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The post feels very self-entitled and needlessly inflammatory. Elastic's changing their license. No contributions are being stripped of their open source licen

The post feels very self-entitled and needlessly inflammatory. Elastic's changing their license. No contributions are being stripped of their open source license. You always have the last open source licensed version to go back to and fork if you like. What this author is upset about is that Elastic are no longer providing updates under a license the author feels they are entitled to. Maybe the author should fork the project and maintain it under an open license themselves?

015a 6y ago
AWS is the company which did this, with Open Distro for Elasticsearch. Turns out, AWS is more user and FOSS-friendly than the "open source company" which created the software in the first place. A surprising twist.
- byefruit 6y ago
  Is it? Do you really feel AWS' model is healthy for free software in the long term if business models around the creation and maintenance of open source projects disappear? I would say Google's approach of partnering with maintainers instead of competing with them is healthier, though only just.
  - Pet_Ant 6y ago
    I don't know if open-source _businesses_ are healthy for open-source. It seems to fit much better with community volunteer projects without the pressure of trying to develop a business model around them: which feels like the root of the problem. Sponsoring developers with Patreon and donation runs has worked in the past and given us great projects.
    - IfOnlyYouKnew 6y ago
      There is evidence to the contrary that seems to be relevant here. To wit, it's an "open-source business" providing the open source software people apparently feel very strongly about, not a "community volunteer project without the pressure".
    - byefruit 6y ago
      I'm genuinely interested in examples of great projects from those funding sources. When I think about OSS databases for example I can't think of any widely used ones that don't have at least one commercial entity that provides maintenance and support which funds development.
      - kjeetgill 6y ago
        There's difference between a) having a big corporate backer for an open-source project vs b) a company and business built around that open-source project. The incentives and existential threats towards the project are completely different.
  - 015a 6y ago
    I am not interested in models. I'm interested in actions. You want some guarantee that AWS, Google, or Elastic will treat the OSS community right. That guarantee doesn't exist. People bought in to Elastic's "guarantee" on this front years ago, and that did not pay off. There's no such thing as a model that stands the test of time; there's only today. Does it solve your problems? Is it licensed in a way that preserves the freedom of its users and maintainers? Is there recourse if that changes?
  - xorcist 6y ago
    The business model of having a monopoly on hosting Elastic was never compatible with open source in the first place. Open source in a business context is built on the premise of several suppliers competing on the same product. I can't help but notice that the increased competition made the product severely less neutered, as Amazon did publish their Elastic distribution as open source just as the model prescribes, and this put pressure on Elastic to reduce some on the limitations from theirs. No Tivoization seemed to have taken place. While partnering would have been much better for Elastic, I'm not sure Google would have done it better in this case.
kordlessagain 6y ago
Doesn't matter, because Shay's argument is that they own the trademark for Elasticsearch, which is absolutely correct: http://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4802:y6ym2l.2.2 http://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4802:y6y... Doesn't matter who has contributed to the project - whoever they are they own rights to keep the code base open and licensed open, but they don't own the name or the trademark rights. It would be well within Elastic's rights to change the name on the repo. Remember the whole Docker/Moby thing?
- byefruit 6y ago
  Does not being able to call itself Elasticsearch make a fork inoperable? I don't think wanting to protect a brand they've been investing in for years is unreasonable. Don't get me wrong. It would be great if Elastic, Redis and co didn't have to do this (change license) but AWS does pose an existential threat to their business models long term. I'd rather a standardised, so there's less fear around interpretations, more restrictive license than the businesses and _future_ ones becoming unviable.
skinkestek 6y ago
> The post feels very self-entitled Important detail: Drew seems to be taking his own medicine and has been doing so for years.

015a 6y ago

AWS is the company which did this, with Open Distro for Elasticsearch. Turns out, AWS is more user and FOSS-friendly than the "open source company" which created the software in the first place. A surprising twist.

byefruit 6y ago
Is it? Do you really feel AWS' model is healthy for free software in the long term if business models around the creation and maintenance of open source projects disappear? I would say Google's approach of partnering with maintainers instead of competing with them is healthier, though only just.
- Pet_Ant 6y ago
  I don't know if open-source _businesses_ are healthy for open-source. It seems to fit much better with community volunteer projects without the pressure of trying to develop a business model around them: which feels like the root of the problem. Sponsoring developers with Patreon and donation runs has worked in the past and given us great projects.
  - IfOnlyYouKnew 6y ago
    There is evidence to the contrary that seems to be relevant here. To wit, it's an "open-source business" providing the open source software people apparently feel very strongly about, not a "community volunteer project without the pressure".
  - byefruit 6y ago
    I'm genuinely interested in examples of great projects from those funding sources. When I think about OSS databases for example I can't think of any widely used ones that don't have at least one commercial entity that provides maintenance and support which funds development.
    - kjeetgill 6y ago
      There's difference between a) having a big corporate backer for an open-source project vs b) a company and business built around that open-source project. The incentives and existential threats towards the project are completely different.
- 015a 6y ago
  I am not interested in models. I'm interested in actions. You want some guarantee that AWS, Google, or Elastic will treat the OSS community right. That guarantee doesn't exist. People bought in to Elastic's "guarantee" on this front years ago, and that did not pay off. There's no such thing as a model that stands the test of time; there's only today. Does it solve your problems? Is it licensed in a way that preserves the freedom of its users and maintainers? Is there recourse if that changes?
- xorcist 6y ago
  The business model of having a monopoly on hosting Elastic was never compatible with open source in the first place. Open source in a business context is built on the premise of several suppliers competing on the same product. I can't help but notice that the increased competition made the product severely less neutered, as Amazon did publish their Elastic distribution as open source just as the model prescribes, and this put pressure on Elastic to reduce some on the limitations from theirs. No Tivoization seemed to have taken place. While partnering would have been much better for Elastic, I'm not sure Google would have done it better in this case.

kordlessagain 6y ago

Doesn't matter, because Shay's argument is that they own the trademark for Elasticsearch, which is absolutely correct: http://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4802:y6ym2l.2.2 http://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4802:y6y... Doesn't matter who has contributed to the project - whoever they are they own rights to keep the code base open and licensed open, but they don't own the name or the trademark rights. It would be well within Elastic's rights to change the name on the repo. Remember the whole Docker/Moby thing?

byefruit 6y ago
Does not being able to call itself Elasticsearch make a fork inoperable? I don't think wanting to protect a brand they've been investing in for years is unreasonable. Don't get me wrong. It would be great if Elastic, Redis and co didn't have to do this (change license) but AWS does pose an existential threat to their business models long term. I'd rather a standardised, so there's less fear around interpretations, more restrictive license than the businesses and _future_ ones becoming unviable.

skinkestek 6y ago

> The post feels very self-entitled Important detail: Drew seems to be taking his own medicine and has been doing so for years.