3 ms·

I can't get over the fact that they first say: "Amazon has a history of offering services that take advantage of the R&D efforts of others: for example, Amazon

by mpsq 6y ago

I can't get over the fact that they first say: "Amazon has a history of offering services that take advantage of the R&D efforts of others: for example, Amazon Elasticsearch Service, Amazon Managed Streaming for Apache Kafka,[...]" And at the end of the article they promote how they themselves rely on other people hard work: "TimescaleDB uses a dramatically different design principle: build on PostgreSQL. As noted previously, this allows TimescaleDB to inherit over 25 years of dedicated engineering effort that the entire PostgreSQL community has done to build a rock-solid database that supports millions of applications worldwide." In the end, it sounds like they are doing exactly what Amazon is doing with open-source.

rattray 6y ago
Except timescaledb is open source: https://github.com/timescale/timescaledb https://github.com/timescale/timescaledb
- mpsq 6y ago
  This GitHub repository is just the database, what about the code that holds together their cloud resources? I was not able to find it. They criticize AWS for making money on Elasticsearch for example, AWS is "taking advantage of the R&D efforts of others". So Amazon is making money on a "serverless" / cloud experience. At the same time, it is known that Amazon is contributing back to Elasticsearch [1]. To that regard, I find their business model really similar to the one AWS is relying upon. [1] https://www.techrepublic.com/article/aws-contributes-to-elasticsearch-and-critics-say-its-kneecapping-competitors/ https://www.techrepublic.com/article/aws-contributes-to-elas...
  - rattray 6y ago
    Huh? If I want to run someone else's software on my cloud, how I want to do that depends on my cloud. I want docs and binaries, not a full cloud configuration. Some people would want k8s, some docker swarm or whatever, some an aws config, others ansible, etc etc etc. If I want a managed service, I _want_ to pay for that. The price includes people responding to pages and fixing problems, as well as fiddling with configs. And I'd much rather be paying that money to a small (relatively) open-source company than a behemoth like AWS.
    - sirffuzzylogik 6y ago
      > If I want a managed service, I _want_ to pay for that. The price includes people responding to pages and fixing problems, as well as fiddling with configs. Is this not what S3 is? You are free to use Elasticsearch and handle everything yourself, but if you want a managed service, you can use AWS. They are "attacking" the S3 offering, I still struggle to see any difference with them hosting Postgres. > And I'd much rather be paying that money to a small (relatively) open-source company than a behemoth like AWS. I am 100% with you on this, I do not want to defend AWS nor do I want to promote their products. The vendor lock-in situation you are in when using AWS is pretty bad and quite scary... An yes, I agree that the way they monetize open-source software is questionable.
  - dhd415 6y ago
    There's no way that Elastic would accept the Open Distro features as a contribution to Elasticsearch because they include inferior versions of features already available in the commercially-licensed version of Elasticsearch and, in the case of the Search Guard code in Open Distro, code that Elastic alleges was lifted from existing commercially-licensed Elasticsearch features. AWS knows all this but offers it anyway as a PR stunt so they can say that they at least attempted to make contributions to Elasticsearch.
hardwaresofton 6y ago
There's a big difference -- that's how the PostgreSQL community works. 2ndQuadrant (now EDB), EDB, Citus (now Microsoft) all add value to open source Postgres, contribute back to the community by bringing new features, new life, usecases, and of course committing changes upstream where possible. Timescale is actually on the more open side of that balance, with the licensing and the community version feature matrix. Also, in this case, Timescale actually has a pretty forgiving license[0] as long as you are not a add-nothing-aaS-provider, perhaps more than it should be, which I've asked about before[1]. Even before that change was made, running just the community edition as a add-nothing-aaS-provider would have been an improvement on the status quo, given how soundly it thrashed some other solutions in the past (ex. Influx[2]) and what you can do it (promscale[3]). I know it can't be all roses, nothing is, but I don't think they've put too many feet wrong so far. [EDIT] - I should note that on the scale of "contributing" to Postgres, the scale heavily tips in favor of 2ndQuadrant, EDB, and Citus as obviously they have the most committers and core team members. All those companies are to be commended of course, they're making postgres work as businesses and keeping it free while also improving it. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24579905 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24579905 [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24585564 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24585564 [2]: https://blog.timescale.com/blog/timescaledb-vs-influxdb-for-time-series-data-timescale-influx-sql-nosql-36489299877/ https://blog.timescale.com/blog/timescaledb-vs-influxdb-for-... [3]: https://github.com/timescale/promscale https://github.com/timescale/promscale
ryanbooz 6y ago
Timescale is a freely available PostgreSQL extension built in the open, and anyone can contribute. That's one of the great things about PostgreSQL - it was built to be extensible and allow customization. YAY! Again, you're free to use it for any project, all Community features, wherever you want. The only thing you can't do is run a DBaaS for TimescaleDB. Seems like a fair tradeoff, right?
mfreed 6y ago
I think we (like many) stand on the shoulders of giants when it comes to software, but I’m not sure the comparison is quite apt. Amazon primarily runs and monetizes closed-source, SaaS-only managed services. TimescaleDB instead is implemented in the open as an extension to PostgreSQL, and enriches and benefits the broader PostgreSQL community by unlocking a new use case (time series). The Postgres extension framework exists very much for this purpose, for projects like TimescaleDB to contribute back without needing to “pollute” mainline with domain-specific features. Most of TimescaleDB’s code (and all development for the first few years) is Apache 2, and all features are free for anybody to self-manage. (Disclaimer: I work at Timescale)

by mpsq 6y ago

rattray 6y ago

Except timescaledb is open source: https://github.com/timescale/timescaledb https://github.com/timescale/timescaledb

mpsq 6y ago
This GitHub repository is just the database, what about the code that holds together their cloud resources? I was not able to find it. They criticize AWS for making money on Elasticsearch for example, AWS is "taking advantage of the R&D efforts of others". So Amazon is making money on a "serverless" / cloud experience. At the same time, it is known that Amazon is contributing back to Elasticsearch [1]. To that regard, I find their business model really similar to the one AWS is relying upon. [1] https://www.techrepublic.com/article/aws-contributes-to-elasticsearch-and-critics-say-its-kneecapping-competitors/ https://www.techrepublic.com/article/aws-contributes-to-elas...
- rattray 6y ago
  Huh? If I want to run someone else's software on my cloud, how I want to do that depends on my cloud. I want docs and binaries, not a full cloud configuration. Some people would want k8s, some docker swarm or whatever, some an aws config, others ansible, etc etc etc. If I want a managed service, I _want_ to pay for that. The price includes people responding to pages and fixing problems, as well as fiddling with configs. And I'd much rather be paying that money to a small (relatively) open-source company than a behemoth like AWS.
  - sirffuzzylogik 6y ago
    > If I want a managed service, I _want_ to pay for that. The price includes people responding to pages and fixing problems, as well as fiddling with configs. Is this not what S3 is? You are free to use Elasticsearch and handle everything yourself, but if you want a managed service, you can use AWS. They are "attacking" the S3 offering, I still struggle to see any difference with them hosting Postgres. > And I'd much rather be paying that money to a small (relatively) open-source company than a behemoth like AWS. I am 100% with you on this, I do not want to defend AWS nor do I want to promote their products. The vendor lock-in situation you are in when using AWS is pretty bad and quite scary... An yes, I agree that the way they monetize open-source software is questionable.
- dhd415 6y ago
  There's no way that Elastic would accept the Open Distro features as a contribution to Elasticsearch because they include inferior versions of features already available in the commercially-licensed version of Elasticsearch and, in the case of the Search Guard code in Open Distro, code that Elastic alleges was lifted from existing commercially-licensed Elasticsearch features. AWS knows all this but offers it anyway as a PR stunt so they can say that they at least attempted to make contributions to Elasticsearch.

hardwaresofton 6y ago

There's a big difference -- that's how the PostgreSQL community works. 2ndQuadrant (now EDB), EDB, Citus (now Microsoft) all add value to open source Postgres, contribute back to the community by bringing new features, new life, usecases, and of course committing changes upstream where possible. Timescale is actually on the more open side of that balance, with the licensing and the community version feature matrix. Also, in this case, Timescale actually has a pretty forgiving license[0] as long as you are not a add-nothing-aaS-provider, perhaps more than it should be, which I've asked about before[1]. Even before that change was made, running just the community edition as a add-nothing-aaS-provider would have been an improvement on the status quo, given how soundly it thrashed some other solutions in the past (ex. Influx[2]) and what you can do it (promscale[3]). I know it can't be all roses, nothing is, but I don't think they've put too many feet wrong so far. [EDIT] - I should note that on the scale of "contributing" to Postgres, the scale heavily tips in favor of 2ndQuadrant, EDB, and Citus as obviously they have the most committers and core team members. All those companies are to be commended of course, they're making postgres work as businesses and keeping it free while also improving it. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24579905 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24579905 [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24585564 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24585564 [2]: https://blog.timescale.com/blog/timescaledb-vs-influxdb-for-time-series-data-timescale-influx-sql-nosql-36489299877/ https://blog.timescale.com/blog/timescaledb-vs-influxdb-for-... [3]: https://github.com/timescale/promscale https://github.com/timescale/promscale

ryanbooz 6y ago

Timescale is a freely available PostgreSQL extension built in the open, and anyone can contribute. That's one of the great things about PostgreSQL - it was built to be extensible and allow customization. YAY! Again, you're free to use it for any project, all Community features, wherever you want. The only thing you can't do is run a DBaaS for TimescaleDB. Seems like a fair tradeoff, right?

mfreed 6y ago

I think we (like many) stand on the shoulders of giants when it comes to software, but I’m not sure the comparison is quite apt. Amazon primarily runs and monetizes closed-source, SaaS-only managed services. TimescaleDB instead is implemented in the open as an extension to PostgreSQL, and enriches and benefits the broader PostgreSQL community by unlocking a new use case (time series). The Postgres extension framework exists very much for this purpose, for projects like TimescaleDB to contribute back without needing to “pollute” mainline with domain-specific features. Most of TimescaleDB’s code (and all development for the first few years) is Apache 2, and all features are free for anybody to self-manage. (Disclaimer: I work at Timescale)