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MongoDB was already under the AGPL; Amazon just replicated the API on top of their own storage engine (or an existing permissive-licensed storage engine? Who kn

by ezrast 8y ago

MongoDB was already under the AGPL; Amazon just replicated the API on top of their own storage engine (or an existing permissive-licensed storage engine? Who knows?). If we're at the point where Amazon can just re-implement whatever project they want, more or less from scratch, I'm not sure there's any license that can save us. :(

freeone3000 8y ago
Save us from... companies writing software? Amazon's new project is a completely different database that happens to share an interface. At what point do we acknowledge that it's their own work?
- lukeh 8y ago
  Well, reimplementing an API is essentially the Oracle/Google Java case, right?
- pas 8y ago
  That's not the question. The question is of game theory. MongoDB Inc. invested a lot into developing MongoDB, they figured out the right semantics for a lot of things, trade offs, UX/DX (user and dev experience), and so on. (Recently Mongo4 added transactions. Which is a very very very handy thing in any DB.) But MongoDB calculated that they will recoup their investment because they are in the best position to provide support and even to operate Mongo, all while keeping Mongo sufficiently open source (you can run it yourself on as big a cluster as you please, you can modify it for yourself and don't have to tell anyone - unless you're selling it as a service, pretty standard AGPL). Now AWS took the API and some of that knowhow, and invested into creating something that's not open source at all. You can't learn anything from it, you are not vendor locked in, because the API is standardized, but other than that it takes away a revenue stream from MongoDB Inc. (Sure, competition is good. DocumentDB-Mongo is probably cheaper than MongoDB Inc.'s Atlas.) But the question is, will this result in less/slower/lower-quailtiy development of MongoDB itself? Usually big MongoDB clusters at enterprise companies are not likely to upgrade and evolve, they usually get replaced wholesale, but they would have provided the revenue for MongoDB Inc to continue R&D, and to allow them to provide that next gen replacement. Now ... it'll be likely AWS something-something. Which will be probably closed source (like DocumentDB) and at best it'll have an open API (like DocDB Mongo). Is it fair? Is it Good for the People? Who knows, these are hard questions, but a lot of people feel that AWS doing this somehow robs the greater open source community, and it cements APIs, concentrates even more economic power, and so on.
  - ericfrenkiel 8y ago
    Well said. Unfortunately even in software, it seems that might makes right.
- ezrast 8y ago
  Save independent software companies from having their lunch eaten by the behemoths after doing the legwork of proving product/market fit - no different from any industry dominated by a few large players. Amazon is not in the wrong for building a competing product, but it's good for the market if the scrappy underdogs have a few edges in their favor.

by ezrast 8y ago

freeone3000 8y ago

Save us from... companies writing software? Amazon's new project is a completely different database that happens to share an interface. At what point do we acknowledge that it's their own work?

lukeh 8y ago
Well, reimplementing an API is essentially the Oracle/Google Java case, right?
pas 8y ago
That's not the question. The question is of game theory. MongoDB Inc. invested a lot into developing MongoDB, they figured out the right semantics for a lot of things, trade offs, UX/DX (user and dev experience), and so on. (Recently Mongo4 added transactions. Which is a very very very handy thing in any DB.) But MongoDB calculated that they will recoup their investment because they are in the best position to provide support and even to operate Mongo, all while keeping Mongo sufficiently open source (you can run it yourself on as big a cluster as you please, you can modify it for yourself and don't have to tell anyone - unless you're selling it as a service, pretty standard AGPL). Now AWS took the API and some of that knowhow, and invested into creating something that's not open source at all. You can't learn anything from it, you are not vendor locked in, because the API is standardized, but other than that it takes away a revenue stream from MongoDB Inc. (Sure, competition is good. DocumentDB-Mongo is probably cheaper than MongoDB Inc.'s Atlas.) But the question is, will this result in less/slower/lower-quailtiy development of MongoDB itself? Usually big MongoDB clusters at enterprise companies are not likely to upgrade and evolve, they usually get replaced wholesale, but they would have provided the revenue for MongoDB Inc to continue R&D, and to allow them to provide that next gen replacement. Now ... it'll be likely AWS something-something. Which will be probably closed source (like DocumentDB) and at best it'll have an open API (like DocDB Mongo). Is it fair? Is it Good for the People? Who knows, these are hard questions, but a lot of people feel that AWS doing this somehow robs the greater open source community, and it cements APIs, concentrates even more economic power, and so on.
- ericfrenkiel 8y ago
  Well said. Unfortunately even in software, it seems that might makes right.
ezrast 8y ago
Save independent software companies from having their lunch eaten by the behemoths after doing the legwork of proving product/market fit - no different from any industry dominated by a few large players. Amazon is not in the wrong for building a competing product, but it's good for the market if the scrappy underdogs have a few edges in their favor.