17 ms·

> they could have chosen AGPL if they wanted someone hosting a service to publish their changes, for example. So... you admit that the people who created the G

by cwyers 6y ago

> they could have chosen AGPL if they wanted someone hosting a service to publish their changes, for example. So... you admit that the people who created the GPL decided their license wasn't sufficient to cover a certain usecase and revised it to cover it. But you think it's unfair to call this a "gap" that ES is now trying to close? EDIT: I do think it's fair to point out ways in which the new license for ES is worse than the AGPL, but I do think it's important to point out that it's possible to believe in open source licenses and to think that the way AWS uses software violates the spirit of open source. The people who work on GNU seem to think that!

sokoloff 6y ago
I see it as “there are a variety of licenses from which to choose, depending on your goals”. BSD, Apache, and MIT all represent different points in space, as do GPL and AGPL. When I choose Apache or MIT, I do so for a reason and if you or Amazon use code in compliance with that license, I’m happy and you’re not “exploiting a gap” but rather “complying with the terms I offered”.
- klintcho 6y ago
  Fully agree with this. Free is free, you could always argue that there is "a spirit to open source"; but as with everything there's always going to be people exploiting and using it, that comes with the free. To me it boils down to if you think that it's worth it: whenever I put MIT or Apache 2.0 on my public Github projects, I don't mind anyone going out making millions on them. Other side of the coin; if I make millions on some obscure library I found on Github with an MIT license, I do not expect them to be outraged about it. If you do not think it's worth it, as you said there are a range of other licenses out there. I love the notion of human knowledge being free and available to all to the fullest extent, I think it will drive (and has driven) immense value for humankind.
  - cmiles74 6y ago
    It's worth keeping in mind that we don't always know which projects will truly become successful. The precursor to Elasticsearch, Compass, wasn't hugely popular. When I started looking hard at Elasticsearch, with plans to actually use it, I had to spend a lot of time explaining why I didn't want to use Solr, which was much more popular at the time. In my opinion, the bottom line is this: if Amazon's exploitative behavior is continues then we're going to see more and more open source products shift towards janky-kind-of-open-source or entirely closed licenses. Small or experimental projects will have open and permissive licenses, their authors will have plans for shifting licenses should the product become really successful. I think it marks the end of this idea that you could have an open source project and then build a commercial offering around it. No matter who you are, odds are good Amazon will get such an offering off the ground faster and they have a built-in market of AWS customers. Elasticsearch has made their motives clear: they have real concerns that Amazon is diluting their brand and they feel that Amazon is costing them too many customers with their proprietary AWS product. We can quibble about the morals of Amazon's move (they have none, corporations have no morals) but let's not lose sight of the outcome: Amazon has forced another OSS project to switch to a closed license[0]. [0]: https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/21/redis-labs-changes-its-open-source-license-again/ https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/21/redis-labs-changes-its-ope...
    - sokoloff 6y ago
      Another OSS project has chosen to switch to a closed license in response to competition from Amazon.
      - cmiles74 6y ago
        I'm not sure what value the word "chosen" has in this context. Amazon is one of the largest and wealthiest technology companies in the world with a large captive audience of customers locked into their AWS product. On what terms could Elasticsearch compete with Amazon, especially when any improvements to the product would effectively be improvements to Amazon's product as well? While I may step out of the way of an oncoming train, is it really a choice? No, it's clear that an oncoming train forces people to step out of the way.
    - 6y ago
  - csunbird 6y ago
    People also seem to miss a point when trying to invoke the "Spirit of the Open Source License": The only reason why Elastic is changing their license is because they want to profit from it. So, isn't that exactly against the "Spirit of Open Source License"? If they truly cared about that, they should be angry about it at all. Choosing sides here seems to be choosing between two profit seeking companies. Why, as a developer, you should take a side?
    - cosmiccatnap 6y ago
      Profit is a strong word. You can't continue to improve the project without paying people so what you are really saying here is that people should build aws products for free as non-amazon employees. There is a big difference in paying to keep the lights on and making millions a day on someone else's product. It's likely amazon has more employees working on Amazon's flavor of elastic cache than elaaticache has. The difference is that aws doesn't commit it's improvements or work back into the elaaticache project meaning the relationship is parasitic. I can't blame elaaticache for what they did anymore than I can blame aws for trying to make money but if you want products in the future to be with people's time to make and built like elaaticache from the ground up to fill a need for free you have to find ways to protect them from predatory practices and if that isn't in the current licencing model then we need a GPLv4 to address those concerns. The argument people are making is a simple one. Yes they can do this but it's clearly not what the intention of these licenses are and therefore we need to chance the licenses to address scenarios where the code is used to harm the individuals who produced it.
    - rstupek 6y ago
      I as a developer take the side that allows me to use the open source code as I see fit based on the license terms provided. Elastic initially chose a license which would allow them to capture more of the market/mind space of developers and now that they've accomplished that they want to fully monetize those developers.
yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
> But you think it's unfair to call this a "gap" that ES is now trying to close? Yes, because ES didn't use any GPL license even when they had every option to; they used the Apache license which is explicitly incredibly permissive.
- esrauch 6y ago
  I don't think this is a fair critique: they have a pragmatic goal of running a business while being as unrestrictive as possible. With their Apache choice a pragmatic balance was met where developers could use/modify it as they please or use a managed solution from EC or even a managed solution from another company. The ecosystem thrives and their company can thrive. But a managed solution from AWS ends being materially new and different: AWS is able to undercut them on every front, and people end up viewing AWS ElasticSearch as the canonical ElasticSearch. Maybe trademark infringement aside, Amazon didn't break the law but they created an unprecedented situation that changed the effective balance of power which changed whether Apache was achieving their EC's goals or not.
jefftk 6y ago
The AGPL is nearly 2 decades old, and its tradeoffs are well known among people working in open source. If Elastic had wanted its protections (and restrictions) they easily could have chosen it.
- freeqaz 6y ago
  AGPL also harms adoption at companies because of the "invasive" nature of the license. Google, for example, bans the use of any AGPL software. It's too vague for the legal team to confidently understand the "bounds" of the copyleft license. Permissive licenses like MIT/Apache have historically been what companies prefer to have when evaluating free software. And, generally, it hasn't been a problem for companies like Elastic because companies like Amazon didn't "take" profits from Elastic (and others). What has shifted is that, where before, there was a "code of honor" that companies could use FOSS software and Elastic would benefit from the uptick in adoption via support contracts, community building libs + writing docs, and encouraging "network effects" for them. The "cost" of being a FOSS company was lower than the "reaped" benefits of the network effects. That has shifted with "predatory" behavior from companies like Amazon. That abuse of the "vulnerability" in the FOSS ecosystem is a tragedy of the commons. It means that companies have to be more cautious about what they choose to open source. This is just my opinion, of course. As a founder of a software company though, I see this as a real struggle. I would prefer have https://refinery.io https://refinery.io be an entirely open source tool and we make money via supporting the ecosystem. Unfortunately, it just isn't clear cut. The best option that I see today is a model like what MongoDB and CockroachDB have with licenses like BSL. But, they're not truly "open source". And that sucks. We are living in a time where there are no good answers in the face of exploitative behavior by companies like Amazon. It means companies like mine have to maintain a proprietary platform in order to make money. As a developer, it hurts my ideals. As a business owner, it's a risk I can't afford to take. That's why this behavior is a problem for FOSS.
  - skywhopper 6y ago
    None of this is new. GNU was founded and developed its licenses to address this issue. But there’s a tradeoff. One that GNU happily accepts. But there has never been a “code of honor” in this space. Give me a break. Companies have been offering Apache- and GPL- licensed software as a service for longer than Elastic has been a company. Elastic wanted to have its cake and eat it too. They overplayed their hand here and now they’re paying the price. They’ll likely soon lose control of the code base. But that’s the whole point of open source.
ryukafalz 6y ago
>So... you admit that the people who created the GPL decided their license wasn't sufficient to cover a certain usecase and revised it to cover it. But you think it's unfair to call this a "gap" that ES is now trying to close? The gap in that case was that the GPL was not sufficient to ensure that software remain free software when companies started using SaaS for software that previously would have been run locally. SaaS was in effect a workaround for the GPL's distribution requirement (enabling companies to avoid giving the software's users the freedoms associated with free software), so the AGPL was created for software that was meant to run on a server. This is different: the point of contention here is not that Elastic's software was being made proprietary (they could have easily used the AGPL if that was their concern, the AGPLv3 predates the first Elasticsearch release by three years) but that Amazon is using their software to compete with them. That's something that's pretty fundamental to both free software: >The freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose (freedom 0). ...and open source: >The license must not restrict anyone from making use of the program in a specific field of endeavor. For example, it may not restrict the program from being used in a business, or from being used for genetic research. Freedom 0 is a feature, not a bug! It may be a "gap" in Elastic's business model, but it's certainly not a gap in FOSS licenses - the freedom to use the software as you wish is a pretty core value of free software. Now that said, I do think that taking FOSS and making it proprietary certainly does violate the spirit of free software. Amazon doesn't seem to have done that here, though - their fork is under the Apache 2 license.
- cmiles74 6y ago
  Amazon doesn't need to use a proprietary license, the product they have built around Elasticsearch is itself proprietary. They have produced and are selling Elasticsearch-as-a-service for their AWS environment.
andrewmutz 6y ago
Elastic wants to get the benefits of permissive licenses without the drawbacks. Having a permissive license is a massive asset for getting people to adopt your software, but it means you will have no control over what they do with it. They want the goodwill and other benefits of a permissive license without loss of control that these licenses bring.
- cmiles74 6y ago
  I have to disagree, I see no reason to think that Elasticsearch is seeking to avoid "the drawbacks" of a permissive license. I believe the project has been using a permissive license since it's first release in 2010. What they are objecting to is having their project co-opted by Amazon, one of the largest and wealthiest technology companies in the world. Elasticsearch and Amazon have been battling this out for a couple of years now, this is the latest move in that battle.[0] They have been very clear that the reason they are changing the license is Amazon, not "the drawbacks" of an open source license. [0]: https://searchaws.techtarget.com/news/252471650/AWS-faces-Elasticsearch-lawsuit-for-trademark-infringement https://searchaws.techtarget.com/news/252471650/AWS-faces-El...
  - zerocrates 6y ago
    That Amazon can do this is "the drawback" here.
    - spion 6y ago
      They could also collaborate with Elastic as a customer. In fact, the model where a company develops a managed service and offers it on cloud providers infrastructure (i.e. "app store") would have everyone benefit: * Amazon, from the wealth of innovative managed services they could offer without fully maintaining them themselves * OSS companies, for the ability to financially sustain their projects and still offer it for free for those that want to self host without offering a managed version of the same software * End users, who can both use the software however they wish and also choose to get a nice managed version of it. Instead what will happen due to AWS behavior here is that there will be a lot less incentive to develop innovative new services, at least in a non-proprietary way => therefore there will be fewer services in general for AWS to offer without doing all the product work from scratch, fewer tools in general for engineers and fewer OSS tools in particular and more Firebase-like offerings. So everybody loses here in the long run. I'm going to go on a limb and say that whichever of the cloud providers figures out the "app store" equivalent for managed services is going to be able to take over from AWS.
germansm 6y ago
Open source is not about the license but the philosophy
- nine_k 6y ago
  Like, contributing back? AFAICT Amazon did contribute back to ES, in the form of code. Running a profitable business to service free software has nothing to do with the philosophy.
  - germansm 6y ago
    "When the service launched, imagine our surprise when the Amazon CTO tweeted that the service was released in collaboration with us. It was not. And over the years, we have heard repeatedly that this confusion persists. NOT OK." https://www.elastic.co/blog/why-license-change-AWS https://www.elastic.co/blog/why-license-change-AWS
- bawolff 6y ago
  "Free Software" is not about the license but the philosiphy. "Open source" on the other hand...
  - tsimionescu 6y ago
    Regardless, neither helps with Elastic's problem (if we accept it as a problem).
m463 6y ago
RMS once said: the GPL doesn't restrict how you USE the software. If it restricts who can use the software or what they can do with it I believe it isn't classified as free software. The AGPL is slightly different than GPL. It confers more responsibilities on cloud providers, so that the users of the software (as a service) have the right to the source and any modifications.
mattl 6y ago
The A in AGPL stands for Affero, which was a company that produced a version of the GPL (with FSF permission) -- that was AGPLv1, written by a commercial company in 2002 to fix the loophole in the GPL.
g9yuayon 6y ago
I thought Stallman created GPL so software can be "free as in speech". It's another dimensional of ideology, and respectably so. It, however, has nothing do with whether it is moral for AWS to host an Apache-licensed open-source package.
titway 6y ago
It is what is says. Calling it a gap is your opinion for your own biases, however you got them. They knew what they were getting into.

by cwyers 6y ago

sokoloff 6y ago

I see it as “there are a variety of licenses from which to choose, depending on your goals”. BSD, Apache, and MIT all represent different points in space, as do GPL and AGPL. When I choose Apache or MIT, I do so for a reason and if you or Amazon use code in compliance with that license, I’m happy and you’re not “exploiting a gap” but rather “complying with the terms I offered”.

klintcho 6y ago
Fully agree with this. Free is free, you could always argue that there is "a spirit to open source"; but as with everything there's always going to be people exploiting and using it, that comes with the free. To me it boils down to if you think that it's worth it: whenever I put MIT or Apache 2.0 on my public Github projects, I don't mind anyone going out making millions on them. Other side of the coin; if I make millions on some obscure library I found on Github with an MIT license, I do not expect them to be outraged about it. If you do not think it's worth it, as you said there are a range of other licenses out there. I love the notion of human knowledge being free and available to all to the fullest extent, I think it will drive (and has driven) immense value for humankind.
- cmiles74 6y ago
  It's worth keeping in mind that we don't always know which projects will truly become successful. The precursor to Elasticsearch, Compass, wasn't hugely popular. When I started looking hard at Elasticsearch, with plans to actually use it, I had to spend a lot of time explaining why I didn't want to use Solr, which was much more popular at the time. In my opinion, the bottom line is this: if Amazon's exploitative behavior is continues then we're going to see more and more open source products shift towards janky-kind-of-open-source or entirely closed licenses. Small or experimental projects will have open and permissive licenses, their authors will have plans for shifting licenses should the product become really successful. I think it marks the end of this idea that you could have an open source project and then build a commercial offering around it. No matter who you are, odds are good Amazon will get such an offering off the ground faster and they have a built-in market of AWS customers. Elasticsearch has made their motives clear: they have real concerns that Amazon is diluting their brand and they feel that Amazon is costing them too many customers with their proprietary AWS product. We can quibble about the morals of Amazon's move (they have none, corporations have no morals) but let's not lose sight of the outcome: Amazon has forced another OSS project to switch to a closed license[0]. [0]: https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/21/redis-labs-changes-its-open-source-license-again/ https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/21/redis-labs-changes-its-ope...
  - sokoloff 6y ago
    Another OSS project has chosen to switch to a closed license in response to competition from Amazon.
    - cmiles74 6y ago
      I'm not sure what value the word "chosen" has in this context. Amazon is one of the largest and wealthiest technology companies in the world with a large captive audience of customers locked into their AWS product. On what terms could Elasticsearch compete with Amazon, especially when any improvements to the product would effectively be improvements to Amazon's product as well? While I may step out of the way of an oncoming train, is it really a choice? No, it's clear that an oncoming train forces people to step out of the way.
  - 6y ago
- csunbird 6y ago
  People also seem to miss a point when trying to invoke the "Spirit of the Open Source License": The only reason why Elastic is changing their license is because they want to profit from it. So, isn't that exactly against the "Spirit of Open Source License"? If they truly cared about that, they should be angry about it at all. Choosing sides here seems to be choosing between two profit seeking companies. Why, as a developer, you should take a side?
  - cosmiccatnap 6y ago
    Profit is a strong word. You can't continue to improve the project without paying people so what you are really saying here is that people should build aws products for free as non-amazon employees. There is a big difference in paying to keep the lights on and making millions a day on someone else's product. It's likely amazon has more employees working on Amazon's flavor of elastic cache than elaaticache has. The difference is that aws doesn't commit it's improvements or work back into the elaaticache project meaning the relationship is parasitic. I can't blame elaaticache for what they did anymore than I can blame aws for trying to make money but if you want products in the future to be with people's time to make and built like elaaticache from the ground up to fill a need for free you have to find ways to protect them from predatory practices and if that isn't in the current licencing model then we need a GPLv4 to address those concerns. The argument people are making is a simple one. Yes they can do this but it's clearly not what the intention of these licenses are and therefore we need to chance the licenses to address scenarios where the code is used to harm the individuals who produced it.
  - rstupek 6y ago
    I as a developer take the side that allows me to use the open source code as I see fit based on the license terms provided. Elastic initially chose a license which would allow them to capture more of the market/mind space of developers and now that they've accomplished that they want to fully monetize those developers.

yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago

> But you think it's unfair to call this a "gap" that ES is now trying to close? Yes, because ES didn't use any GPL license even when they had every option to; they used the Apache license which is explicitly incredibly permissive.

esrauch 6y ago
I don't think this is a fair critique: they have a pragmatic goal of running a business while being as unrestrictive as possible. With their Apache choice a pragmatic balance was met where developers could use/modify it as they please or use a managed solution from EC or even a managed solution from another company. The ecosystem thrives and their company can thrive. But a managed solution from AWS ends being materially new and different: AWS is able to undercut them on every front, and people end up viewing AWS ElasticSearch as the canonical ElasticSearch. Maybe trademark infringement aside, Amazon didn't break the law but they created an unprecedented situation that changed the effective balance of power which changed whether Apache was achieving their EC's goals or not.

jefftk 6y ago

The AGPL is nearly 2 decades old, and its tradeoffs are well known among people working in open source. If Elastic had wanted its protections (and restrictions) they easily could have chosen it.

freeqaz 6y ago
AGPL also harms adoption at companies because of the "invasive" nature of the license. Google, for example, bans the use of any AGPL software. It's too vague for the legal team to confidently understand the "bounds" of the copyleft license. Permissive licenses like MIT/Apache have historically been what companies prefer to have when evaluating free software. And, generally, it hasn't been a problem for companies like Elastic because companies like Amazon didn't "take" profits from Elastic (and others). What has shifted is that, where before, there was a "code of honor" that companies could use FOSS software and Elastic would benefit from the uptick in adoption via support contracts, community building libs + writing docs, and encouraging "network effects" for them. The "cost" of being a FOSS company was lower than the "reaped" benefits of the network effects. That has shifted with "predatory" behavior from companies like Amazon. That abuse of the "vulnerability" in the FOSS ecosystem is a tragedy of the commons. It means that companies have to be more cautious about what they choose to open source. This is just my opinion, of course. As a founder of a software company though, I see this as a real struggle. I would prefer have https://refinery.io https://refinery.io be an entirely open source tool and we make money via supporting the ecosystem. Unfortunately, it just isn't clear cut. The best option that I see today is a model like what MongoDB and CockroachDB have with licenses like BSL. But, they're not truly "open source". And that sucks. We are living in a time where there are no good answers in the face of exploitative behavior by companies like Amazon. It means companies like mine have to maintain a proprietary platform in order to make money. As a developer, it hurts my ideals. As a business owner, it's a risk I can't afford to take. That's why this behavior is a problem for FOSS.
- skywhopper 6y ago
  None of this is new. GNU was founded and developed its licenses to address this issue. But there’s a tradeoff. One that GNU happily accepts. But there has never been a “code of honor” in this space. Give me a break. Companies have been offering Apache- and GPL- licensed software as a service for longer than Elastic has been a company. Elastic wanted to have its cake and eat it too. They overplayed their hand here and now they’re paying the price. They’ll likely soon lose control of the code base. But that’s the whole point of open source.

ryukafalz 6y ago

>So... you admit that the people who created the GPL decided their license wasn't sufficient to cover a certain usecase and revised it to cover it. But you think it's unfair to call this a "gap" that ES is now trying to close? The gap in that case was that the GPL was not sufficient to ensure that software remain free software when companies started using SaaS for software that previously would have been run locally. SaaS was in effect a workaround for the GPL's distribution requirement (enabling companies to avoid giving the software's users the freedoms associated with free software), so the AGPL was created for software that was meant to run on a server. This is different: the point of contention here is not that Elastic's software was being made proprietary (they could have easily used the AGPL if that was their concern, the AGPLv3 predates the first Elasticsearch release by three years) but that Amazon is using their software to compete with them. That's something that's pretty fundamental to both free software: >The freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose (freedom 0). ...and open source: >The license must not restrict anyone from making use of the program in a specific field of endeavor. For example, it may not restrict the program from being used in a business, or from being used for genetic research. Freedom 0 is a feature, not a bug! It may be a "gap" in Elastic's business model, but it's certainly not a gap in FOSS licenses - the freedom to use the software as you wish is a pretty core value of free software. Now that said, I do think that taking FOSS and making it proprietary certainly does violate the spirit of free software. Amazon doesn't seem to have done that here, though - their fork is under the Apache 2 license.

cmiles74 6y ago
Amazon doesn't need to use a proprietary license, the product they have built around Elasticsearch is itself proprietary. They have produced and are selling Elasticsearch-as-a-service for their AWS environment.

andrewmutz 6y ago

Elastic wants to get the benefits of permissive licenses without the drawbacks. Having a permissive license is a massive asset for getting people to adopt your software, but it means you will have no control over what they do with it. They want the goodwill and other benefits of a permissive license without loss of control that these licenses bring.

cmiles74 6y ago
I have to disagree, I see no reason to think that Elasticsearch is seeking to avoid "the drawbacks" of a permissive license. I believe the project has been using a permissive license since it's first release in 2010. What they are objecting to is having their project co-opted by Amazon, one of the largest and wealthiest technology companies in the world. Elasticsearch and Amazon have been battling this out for a couple of years now, this is the latest move in that battle.[0] They have been very clear that the reason they are changing the license is Amazon, not "the drawbacks" of an open source license. [0]: https://searchaws.techtarget.com/news/252471650/AWS-faces-Elasticsearch-lawsuit-for-trademark-infringement https://searchaws.techtarget.com/news/252471650/AWS-faces-El...
- zerocrates 6y ago
  That Amazon can do this is "the drawback" here.
  - spion 6y ago
    They could also collaborate with Elastic as a customer. In fact, the model where a company develops a managed service and offers it on cloud providers infrastructure (i.e. "app store") would have everyone benefit: * Amazon, from the wealth of innovative managed services they could offer without fully maintaining them themselves * OSS companies, for the ability to financially sustain their projects and still offer it for free for those that want to self host without offering a managed version of the same software * End users, who can both use the software however they wish and also choose to get a nice managed version of it. Instead what will happen due to AWS behavior here is that there will be a lot less incentive to develop innovative new services, at least in a non-proprietary way => therefore there will be fewer services in general for AWS to offer without doing all the product work from scratch, fewer tools in general for engineers and fewer OSS tools in particular and more Firebase-like offerings. So everybody loses here in the long run. I'm going to go on a limb and say that whichever of the cloud providers figures out the "app store" equivalent for managed services is going to be able to take over from AWS.

germansm 6y ago

Open source is not about the license but the philosophy

nine_k 6y ago
Like, contributing back? AFAICT Amazon did contribute back to ES, in the form of code. Running a profitable business to service free software has nothing to do with the philosophy.
- germansm 6y ago
  "When the service launched, imagine our surprise when the Amazon CTO tweeted that the service was released in collaboration with us. It was not. And over the years, we have heard repeatedly that this confusion persists. NOT OK." https://www.elastic.co/blog/why-license-change-AWS https://www.elastic.co/blog/why-license-change-AWS
bawolff 6y ago
"Free Software" is not about the license but the philosiphy. "Open source" on the other hand...
- tsimionescu 6y ago
  Regardless, neither helps with Elastic's problem (if we accept it as a problem).

m463 6y ago

RMS once said: the GPL doesn't restrict how you USE the software. If it restricts who can use the software or what they can do with it I believe it isn't classified as free software. The AGPL is slightly different than GPL. It confers more responsibilities on cloud providers, so that the users of the software (as a service) have the right to the source and any modifications.

mattl 6y ago

The A in AGPL stands for Affero, which was a company that produced a version of the GPL (with FSF permission) -- that was AGPLv1, written by a commercial company in 2002 to fix the loophole in the GPL.

g9yuayon 6y ago

I thought Stallman created GPL so software can be "free as in speech". It's another dimensional of ideology, and respectably so. It, however, has nothing do with whether it is moral for AWS to host an Apache-licensed open-source package.

titway 6y ago

It is what is says. Calling it a gap is your opinion for your own biases, however you got them. They knew what they were getting into.