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Elastic's other blog post with a clarification about their recent license change is also interesting: https://www.elastic.co/blog/license-change-clarification h

by dhd415 6y ago

Elastic's other blog post with a clarification about their recent license change is also interesting: https://www.elastic.co/blog/license-change-clarification https://www.elastic.co/blog/license-change-clarification. Apparently, they're considering further license changes such as MariaDB's Business Source License in which code is usable for anything other than offering the product itself as a service but becomes fully open source (including SaaS) after 3-5 years. That makes it pretty clear that it's meant strictly for competition with AWS.

granzymes 6y ago
Thank you. I skimmed the linked article and saw only ranting. Maybe we can change the link to this post?
- elliekelly 6y ago
  I read the whole linked article and was disappointed there was no explanation of the license changes they made - only justifications for the change.
  - rovr138 6y ago
    I think the title covers that this is "why" the change occurred. Not the explanation of the license they changed to.
    - elliekelly 6y ago
      That’s fair, if perhaps a bit pedantic. I suppose I was expecting some explanation of why the language of the new license would address these “whys” as opposed to just a list of grievances.
- the_local_host 6y ago
  I kept feeling like I was reading the same thing over and over and just not finding out what exactly Amazon is doing now that it won't be able to do in the future. Skimming the links to the blog post and FAQ didn't help much. Whatever it is it's pretty deep in the weeds. It looks like the intent is for most users to be unaffected; non-AWS cloud providers to be unaffected; even AWS's Elastic Cloud to be unaffected; but AWS has to stop doing something with specific regard to Elastic Search and I can't figure out what it is.
- twobitshifter 6y ago
  > hack the source code to grant yourself access to our paid features without a subscription, or the use of modified versions in production. I think the change that you can’t modify the code and use it yourself in production is a big change that is glossed over. ES is now free as in beer. You can look at the code but you can’t touch it or change what it does. Edit: I was wrong about this. The license itself does not say this, but the blog post seemed to indicate that it was a change. I think it’s an exclusive inclusive or problem.
  - amenod 6y ago
    This is false. License [0] clearly states the conditions under which you can do it and they seem pretty reasonable. Nothing that a normal user, faced with an issue they want to fix, wouldn't accept. I imagine Amazon would have trouble accepting those and other terms, but that's the whole idea. [0] https://www.mongodb.com/licensing/server-side-public-license https://www.mongodb.com/licensing/server-side-public-license
    - jmiserez 6y ago
      No, you are both correct. You are talking about the SSPL, the parent poster you are replying to is talking about the Elastic License which does in fact prevent you from modifying the code and running it in production: See 2.2 Restrictions: https://github.com/elastic/elasticsearch/blob/master/licenses/ELASTIC-LICENSE.txt https://github.com/elastic/elasticsearch/blob/master/license... With the dual-licensing you have a choice of Elastic license or SSPL, but they both have terms you might not like. And if you use the binaries you automatically use the free as in beer Elastic license.
elliekelly 6y ago
> Then after a period of time, typically 3-4 years, but not more than 5 years, the restrictions lapse, and the source code automatically converts to an Open Source license, in our case Apache 2.0. I’m not familiar with this type of license. Any idea how/when this time frame is decided? Is it 3-5 years from software release? I guess I’m confused by the use of “automatically converts” with a vague timeline. If it’s automatic why isn’t the time of “automatic” conversion more definitively known? What’s the event that triggers the change?
- alisonkisk 6y ago
  https://mariadb.com/bsl-faq-mariadb/ https://mariadb.com/bsl-faq-mariadb/ An individual instance of license will say "the covered code is usable under Foo license from Year-Month-Day"
- VoxPelli 6y ago
  Good explanation here: https://perens.com/2017/02/14/bsl-1-1/ https://perens.com/2017/02/14/bsl-1-1/ It’s from the day that the code is released under the license and the four years is the max under BSL (so that people know roughly what the “worst case scenario” it a BSL licensed software would be) but can be specified to be shorter by the one releasing code under it.
- fencepost 6y ago
  Not sure if it's still the case but Ghostscript is or was like this - a licenseable current version possibly with extra commercially relevant features (e.g. PCL) plus an open source older version. Edit: https://artifex.com/licensing/commercial/ https://artifex.com/licensing/commercial/ notably this lets you avoid concerns about integrating GPL with your commercial offering.
mariuz 6y ago
Related article Uproar: MariaDB Corp. veers away from open source https://www.infoworld.com/article/3109213/open-source-uproar-as-mariadb-goes-commercial.html https://www.infoworld.com/article/3109213/open-source-uproar...
- dehrmann 6y ago
  That's pretty ironic considering MariaDB's history.
VoxPelli 6y ago
Great post, thanks, had totally missed that, great that they are evaluating BSL as well, this should really get up there on the HN front page as well.

by dhd415 6y ago

granzymes 6y ago

Thank you. I skimmed the linked article and saw only ranting. Maybe we can change the link to this post?

elliekelly 6y ago
I read the whole linked article and was disappointed there was no explanation of the license changes they made - only justifications for the change.
- rovr138 6y ago
  I think the title covers that this is "why" the change occurred. Not the explanation of the license they changed to.
  - elliekelly 6y ago
    That’s fair, if perhaps a bit pedantic. I suppose I was expecting some explanation of why the language of the new license would address these “whys” as opposed to just a list of grievances.
the_local_host 6y ago
I kept feeling like I was reading the same thing over and over and just not finding out what exactly Amazon is doing now that it won't be able to do in the future. Skimming the links to the blog post and FAQ didn't help much. Whatever it is it's pretty deep in the weeds. It looks like the intent is for most users to be unaffected; non-AWS cloud providers to be unaffected; even AWS's Elastic Cloud to be unaffected; but AWS has to stop doing something with specific regard to Elastic Search and I can't figure out what it is.
twobitshifter 6y ago
> hack the source code to grant yourself access to our paid features without a subscription, or the use of modified versions in production. I think the change that you can’t modify the code and use it yourself in production is a big change that is glossed over. ES is now free as in beer. You can look at the code but you can’t touch it or change what it does. Edit: I was wrong about this. The license itself does not say this, but the blog post seemed to indicate that it was a change. I think it’s an exclusive inclusive or problem.
- amenod 6y ago
  This is false. License [0] clearly states the conditions under which you can do it and they seem pretty reasonable. Nothing that a normal user, faced with an issue they want to fix, wouldn't accept. I imagine Amazon would have trouble accepting those and other terms, but that's the whole idea. [0] https://www.mongodb.com/licensing/server-side-public-license https://www.mongodb.com/licensing/server-side-public-license
  - jmiserez 6y ago
    No, you are both correct. You are talking about the SSPL, the parent poster you are replying to is talking about the Elastic License which does in fact prevent you from modifying the code and running it in production: See 2.2 Restrictions: https://github.com/elastic/elasticsearch/blob/master/licenses/ELASTIC-LICENSE.txt https://github.com/elastic/elasticsearch/blob/master/license... With the dual-licensing you have a choice of Elastic license or SSPL, but they both have terms you might not like. And if you use the binaries you automatically use the free as in beer Elastic license.

elliekelly 6y ago

> Then after a period of time, typically 3-4 years, but not more than 5 years, the restrictions lapse, and the source code automatically converts to an Open Source license, in our case Apache 2.0. I’m not familiar with this type of license. Any idea how/when this time frame is decided? Is it 3-5 years from software release? I guess I’m confused by the use of “automatically converts” with a vague timeline. If it’s automatic why isn’t the time of “automatic” conversion more definitively known? What’s the event that triggers the change?

alisonkisk 6y ago
https://mariadb.com/bsl-faq-mariadb/ https://mariadb.com/bsl-faq-mariadb/ An individual instance of license will say "the covered code is usable under Foo license from Year-Month-Day"
VoxPelli 6y ago
Good explanation here: https://perens.com/2017/02/14/bsl-1-1/ https://perens.com/2017/02/14/bsl-1-1/ It’s from the day that the code is released under the license and the four years is the max under BSL (so that people know roughly what the “worst case scenario” it a BSL licensed software would be) but can be specified to be shorter by the one releasing code under it.
fencepost 6y ago
Not sure if it's still the case but Ghostscript is or was like this - a licenseable current version possibly with extra commercially relevant features (e.g. PCL) plus an open source older version. Edit: https://artifex.com/licensing/commercial/ https://artifex.com/licensing/commercial/ notably this lets you avoid concerns about integrating GPL with your commercial offering.

mariuz 6y ago

Related article Uproar: MariaDB Corp. veers away from open source https://www.infoworld.com/article/3109213/open-source-uproar-as-mariadb-goes-commercial.html https://www.infoworld.com/article/3109213/open-source-uproar...

dehrmann 6y ago
That's pretty ironic considering MariaDB's history.

VoxPelli 6y ago

Great post, thanks, had totally missed that, great that they are evaluating BSL as well, this should really get up there on the HN front page as well.