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I feel like there is something I am profoundly opposed to with this article but I’m struggling to put it into words. Without being technically precise: This ar

I feel like there is something I am profoundly opposed to with this article but I’m struggling to put it into words. Without being technically precise: This article is arguing against monopolization of commercial exploitation because more value is created when tools are available freely. Cool. I have to read this article in the context of Elastics recent license change, which seems to be in response to “monopolistic” practices by amazon. I don’t know if the word “monopoly” is exactly the right one, but they seem to be using their size and market share to snowball competitive advantage in a way that doesn’t necessarily add value for humanity. I’d rather Elastic hoover up the cloud money than Amazon, precisely because I think we’re better off with less centralized power. So maybe my objection is that this article seems to me to be dogmatically asserting some principles, and goring it’s own ox, ie harming the thing that those principles are attempting to protect. Admittedly this might be a misread/ignorance on my part, and maybe I’m triggered by the tone of the article, which reads quite strident to me. An important discussion, though, and glad that devault wrote it.

turbinerneiter 6y ago
Not sure how you come to this conclusion - but I am also not sure how I came to mine: * Open Source is cool * Open Source means everyone can use your stuff and by releasing you kinda gave up your right to complain about that - it's the point of Open Source that others can use your stuff * if you want Open Source, but make sure the others who use your stuff also share your stuff, maybe use GPL, which designed for that? I do really feel for projects like elastic - but also, they all used the "wrong" license.
- zokier 6y ago
  > * if you want Open Source, but make sure the others who use your stuff also share your stuff, maybe use GPL, which designed for that? > I do really feel for projects like elastic - but also, they all used the "wrong" license. It is worth noting that SSPL which the discussion revolves around originates from MongoDB which originally was AGPL. So they started with "right" license and still ended up switching. Part of the blame falls on AGPL not being clear enough, which led Mongo to overcorrect when creating SSPL.
  - rakoo 6y ago
    > Part of the blame falls on AGPL not being clear enough, which led Mongo to overcorrect when creating SSPL. No, AGPL (and GPL before it) is working as intended; the issue for Mongo and Elastic is that it never cared about how you're making money, and that's very much by design. I don't see SSPL as improving the freedom of the users of software, so I don't really see a fault in (A)GPL
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
mannykannot 6y ago
What you call "goring its own ox" is the author pointing out that there is an inconsistency in, on the one hand, wanting to influence how your software is used, and on the other, releasing it as FOSS. Elastic's license change is a consequence of it realizing that, in its case, these two things are not compatible, and preferring the former.
turminal 6y ago
I don't mean to defend Amazon here (or in general), but Elastic is the one that is trying to be monopolistic.
- roflc0ptic 6y ago
  I think that both orgs are displaying monopolistic power. ES has much narrower monopoly power than Amazon, and indeed, the monopoly power that is owning IP is generally agreed to be acceptable, whereas Amazon’s seems far less clear cut
sam0x17 6y ago
I look at it this way: Which is a better world to live in? A world where a number of commercial entities make their software "open" but with commercial restrictions like Mongo, etc., or where these companies simply close source their products completely to avoid the consternation of the open source community for being "open" but not "free" for all use cases. Clearly the former is the better world to live in. If we only allow a super narrow definition of open source to be considered open source, we are doing a disservice to the software community at large.
- __blockcipher__ 6y ago
  You’re drawing a false dichotomy here.
- seba_dos1 6y ago
  The "open source" definition isn't "super narrow", it's just well-defined and has been for years. Now some people want to extend it to include things that go against that definition. The reality isn't how you make it sound.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
Doesn't this argument apply just as well to Linux, though? It's hard to see how the open source community could work if everyone started saying "well, my ox is being gored because I'm not capturing enough of the value generated by the project I started".
- roflc0ptic 6y ago
  This strikes me as a reasonable point. My somewhat wishy-washy response. There are some differences in the situations. ES has always been a commercial enterprise; Linux is not. As I understand it, Linux basically has a functioning ecosystem that keeps its development funded (although certainly numerous issues exist there). If e.g. Red Hat managed to start threatening the linux ecosystem, and modifying their license gave them recourse to protect themselves, I’d be pretty sympathetic. Are there reasonable principles undergirding my position here? I can’t tell this morning
  - xandroo 6y ago
    > ES has always been a commercial enterprise Doesn’t seem to be true. > Shay Banon released the first version of Elasticsearch in February 2010. > Elastic NV was founded in 2012 to provide commercial services and products around Elasticsearch and related software. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elasticsearch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elasticsearch
    - roflc0ptic 6y ago
      Oh. There I go making unfounded assertions. Thanks!
danaris 6y ago
I think that at least one thing that's going on here that while OSS does, all else being equal, create more value for the world, when the world contains monopolistic megacorporations like Amazon, they will be able to disproportionately benefit from any such value. As I noted in a comment elsewhere on this article, if the corporate landscape now looked more like it did 30 years ago, a good open source project with a permissive license would be likely to enable a wide variety of competitive small-to-medium companies to do cool things. Today, by contrast, even if there are small-to-medium companies who try to pick it up and do a cool thing with it, they're not trying to compete with other companies in the same weight class: they have to compete with Amazon, a 900-pound gorilla who just muscles out or outright eats its competition. So I don't think a fair takeaway here is, "It feels like permissive open source should be better, but because massive conglomerates like Amazon can make disproportionate use of that to hurt everyone else, restrictive licenses are better on principle." I think it's much closer to, "It feels like permissive open source should be better, but because massive conglomerates like Amazon can make disproportionate use of that to hurt everyone else, we should find ways to break the disproportionate power of massive conglomerates."
- roflc0ptic 6y ago
  Yes, I think this is closer to what I wanted to say than what I said. Thanks!
belorn 6y ago
My own reaction was similar in that I felt opposed to this article. In particular I have two major issues. First issue and foremost, a copyright license should be the terms under which a author feel comfortable that other people use their work. In term of open source and free software, those terms are usually formed in the context of those communities. The second issue is the claim that FOSS licenses exist for the express purpose of breaking the artificial monopoly of intellectual property. This is a common discussed topic around GPL, and here the authors of GPL has said some key details that I find important. A copyright license is a strategy to achieve the goals of the author and community, rather than being an end in it self. The strategy that produce the best outcome is the correct license. Sometimes that means the best license is the surrender of the concept of intellectual property, and in other cases it can be the embrace of intellectual property as a tool to enforce rules which result in outcomes of most freedom for everyone.
ardy42 6y ago
> and goring it’s own ox, ie harming the thing that those principles are attempting to protect Do you have any references for that idiom? I'm finding surprisingly little with Google, except for a handful of hits that confirm it's not a neologism.
- pseudalopex 6y ago
  "It depends on whose ox is gored" is more common.
__blockcipher__ 6y ago
> but they seem to be using their size and market share to snowball competitive advantage in a way that doesn’t necessarily add value for humanity How can you argue with a straight face that there is no value to humanity? If I have a project and need application logging at scale and I pay AWS for managed elasticsearch, obviously that’s providing me value - that’s why I’m paying for it. For lack of a better word you seem to have this marxist/communist mentality where you view voluntary free market transactions as somehow not being an example of mutual benefit (the underlying principle of free trade). Isn’t it self-evident that when I buy an iphone or buy food at the grocery store, that I am gaining value? —- BTW, you seem to also ironically confuse the concept of monopoly with the concept of free market competition. Being a good competitor, like AWS Elasticsearch, is not a monopoly. Indeed it is Elastic who is trying to change their license in order to monopolize this market.

turbinerneiter 6y ago

Not sure how you come to this conclusion - but I am also not sure how I came to mine: * Open Source is cool * Open Source means everyone can use your stuff and by releasing you kinda gave up your right to complain about that - it's the point of Open Source that others can use your stuff * if you want Open Source, but make sure the others who use your stuff also share your stuff, maybe use GPL, which designed for that? I do really feel for projects like elastic - but also, they all used the "wrong" license.

zokier 6y ago
> * if you want Open Source, but make sure the others who use your stuff also share your stuff, maybe use GPL, which designed for that? > I do really feel for projects like elastic - but also, they all used the "wrong" license. It is worth noting that SSPL which the discussion revolves around originates from MongoDB which originally was AGPL. So they started with "right" license and still ended up switching. Part of the blame falls on AGPL not being clear enough, which led Mongo to overcorrect when creating SSPL.
- rakoo 6y ago
  > Part of the blame falls on AGPL not being clear enough, which led Mongo to overcorrect when creating SSPL. No, AGPL (and GPL before it) is working as intended; the issue for Mongo and Elastic is that it never cared about how you're making money, and that's very much by design. I don't see SSPL as improving the freedom of the users of software, so I don't really see a fault in (A)GPL
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

mannykannot 6y ago

What you call "goring its own ox" is the author pointing out that there is an inconsistency in, on the one hand, wanting to influence how your software is used, and on the other, releasing it as FOSS. Elastic's license change is a consequence of it realizing that, in its case, these two things are not compatible, and preferring the former.

turminal 6y ago

I don't mean to defend Amazon here (or in general), but Elastic is the one that is trying to be monopolistic.

roflc0ptic 6y ago
I think that both orgs are displaying monopolistic power. ES has much narrower monopoly power than Amazon, and indeed, the monopoly power that is owning IP is generally agreed to be acceptable, whereas Amazon’s seems far less clear cut

sam0x17 6y ago

I look at it this way: Which is a better world to live in? A world where a number of commercial entities make their software "open" but with commercial restrictions like Mongo, etc., or where these companies simply close source their products completely to avoid the consternation of the open source community for being "open" but not "free" for all use cases. Clearly the former is the better world to live in. If we only allow a super narrow definition of open source to be considered open source, we are doing a disservice to the software community at large.

__blockcipher__ 6y ago
You’re drawing a false dichotomy here.
seba_dos1 6y ago
The "open source" definition isn't "super narrow", it's just well-defined and has been for years. Now some people want to extend it to include things that go against that definition. The reality isn't how you make it sound.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

SpicyLemonZest 6y ago

Doesn't this argument apply just as well to Linux, though? It's hard to see how the open source community could work if everyone started saying "well, my ox is being gored because I'm not capturing enough of the value generated by the project I started".

roflc0ptic 6y ago
This strikes me as a reasonable point. My somewhat wishy-washy response. There are some differences in the situations. ES has always been a commercial enterprise; Linux is not. As I understand it, Linux basically has a functioning ecosystem that keeps its development funded (although certainly numerous issues exist there). If e.g. Red Hat managed to start threatening the linux ecosystem, and modifying their license gave them recourse to protect themselves, I’d be pretty sympathetic. Are there reasonable principles undergirding my position here? I can’t tell this morning
- xandroo 6y ago
  > ES has always been a commercial enterprise Doesn’t seem to be true. > Shay Banon released the first version of Elasticsearch in February 2010. > Elastic NV was founded in 2012 to provide commercial services and products around Elasticsearch and related software. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elasticsearch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elasticsearch
  - roflc0ptic 6y ago
    Oh. There I go making unfounded assertions. Thanks!

danaris 6y ago

I think that at least one thing that's going on here that while OSS does, all else being equal, create more value for the world, when the world contains monopolistic megacorporations like Amazon, they will be able to disproportionately benefit from any such value. As I noted in a comment elsewhere on this article, if the corporate landscape now looked more like it did 30 years ago, a good open source project with a permissive license would be likely to enable a wide variety of competitive small-to-medium companies to do cool things. Today, by contrast, even if there are small-to-medium companies who try to pick it up and do a cool thing with it, they're not trying to compete with other companies in the same weight class: they have to compete with Amazon, a 900-pound gorilla who just muscles out or outright eats its competition. So I don't think a fair takeaway here is, "It feels like permissive open source should be better, but because massive conglomerates like Amazon can make disproportionate use of that to hurt everyone else, restrictive licenses are better on principle." I think it's much closer to, "It feels like permissive open source should be better, but because massive conglomerates like Amazon can make disproportionate use of that to hurt everyone else, we should find ways to break the disproportionate power of massive conglomerates."

roflc0ptic 6y ago
Yes, I think this is closer to what I wanted to say than what I said. Thanks!

belorn 6y ago

My own reaction was similar in that I felt opposed to this article. In particular I have two major issues. First issue and foremost, a copyright license should be the terms under which a author feel comfortable that other people use their work. In term of open source and free software, those terms are usually formed in the context of those communities. The second issue is the claim that FOSS licenses exist for the express purpose of breaking the artificial monopoly of intellectual property. This is a common discussed topic around GPL, and here the authors of GPL has said some key details that I find important. A copyright license is a strategy to achieve the goals of the author and community, rather than being an end in it self. The strategy that produce the best outcome is the correct license. Sometimes that means the best license is the surrender of the concept of intellectual property, and in other cases it can be the embrace of intellectual property as a tool to enforce rules which result in outcomes of most freedom for everyone.

ardy42 6y ago

> and goring it’s own ox, ie harming the thing that those principles are attempting to protect Do you have any references for that idiom? I'm finding surprisingly little with Google, except for a handful of hits that confirm it's not a neologism.

pseudalopex 6y ago
"It depends on whose ox is gored" is more common.

__blockcipher__ 6y ago

> but they seem to be using their size and market share to snowball competitive advantage in a way that doesn’t necessarily add value for humanity How can you argue with a straight face that there is no value to humanity? If I have a project and need application logging at scale and I pay AWS for managed elasticsearch, obviously that’s providing me value - that’s why I’m paying for it. For lack of a better word you seem to have this marxist/communist mentality where you view voluntary free market transactions as somehow not being an example of mutual benefit (the underlying principle of free trade). Isn’t it self-evident that when I buy an iphone or buy food at the grocery store, that I am gaining value? —- BTW, you seem to also ironically confuse the concept of monopoly with the concept of free market competition. Being a good competitor, like AWS Elasticsearch, is not a monopoly. Indeed it is Elastic who is trying to change their license in order to monopolize this market.