6 ms·

That is not the point. There is legal and there is good - and simply reiterating that something is legal is unproductive and pointless.

by d3nj4l 6y ago

shawnz 6y ago
I don't think the person you are replying to is making any kind of argument about legality. I think they are saying that when you tell people something is acceptable, then they can only assume it actually is acceptable to you.
- patrickaljord 6y ago
  Exactly, what Amazon did isn't just legal, it is explicitly specified as OK by the license that the elastic search team selected for their code.
  - NeutronStar 6y ago
    "So imagine our surprise when Amazon launched their service in 2015 based on Elasticsearch and called it Amazon Elasticsearch Service. We consider this to be a pretty obvious trademark violation. NOT OK." Is that legal by your standards?
- Pet_Ant 6y ago
  > I think they are saying that when you tell people something is acceptable, then they can only assume it actually is acceptable to you. I think that is false. Most things that are said assume that the listener will self-moderate. If I have Crohn's or IBS and I post a sign on my front-lawn saying "bathroom free to use for those in need" I'm not expecting you to pull up a tour-bus full of tourists, move into it and use it as housing, or a sex den for turning tricks. I mean, I should clarify my sign, but honestly if you don't meet me half-way with self-moderation, you are the reason we can't have nice things. Above all, make sure you always leave money on the table, _especially_ if you are the bigger party.
  - shawnz 6y ago
    Sure, there is something to be said for reciprocating the generosity offered to you by taking only what you need. I think this can become a complicated game of accounting though. Did Amazon take more than they need or did they just build a useful cloud service on top of a widespread open and free product that was released intentionally under those terms? When Elastic chose the Apache license, what was the goal? Was it to allow as many people to benefit from the software as possible? If so, Amazon is clearly advancing that goal, not hindering it. Or is the idea that Amazon is somehow blocking Elastic from competing in the cloud search space? Elastic is growing quite rapidly and Amazon's use of ES seems to have only accelerated that growth, so I don't really buy that either. Furthermore consider this: Is Elastic reciprocating the generosity offered by Apache and the Lucene project, to which they basically did the same thing that Amazon did to them?
  - matz1 6y ago
    >I'm not expecting you to pull up a tour-bus full of tourists, move into it and use it as housing, or a sex den for turning tricks But you should expecting that, you can't assume the listener will self-moderate.
    - Pet_Ant 6y ago
      Really? If someone comes over and you say "help yourself to anything in the fridge" you shouldn't expect that someone will take a snack and not clear out your fridge and load up there car with groceries for the week?
      - matz1 6y ago
        Yes I will expect that most people will not do that but some people will. People are so diverse, I can't assume everybody behave the same, let alone behave the way I want.
danShumway 6y ago
This isn't really the spirit of Open Source though. The point of Open Source is that reuse and modification isn't just technically allowed legally, it's encouraged. I fully support their right to change their licensing, and I understand they may not have thought through the implications of their license -- and I empathize with that. I also empathize with criticism that Amazon isn't doing a great job of supporting the ecosystem that supports them, it would be nice if they did more. And it goes without saying, but I also strongly empathize with the frustration about the borderline trademark infringement that's happening here. That's a completely separate problem. But I don't like the implication that Open Source licenses are a legal technicality rather than a specific philosophical choice to allow reuse. People don't need to feel guilty about following Open Source licenses, the idea is to encourage reuse -- even by corporations. We do harm to that movement when we try and backtrack from that philosophy or say, "sure, you have the legal right to reuse the code, but we're going to try and implement social/technical barriers to you doing so." There are plenty of decent source-available licenses projects can use if that's their intent. They carve out exceptions for small-scale reuse while trying to limit companies like Amazon from capitalizing on the ecosystem. And maybe more projects should use those licenses since they more accurately reflect the outcomes that the authors seem to want. There's nothing wrong with having projects that allow only small-scale reuse. But if someone releases their project as Open Source I'm going to treat it like Open Source, because that's what the movement is about, and trying to reverse the legal progress we've made by constructing new moral barriers in front of reuse is harmful to that movement. When we say that people have a moral right to reuse, adapt, and share our code, we mean it.
- eropple 6y ago
  Open source may be a moral system, but Karl Popper had a thing or two to say about actors who take advantage of the morality of a system for immoral ends. At some point, whether you or I appreciate it, the open source world was bound to have to reinvent a solution to that.
  - danShumway 6y ago
    There is a solution to that already, it's called using source available licensing instead of Open Source. But the point of Open Source is that reciprocity of code/money/value is not required. That's literally the scenario that many of us are trying to build. It feels like the difference here is that you're looking at "someone builds a giant public hosting service off of our code" as an immoral end. But I'm saying that's not immoral, that is an acceptable result. It's obviously not the result Elastic wanted, and I empathize with that, but... I don't know, maybe we need to educate people more about what Open Source actually means. Maybe we need to encourage more people to use source available licenses if there's a disconnect in how people understand the actual goals of the movement. We believe that people have an intrinsic, moral right to share and reuse code. Not just good citizens who help build up the system and support us -- everybody.

That is not the point. There is legal and there is good - and simply reiterating that something is legal is unproductive and pointless.

by d3nj4l 6y ago

That is not the point. There is legal and there is good - and simply reiterating that something is legal is unproductive and pointless.

shawnz 6y ago

I don't think the person you are replying to is making any kind of argument about legality. I think they are saying that when you tell people something is acceptable, then they can only assume it actually is acceptable to you.

patrickaljord 6y ago
Exactly, what Amazon did isn't just legal, it is explicitly specified as OK by the license that the elastic search team selected for their code.
- NeutronStar 6y ago
  "So imagine our surprise when Amazon launched their service in 2015 based on Elasticsearch and called it Amazon Elasticsearch Service. We consider this to be a pretty obvious trademark violation. NOT OK." Is that legal by your standards?
Pet_Ant 6y ago
> I think they are saying that when you tell people something is acceptable, then they can only assume it actually is acceptable to you. I think that is false. Most things that are said assume that the listener will self-moderate. If I have Crohn's or IBS and I post a sign on my front-lawn saying "bathroom free to use for those in need" I'm not expecting you to pull up a tour-bus full of tourists, move into it and use it as housing, or a sex den for turning tricks. I mean, I should clarify my sign, but honestly if you don't meet me half-way with self-moderation, you are the reason we can't have nice things. Above all, make sure you always leave money on the table, _especially_ if you are the bigger party.
- shawnz 6y ago
  Sure, there is something to be said for reciprocating the generosity offered to you by taking only what you need. I think this can become a complicated game of accounting though. Did Amazon take more than they need or did they just build a useful cloud service on top of a widespread open and free product that was released intentionally under those terms? When Elastic chose the Apache license, what was the goal? Was it to allow as many people to benefit from the software as possible? If so, Amazon is clearly advancing that goal, not hindering it. Or is the idea that Amazon is somehow blocking Elastic from competing in the cloud search space? Elastic is growing quite rapidly and Amazon's use of ES seems to have only accelerated that growth, so I don't really buy that either. Furthermore consider this: Is Elastic reciprocating the generosity offered by Apache and the Lucene project, to which they basically did the same thing that Amazon did to them?
- matz1 6y ago
  >I'm not expecting you to pull up a tour-bus full of tourists, move into it and use it as housing, or a sex den for turning tricks But you should expecting that, you can't assume the listener will self-moderate.
  - Pet_Ant 6y ago
    Really? If someone comes over and you say "help yourself to anything in the fridge" you shouldn't expect that someone will take a snack and not clear out your fridge and load up there car with groceries for the week?
    - matz1 6y ago
      Yes I will expect that most people will not do that but some people will. People are so diverse, I can't assume everybody behave the same, let alone behave the way I want.

danShumway 6y ago

This isn't really the spirit of Open Source though. The point of Open Source is that reuse and modification isn't just technically allowed legally, it's encouraged. I fully support their right to change their licensing, and I understand they may not have thought through the implications of their license -- and I empathize with that. I also empathize with criticism that Amazon isn't doing a great job of supporting the ecosystem that supports them, it would be nice if they did more. And it goes without saying, but I also strongly empathize with the frustration about the borderline trademark infringement that's happening here. That's a completely separate problem. But I don't like the implication that Open Source licenses are a legal technicality rather than a specific philosophical choice to allow reuse. People don't need to feel guilty about following Open Source licenses, the idea is to encourage reuse -- even by corporations. We do harm to that movement when we try and backtrack from that philosophy or say, "sure, you have the legal right to reuse the code, but we're going to try and implement social/technical barriers to you doing so." There are plenty of decent source-available licenses projects can use if that's their intent. They carve out exceptions for small-scale reuse while trying to limit companies like Amazon from capitalizing on the ecosystem. And maybe more projects should use those licenses since they more accurately reflect the outcomes that the authors seem to want. There's nothing wrong with having projects that allow only small-scale reuse. But if someone releases their project as Open Source I'm going to treat it like Open Source, because that's what the movement is about, and trying to reverse the legal progress we've made by constructing new moral barriers in front of reuse is harmful to that movement. When we say that people have a moral right to reuse, adapt, and share our code, we mean it.

eropple 6y ago
Open source may be a moral system, but Karl Popper had a thing or two to say about actors who take advantage of the morality of a system for immoral ends. At some point, whether you or I appreciate it, the open source world was bound to have to reinvent a solution to that.
- danShumway 6y ago
  There is a solution to that already, it's called using source available licensing instead of Open Source. But the point of Open Source is that reciprocity of code/money/value is not required. That's literally the scenario that many of us are trying to build. It feels like the difference here is that you're looking at "someone builds a giant public hosting service off of our code" as an immoral end. But I'm saying that's not immoral, that is an acceptable result. It's obviously not the result Elastic wanted, and I empathize with that, but... I don't know, maybe we need to educate people more about what Open Source actually means. Maybe we need to encourage more people to use source available licenses if there's a disconnect in how people understand the actual goals of the movement. We believe that people have an intrinsic, moral right to share and reuse code. Not just good citizens who help build up the system and support us -- everybody.