only reduces such freedom.
  - weego 8y ago
    So now it's based on the caveat that only small business and solo devs should benefit from the good parts of open source and anyone with sufficient scale should have to pay because Foss based startups deserve to exist regardless of their business quality and that business of certain arbitrary scale should then apply morality to their involvement with Foss. Well, write the licenses and let's see what traction they get. I'll wager that they will be shot down by pretty much everyone
- pragmacoders 8y ago
  Yep - open source software was built for you and your startup to not pay people for labor. You got it. You've gotten right to the heart of the matter and have it all figured out.
yowlingcat 8y ago
I think I almost completely disagree with you. The product of MongoDB itself offered less than zero added value when it first launched through a lack of data integrity. The $300MM put into it was put into marketing. Mongo tried to squeeze Amazon and users, which is actually great. They are trying to walk the walk now, and what they're going to realize is that they can't. Amazon will out-execute them and hopefully put DocumentDB on stronger foundations than MongoDB's original creators ever could. Judging on your other comments, it doesn't look like you're familiar with MongoDB's historical shoddiness. I don't agree with you on practice in this case or any case. If MongoDB's company can't out-execute, then they should have never made their product open source to begin with (and in that case it probably would never have gotten as popular as it did). That's the bargain you have to make to try and monetize open source software -- you don't just get a business for free. But beyond that, I don't agree with you on principle in this case, because I have nothing but disdain and scorn for MongoDB. Both MySQL and Postgres have fine support for unstructured data now, and provide the entire relational toolchest as well. That's not even getting into other multi-paradigm databases like CockroachDB or ArangoDB. I struggle to think of a use case that it is more appropriate for than another option; and indeed, every time I have had to deal with it in production, I have never thought that it was anything but a poor decision.
- hartator 8y ago
  > because I have nothing but disdain and scorn for MongoDB That’s bit harsh. MongoDB has its uses. Denormalized data struture make it very easy to scale for example. Being able to use JS everywhere is nice too.
scarface74 8y ago
And how is this different than Google with Android and Java?

zodiac 8y ago

Even assuming that AWS adds no value, what exactly is wrong with offering a "no value added" hosting service and charging for it?

bonzini 8y ago
In fact hosting is already a value added, or no one would use it.

robbyt 8y ago

Realistically, I think that a large portion of that 300M went to sales and marketing at MongoDB... However, I agree with everything else you said.

gaius 8y ago

300 M$ effort into developing something If only they had! But MongoDB is 1% technology and 99% marketing, they had no technological moat to speak of. See also: Docker.

glogla 8y ago

Is this a recycled comment? I have deja vu.

Someone 8y ago

”while offering zero added value (And no, hosting mongodb in AWS not a new thing” That switches the subject from “do they add value?” to ”are they the first?”. I would think the existence of other companies offering something similar is an indication that it adds value.

pas 8y ago

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 they had started with something proprietary uptake would have been very likely much less. And people would have continued to use mysql or Cassandra if they really needed something "webscale".

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
bad_user 8y ago
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.
- pas 8y ago
  It's not OSI because it places even more restrictions on usage than AGPL did, but this is very much matter of context and interpretation. If GNU would have created it it would have been welcomed by GNU-ers a lot better. I sort of agree with their sentiment, but of course they are late to the have-cake-will-have-it-and-eaten-it-too party, as now AWS was able to fork the last AGPL-ed version and be done with it.
h1d 8y ago
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.
- pas 8y ago
  I think AWS already identified a lot of "DB tech locked" Mongo users who wanted AWS stamped mongo, or at least they now can undercut/compete-with Atlas. Even if MongoDB goes out of business, or becomes less popular AWS benefits as they can keep selling to these "legacy" customers their super-stable AWSgoDB, and said customers will just eat it all up without thinking.

weego 8y ago

This is literally the future open source promised and people wanted: the freedom for a business to be flexible in regards to technology and not get tied into unpleasant vendor contracts and demands. There's no point in, or place for, spirit of the system vs letter of the system discussions or calls to morality. Mongo does not deserve to survive / exist if it can't make it's offering better than a competitors. Would Mongo even exist as a company if it had launched as a contract only vendor? Pretty much not... so it can't demand to play both sides.

eeZah7Ux 8y ago
> This is literally the future open source promised and people wanted: the freedom for a business to be flexible in regards to technology and not get tied into unpleasant vendor contracts and demands. Oh the irony. Open source is just a development model, while Free Software, if anything, it meant to provide freedom to all users, not just business. Reinforcing the public cloud oligopoly only reduces such freedom.
- weego 8y ago
  So now it's based on the caveat that only small business and solo devs should benefit from the good parts of open source and anyone with sufficient scale should have to pay because Foss based startups deserve to exist regardless of their business quality and that business of certain arbitrary scale should then apply morality to their involvement with Foss. Well, write the licenses and let's see what traction they get. I'll wager that they will be shot down by pretty much everyone
pragmacoders 8y ago
Yep - open source software was built for you and your startup to not pay people for labor. You got it. You've gotten right to the heart of the matter and have it all figured out.

yowlingcat 8y ago

I think I almost completely disagree with you. The product of MongoDB itself offered less than zero added value when it first launched through a lack of data integrity. The $300MM put into it was put into marketing. Mongo tried to squeeze Amazon and users, which is actually great. They are trying to walk the walk now, and what they're going to realize is that they can't. Amazon will out-execute them and hopefully put DocumentDB on stronger foundations than MongoDB's original creators ever could. Judging on your other comments, it doesn't look like you're familiar with MongoDB's historical shoddiness. I don't agree with you on practice in this case or any case. If MongoDB's company can't out-execute, then they should have never made their product open source to begin with (and in that case it probably would never have gotten as popular as it did). That's the bargain you have to make to try and monetize open source software -- you don't just get a business for free. But beyond that, I don't agree with you on principle in this case, because I have nothing but disdain and scorn for MongoDB. Both MySQL and Postgres have fine support for unstructured data now, and provide the entire relational toolchest as well. That's not even getting into other multi-paradigm databases like CockroachDB or ArangoDB. I struggle to think of a use case that it is more appropriate for than another option; and indeed, every time I have had to deal with it in production, I have never thought that it was anything but a poor decision.

hartator 8y ago
> because I have nothing but disdain and scorn for MongoDB That’s bit harsh. MongoDB has its uses. Denormalized data struture make it very easy to scale for example. Being able to use JS everywhere is nice too.

scarface74 8y ago

And how is this different than Google with Android and Java?