6 ms·

If you're a paying customer, you are probably fine. If you're using SSPL'd Elastic (or Mongo DB, the risks are the same) for anything serious -- i.e. beyond a

If you're a paying customer, you are probably fine. If you're using SSPL'd Elastic (or Mongo DB, the risks are the same) for anything serious -- i.e. beyond a hobby, get legal advice ASAP. SSPL isn't an OSI certified license; many would call it at best a 'shared source' license because of the riders attached. [DELETED because, as user `gpm` points out, OSI doesn't own 'open source' as a trademark, sorry about that -- the need for legal advice doesn't go away, however.] In fact given their kvetching about Amazon and their trademark, Elastic's cheerleading of open source in this and the original blog post seems to be a bit misleading and doing OSI's trademark a disservice.[/DELETED]

gpm 6y ago
OSI does not have a trademark on the term open source, they tried and failed to acquire one.
- ddevault 6y ago
  Trademarks are not a requirement for defining terminology. The word "cake" is not trademarked, but if I sell you a used car tire when you buy a "cake" from me, I still lied and misled you about the product.
- prepend 6y ago
  I think they need one. Comically, this is why trademarks exist to prevent people from confusing the market with similar and reused terms. I think we need a CreativeCommons-like trademark for open source software before it’s too late.
  - signal11 6y ago
    I think "OSI Approved Open Source License" could easily be an OSI trademark, if it's not already. Ironicallly, like many other organizations, Elastic themselves have used OSI's approval as a benchmark for 'open source'[1]: > Is X-Pack now open source? > Updated on 2018-04-24 with a link to the Elastic License > Open source licensing maintains a strict definition from the Open Source Initiative (OSI). > As of 6.3, the X-Pack code is open under the Elastic License. However, it will not be 'open source' as it will not be covered by an OSI approved license. The interaction model for open X-Pack will be identical to the open source Elastic Stack, including the ability to inspect code, create issues and open pull requests via our existing GitHub repositories. [1] https://www.elastic.co/what-is/open-x-pack https://www.elastic.co/what-is/open-x-pack
    - gpm 6y ago
      > I think "OSI Approved Open Source License" could easily be an OSI trademark, if it's not already. Something along those lines is trademarked
    - un_ess 6y ago
      https://opensource.org/trademark-guidelines https://opensource.org/trademark-guidelines lists OSI's policy for trademark usage. 3. Usage that Require Prior Written Approval 3.1. Distributing software under a license approved by OSI ("OSI Approved License")
  - colechristensen 6y ago
    I think there are valid differences in opinion in what “open source” means and an organization with an agenda shouldn’t try to own the terminology.
    - MaxBarraclough 6y ago
      > I think there are valid differences in opinion in what “open source” means Disagree. It's a well standardised term of art: it means what the OSI define it to mean. It's pretty precise, and is not a meaningless marketing term like premium. Similarly free software (and especially Free Software) means what the FSF defines it to mean. When people start using these terms to mean whatever they feel like it should mean, it muddies the waters for those of us trying to have serious discussions about these topics. Tellingly, such redefinitions are generally broader than the accepted OSI definition, so as to include whatever product someone is trying to push.
      - gpm 6y ago
        > Tellingly, such redefinitions are generally broader than the accepted OSI definition, so as to include whatever product someone is trying to push. I disagree. In fact I'll present the counter example of "myself". I don't agree with the OSIs definition of open source, I think it run contrary to the plain meaning of the term, and is contrary to pre-OSI use of the term. I've argued that numerous times on this forum (and I'm going to avoid repeating these arguments in depth here, just google "gpm Open Source site:news.ycombinator.com"/"gpm Open Source site:lobste.rs" and you will be able to find the arguments). I have never pushed a product claiming to be open source that does not meet the OSIs definition, nor do I anticipate I ever will, since that seems to be a great way to make discussions about the product devolve into arguments about licensing, which is terrible advertising. The fact that these arguments usually only come up when there is a reason to argue, i.e. someone has used the term in a way outside of the OSIs definition, does not mean that people only think the right definition of the term is something else when it's for their own benefit.
        xyzzy_plugh 6y ago
  - MaxBarraclough 6y ago
    I don't think we really need that. The current solution works relatively well: anyone using open source in a sense other than that described by the OSI, is reliably met with a hailstorm of criticism on HackerNews for being disingenuous. That's as it should be. It's a term of art in the software world, and we don't insist on legal enforcement of every term of art. I tend to capitalise the term, Open Source, to emphasise that I'm using it an a precise way. I do the same with Free Software. Not ironclad, but I figure it probably helps. With all of that said, I don't think anyone should be permitted to deliberately mislead people when they're pushing a product. It's obviously right that false advertising is forbidden by law.
    - prepend 6y ago
      That’s what I used to think, but now more companies use “open” with non-OSI licenses and they aren’t run out of town and told STFU. Personally, any project using “open” in the name that’s not OSI, I pretty much ignore. But it seems to be growing (eg, “open core”, “openai”, stuff like this taking about open with non-open licenses). It’s getting hard to filter out. One of the benefits I think to CCn is that it clearly lets users know what is and is not allowed. Having OSIn might help with people who don’t read licenses for fun.
      - MaxBarraclough 6y ago
        OpenAI is a good example, see this comment from yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25820080 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25820080
pas 6y ago
It's especially ... ironic, that they think Amazonification is not-ok, but Enterprizificaion (open core) is a-ok. That said hosting ES is basically the same as building a carwash, or a gas station, or let's say a printing house. You get the machinery and build your own support services around it. Even the unit economics are not that different. AWS spent probably millions of dollars to push the marginal price down. The initial cost of procurement for machinery might be zero for ES as opposed to buying a printing press, but none of the aforementioned sectors are limited by the cost of machinery. In case of brick and mortar services the cost of land, labor, construction, and logistics are all a lot more important. Yes, okay, but what about AWS's advantage, their "moat"? Elastic will never be able to match that. This is the same problem that plagues the browser, phone OS (and other) markets. Google can easily spend a billion USD each year on fiddling with Chrome and Android. Mozilla, Canonical, KDE, and others can't. AWS has the platform advantage, Google has money. It seems these market forces virtually force ES to become a "public good" like the Linux kernel. (Or Elastic could try to fork it and stop using any kind of free/open/available license. And try to find business niches.) But at this point the cat is out of the bag. Likely no amount of license engineering will be sufficient to overcome AWS' advantage.
- jacobr1 6y ago
  The cloud providers would just build a competing service if they couldn't co-opt an existing popular open source solution. Or anoint an adjacent solution, like solr in the case of elasticsearch. But what can be done and we really haven't seen a "open-core" type infra component try this yet: is require open-sourcing changes. The opendistro approach sorta gets us there, in a hard-fork sense, but seems in adequate and is really only being done for connivence rather than licensing requirements. But we already have a licensing solution: the AGPL. But no enterprise or saas startup wants to touch AGPL software for the fear of it contaminating proprietary code. So it seems to me the solution is a hybrid APGL for cloud providers and apache/mit for others approach. Such a license seems feasible to write and would be superior to open-core for most users.
  - pas 6y ago
    ... a bit theoretical, but how is the GPLv3 with the anti-Tivo provision okay? OSI definition 10: License must not restrict interface, and def. 9. License must not restrict other software it gets distributed with. (So I can't put my encrypted bootloader and verifier into the same thing.)
delfinom 6y ago
"OSI certified" doesn't mean shit regardless in a legal manner. It's just toilet paper. Always have your own legal review by IP lawyers.

gpm 6y ago

OSI does not have a trademark on the term open source, they tried and failed to acquire one.

ddevault 6y ago
Trademarks are not a requirement for defining terminology. The word "cake" is not trademarked, but if I sell you a used car tire when you buy a "cake" from me, I still lied and misled you about the product.
prepend 6y ago
I think they need one. Comically, this is why trademarks exist to prevent people from confusing the market with similar and reused terms. I think we need a CreativeCommons-like trademark for open source software before it’s too late.
- signal11 6y ago
  I think "OSI Approved Open Source License" could easily be an OSI trademark, if it's not already. Ironicallly, like many other organizations, Elastic themselves have used OSI's approval as a benchmark for 'open source'[1]: > Is X-Pack now open source? > Updated on 2018-04-24 with a link to the Elastic License > Open source licensing maintains a strict definition from the Open Source Initiative (OSI). > As of 6.3, the X-Pack code is open under the Elastic License. However, it will not be 'open source' as it will not be covered by an OSI approved license. The interaction model for open X-Pack will be identical to the open source Elastic Stack, including the ability to inspect code, create issues and open pull requests via our existing GitHub repositories. [1] https://www.elastic.co/what-is/open-x-pack https://www.elastic.co/what-is/open-x-pack
  - gpm 6y ago
    > I think "OSI Approved Open Source License" could easily be an OSI trademark, if it's not already. Something along those lines is trademarked
  - un_ess 6y ago
    https://opensource.org/trademark-guidelines https://opensource.org/trademark-guidelines lists OSI's policy for trademark usage. 3. Usage that Require Prior Written Approval 3.1. Distributing software under a license approved by OSI ("OSI Approved License")
- colechristensen 6y ago
  I think there are valid differences in opinion in what “open source” means and an organization with an agenda shouldn’t try to own the terminology.
  - MaxBarraclough 6y ago
    > I think there are valid differences in opinion in what “open source” means Disagree. It's a well standardised term of art: it means what the OSI define it to mean. It's pretty precise, and is not a meaningless marketing term like premium. Similarly free software (and especially Free Software) means what the FSF defines it to mean. When people start using these terms to mean whatever they feel like it should mean, it muddies the waters for those of us trying to have serious discussions about these topics. Tellingly, such redefinitions are generally broader than the accepted OSI definition, so as to include whatever product someone is trying to push.
    - gpm 6y ago
      > Tellingly, such redefinitions are generally broader than the accepted OSI definition, so as to include whatever product someone is trying to push. I disagree. In fact I'll present the counter example of "myself". I don't agree with the OSIs definition of open source, I think it run contrary to the plain meaning of the term, and is contrary to pre-OSI use of the term. I've argued that numerous times on this forum (and I'm going to avoid repeating these arguments in depth here, just google "gpm Open Source site:news.ycombinator.com"/"gpm Open Source site:lobste.rs" and you will be able to find the arguments). I have never pushed a product claiming to be open source that does not meet the OSIs definition, nor do I anticipate I ever will, since that seems to be a great way to make discussions about the product devolve into arguments about licensing, which is terrible advertising. The fact that these arguments usually only come up when there is a reason to argue, i.e. someone has used the term in a way outside of the OSIs definition, does not mean that people only think the right definition of the term is something else when it's for their own benefit.
      - xyzzy_plugh 6y ago
- MaxBarraclough 6y ago
  I don't think we really need that. The current solution works relatively well: anyone using open source in a sense other than that described by the OSI, is reliably met with a hailstorm of criticism on HackerNews for being disingenuous. That's as it should be. It's a term of art in the software world, and we don't insist on legal enforcement of every term of art. I tend to capitalise the term, Open Source, to emphasise that I'm using it an a precise way. I do the same with Free Software. Not ironclad, but I figure it probably helps. With all of that said, I don't think anyone should be permitted to deliberately mislead people when they're pushing a product. It's obviously right that false advertising is forbidden by law.
  - prepend 6y ago
    That’s what I used to think, but now more companies use “open” with non-OSI licenses and they aren’t run out of town and told STFU. Personally, any project using “open” in the name that’s not OSI, I pretty much ignore. But it seems to be growing (eg, “open core”, “openai”, stuff like this taking about open with non-open licenses). It’s getting hard to filter out. One of the benefits I think to CCn is that it clearly lets users know what is and is not allowed. Having OSIn might help with people who don’t read licenses for fun.
    - MaxBarraclough 6y ago
      OpenAI is a good example, see this comment from yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25820080 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25820080

pas 6y ago

It's especially ... ironic, that they think Amazonification is not-ok, but Enterprizificaion (open core) is a-ok. That said hosting ES is basically the same as building a carwash, or a gas station, or let's say a printing house. You get the machinery and build your own support services around it. Even the unit economics are not that different. AWS spent probably millions of dollars to push the marginal price down. The initial cost of procurement for machinery might be zero for ES as opposed to buying a printing press, but none of the aforementioned sectors are limited by the cost of machinery. In case of brick and mortar services the cost of land, labor, construction, and logistics are all a lot more important. Yes, okay, but what about AWS's advantage, their "moat"? Elastic will never be able to match that. This is the same problem that plagues the browser, phone OS (and other) markets. Google can easily spend a billion USD each year on fiddling with Chrome and Android. Mozilla, Canonical, KDE, and others can't. AWS has the platform advantage, Google has money. It seems these market forces virtually force ES to become a "public good" like the Linux kernel. (Or Elastic could try to fork it and stop using any kind of free/open/available license. And try to find business niches.) But at this point the cat is out of the bag. Likely no amount of license engineering will be sufficient to overcome AWS' advantage.

jacobr1 6y ago
The cloud providers would just build a competing service if they couldn't co-opt an existing popular open source solution. Or anoint an adjacent solution, like solr in the case of elasticsearch. But what can be done and we really haven't seen a "open-core" type infra component try this yet: is require open-sourcing changes. The opendistro approach sorta gets us there, in a hard-fork sense, but seems in adequate and is really only being done for connivence rather than licensing requirements. But we already have a licensing solution: the AGPL. But no enterprise or saas startup wants to touch AGPL software for the fear of it contaminating proprietary code. So it seems to me the solution is a hybrid APGL for cloud providers and apache/mit for others approach. Such a license seems feasible to write and would be superior to open-core for most users.
- pas 6y ago
  ... a bit theoretical, but how is the GPLv3 with the anti-Tivo provision okay? OSI definition 10: License must not restrict interface, and def. 9. License must not restrict other software it gets distributed with. (So I can't put my encrypted bootloader and verifier into the same thing.)

delfinom 6y ago

"OSI certified" doesn't mean shit regardless in a legal manner. It's just toilet paper. Always have your own legal review by IP lawyers.