10 ms·

Moving Apollo Federation 2 to the Elastic License v2

57 points by cjcenizal 5y ago

mythz 5y ago
> A call for a standard open license If Elastic wants to see this sustainable licensing model adopted as the norm, it's in their interest to rename the license so it's not branded to a single company.
- galaxyLogic 5y ago
  I wonder could they do that? Doesn't ElasticSearch own the copyright to that license? Is it even legal to copy it without their permission?
  - chii 5y ago
    > own the copyright to that license? should the text of the license itself be copyright-able at all?
    - galaxyLogic 5y ago
      I'm not a lawyer but I think any unique text you write you own the copyright to by default. It's a different question whether this should be so or not.
      - adolph 5y ago
        Could part of text be a release of the inherent copyright stemming from creation?
        webmaven 5y ago
        Sure. If you want your text to be as close to public domain as possible, the Creative Commons No Rights Reserved license (AKA CC0) should work: https://creativecommons.org/share-your-work/public-domain/cc0/ https://creativecommons.org/share-your-work/public-domain/cc...
        adolph 5y ago
        I don’t see any disclaimer of copyright for the license text. If another organization took that license text and promoted it as if it were their own, would Creative Commons have grounds to pursue infringement against that other organization? https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/legalcode https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/legalcode
        galaxyLogic 5y ago
        My guess is they could, unless they state somewhere that the license text is licensed with the Creative Commons License or some other permissive license
    - zokier 5y ago
      GPL begins with following: > GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE > Version 3, 29 June 2007 > Copyright © 2007 Free Software Foundation, Inc. <https://fsf.org/ https://fsf.org/> > Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this license document, but changing it is not allowed. This is one reason I think SSPL is bit problematic as afaik it's just AGPL with changes, something that is explicitly forbidden.
      - ttybird 5y ago
        https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#ModifyGPL https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#ModifyGPL It is allowed.
      - Mikeb85 5y ago
        You're not allowed to change a GPL license's terms and conditions and still call it GPL. But if you call it something else you can use some of their terms and add/remove whatever you want.
  - mythz 5y ago
    Anyone could do it, but Elastic should do it since it's in everyone's collective best interests to standardize behind a single sustainable license model with shared goals but that can't happen if it stays branded. MongoDB and Elastic are likely the biggest companies with licenses of similar goals, but I don't ever see Mongo adopting a commercially branded license, they both need to come together to unify behind a single one to lead the way for others to adopt it.
  - ent101 5y ago
    Check this out: https://www.reddit.com/r/elasticsearch/comments/mv9vxw/can_i_use_the_elastic_license_20_for_other/ https://www.reddit.com/r/elasticsearch/comments/mv9vxw/can_i...
    - adolph 5y ago
      I read that and it’s hilarious. “Hey Sally, can some other company use our license?” “Sure Bob, tell them no sweat.” <time passes> Corp press release: to protect our biz model and IP . . .
- Hamuko 5y ago
  The Apache License is branded to a single organization and that's doing fine.
  - jillesvangurp 5y ago
    And so are the Eclipse License, The Mozilla Public License and probably a few others. Of course those licenses are generally understood to be open source licenses under the careful definitions and criteria that the free software foundation uses for this. The Elastic license isn't open enough to meet those criteria.
  - tehbeard 5y ago
    Kind of missing the detail that it's Apache Software Foundation (a non-profit that's community driven), where as Elastic is a publicly traded company?
    - Hamuko 5y ago
      Does that actually matter?
      - tehbeard 5y ago
        One of them operates as a collaborative group to maintain open source software and is well known for that within the development community with decades of proof. The other is a publicly traded company known for a single product (suite), and the licencing troubles they have faced when dealing with hyperscalers like AWS providing their product to their customers.
        Hamuko 5y ago
        I didn't ask what the difference between the two were, I asked if the difference somehow actually matters when discussing the license.
sneak 5y ago
This means this project is abandoning open source and free software, as the Elastic License is not an open source license. > The Apollo developer community is at the heart of everything we do. As stewards of our community, we have a responsibility to prevent harm from anyone who intends to exploit our work without contributing back. We want to continue serving you by funding the development of important open-source graph technology for years to come. To honor that commitment, we’re moving Apollo Federation 2 to the Elastic License v2 (ELv2). One of these things can't be true. It's really disheartening to see fake-open-source projects like this tout "the community" without realizing that taking software freedoms away (which is what this not-open-source license does) is ultimately an antisocial move. Being able to run a business off of a private fork of the software you gave away is not a bug, it's a feature. It's not exploiting anyone. There are lot of fake open source people and companies around now. Docker Desktop, for example, isn't even source available. Similarly, I personally view the AGPL as a nonfree license, although it's being pushed by anticapitalist zealots at the FSF who of course invented the notion of software freedom in the first place so my classification is, of course, controversial.
- ttybird 5y ago
  AGPL is both capitalist and socialist at the same time, depending on the developer. "Oh, you want to use my software for a nonfree internet service? Sure! You just got to negotiate a license with me :)" I can't see anything anticapitalist here.
- 5e92cb50239222b 5y ago
  As I understand it, it was never about developer's freedom at all. FSF puts user's freedom first and foremost. From that point of view, AGPL makes a lot of sense (even if in practice it is almost exclusively used as a poison pill to sell proprietary licenses).
  - galaxyLogic 5y ago
    I believe that is right, AGPL is great for users. AGPL is a license, a contract between developers of software and users of that software. It gives certain rights to both parties. I think it is often implied that AGPL is somehow more "ethical" than other software licenses. I don't know why some people may think so and would like to hear the main arguments behind that. Is all copyright evil as well?
janikvonrotz 5y ago
Aka the anti AWS licensing.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
EdwardDiego 5y ago
> Many successful companies built on open-source technology (such as Elastic, MongoDB, and Confluent) have followed the path we’re taking to protect their communities I'm pretty sure Confluent's licensing isn't to protect the Kafka community.
VoxPelli 5y ago
The only reasonable commercial license to have on an open source friendly project is the Business Source License which MariaDB created and which eg. Sentry has adopted as well. That license will always to resolve to a GPL-compatible license after at most 4 years after release, ensuring that even if the creator goes out of business, the code will always be forkable eventually. More info: https://perens.com/2017/02/14/bsl-1-1/ https://perens.com/2017/02/14/bsl-1-1/
- orra 5y ago
  Indeed. At least BSL licensed software will eventually be FLOSS. But this? The Elastic Licence? Apollo is now indefinitely proprietary software, disingenuously masquerading as open source.
  - smichel17 5y ago
    It's interesting to me that the BSL is something like, "copyright, with a reasonable term".
jensneuse 5y ago
Here are 2 MIT alternatives: https://github.com/jensneuse/graphql-go-tools https://github.com/jensneuse/graphql-go-tools, written in Go, I'm the author. https://github.com/mercurius-js/mercurius https://github.com/mercurius-js/mercurius, written in NodeJS. Here's a benchmark comparing the two with Apollo: https://wundergraph.com/blog/benchmark_apollo_federation_gateway_v1_vs_v2_vs_wundergraph https://wundergraph.com/blog/benchmark_apollo_federation_gat...
- Sytten 5y ago
  Nice to see you here jensneuse. It seems there v2 implementation uses a fair amount of rust too for parsing at least so it is not pure JS. I was a bit worried that they changed the license of the spec but it doesn't seem like it, only the code so that is good. Like I suggested a while ago, splitting this go module would probably help drive adoption specially with this announcement.
  - jensneuse 5y ago
    We're planning on doing exactly this! Here's the starting point: https://github.com/graphql-alliance https://github.com/graphql-alliance
- chatmasta 5y ago
  Also see @graphql-tools/schema-stitching [0] and its handbook [1] with examples. Note the stitching gateway approach is slightly different than Apollo Federation. We are (lightly) using schema-stitching and happy with it so far – but haven't pushed it much yet. [0] https://www.graphql-tools.com/docs/schema-stitching/stitch-combining-schemas https://www.graphql-tools.com/docs/schema-stitching/stitch-c... [1] https://github.com/gmac/schema-stitching-handbook https://github.com/gmac/schema-stitching-handbook
rapnie 5y ago
There's another HN submission [0] of Drew Devault's take [1] on the license change: "Breaking down Apollo Federation's anti-FOSS corporate gaslighting". [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29116938 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29116938 [1] https://drewdevault.com/2021/11/05/Apollo-federation-2-gaslighting.html https://drewdevault.com/2021/11/05/Apollo-federation-2-gasli...
ralmidani 5y ago
I used to be a Copyleft zealot. Thanks to the emergence of AWS and GCP, I’ve come around to being OK with licenses like Elastic, and if I start a software company in the future, I wouldn’t rule out protecting myself by licensing critical parts of my code with Elastic or a similar license. I don’t even agree that these kinds of licenses are inherently “anti-FOSS”, but I do object to them being portrayed as actual FOSS licenses. “Source-available” is a reasonably well-defined term that should be used more often in these kinds of situations. Edit: “You’re either with us or against us” is corrosive whether it’s in war, politics, software licensing, or any other realm.

57 points by cjcenizal 5y ago

> A call for a standard open license If Elastic wants to see this sustainable licensing model adopted as the norm, it's in their interest to rename the license so it's not branded to a single company.

galaxyLogic 5y ago
I wonder could they do that? Doesn't ElasticSearch own the copyright to that license? Is it even legal to copy it without their permission?
- chii 5y ago
  > own the copyright to that license? should the text of the license itself be copyright-able at all?
  - galaxyLogic 5y ago
    I'm not a lawyer but I think any unique text you write you own the copyright to by default. It's a different question whether this should be so or not.
    - adolph 5y ago
      Could part of text be a release of the inherent copyright stemming from creation?
      - webmaven 5y ago
        Sure. If you want your text to be as close to public domain as possible, the Creative Commons No Rights Reserved license (AKA CC0) should work: https://creativecommons.org/share-your-work/public-domain/cc0/ https://creativecommons.org/share-your-work/public-domain/cc...
        adolph 5y ago
        I don’t see any disclaimer of copyright for the license text. If another organization took that license text and promoted it as if it were their own, would Creative Commons have grounds to pursue infringement against that other organization? https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/legalcode https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/legalcode
        galaxyLogic 5y ago
        My guess is they could, unless they state somewhere that the license text is licensed with the Creative Commons License or some other permissive license
  - zokier 5y ago
    GPL begins with following: > GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE > Version 3, 29 June 2007 > Copyright © 2007 Free Software Foundation, Inc. <https://fsf.org/ https://fsf.org/> > Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this license document, but changing it is not allowed. This is one reason I think SSPL is bit problematic as afaik it's just AGPL with changes, something that is explicitly forbidden.
    - ttybird 5y ago
      https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#ModifyGPL https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#ModifyGPL It is allowed.
    - Mikeb85 5y ago
      You're not allowed to change a GPL license's terms and conditions and still call it GPL. But if you call it something else you can use some of their terms and add/remove whatever you want.
- mythz 5y ago
  Anyone could do it, but Elastic should do it since it's in everyone's collective best interests to standardize behind a single sustainable license model with shared goals but that can't happen if it stays branded. MongoDB and Elastic are likely the biggest companies with licenses of similar goals, but I don't ever see Mongo adopting a commercially branded license, they both need to come together to unify behind a single one to lead the way for others to adopt it.
- ent101 5y ago
  Check this out: https://www.reddit.com/r/elasticsearch/comments/mv9vxw/can_i_use_the_elastic_license_20_for_other/ https://www.reddit.com/r/elasticsearch/comments/mv9vxw/can_i...
  - adolph 5y ago
    I read that and it’s hilarious. “Hey Sally, can some other company use our license?” “Sure Bob, tell them no sweat.” <time passes> Corp press release: to protect our biz model and IP . . .
Hamuko 5y ago
The Apache License is branded to a single organization and that's doing fine.
- jillesvangurp 5y ago
  And so are the Eclipse License, The Mozilla Public License and probably a few others. Of course those licenses are generally understood to be open source licenses under the careful definitions and criteria that the free software foundation uses for this. The Elastic license isn't open enough to meet those criteria.
- tehbeard 5y ago
  Kind of missing the detail that it's Apache Software Foundation (a non-profit that's community driven), where as Elastic is a publicly traded company?
  - Hamuko 5y ago
    Does that actually matter?
    - tehbeard 5y ago
      One of them operates as a collaborative group to maintain open source software and is well known for that within the development community with decades of proof. The other is a publicly traded company known for a single product (suite), and the licencing troubles they have faced when dealing with hyperscalers like AWS providing their product to their customers.
      - Hamuko 5y ago
        I didn't ask what the difference between the two were, I asked if the difference somehow actually matters when discussing the license.

sneak 5y ago

This means this project is abandoning open source and free software, as the Elastic License is not an open source license. > The Apollo developer community is at the heart of everything we do. As stewards of our community, we have a responsibility to prevent harm from anyone who intends to exploit our work without contributing back. We want to continue serving you by funding the development of important open-source graph technology for years to come. To honor that commitment, we’re moving Apollo Federation 2 to the Elastic License v2 (ELv2). One of these things can't be true. It's really disheartening to see fake-open-source projects like this tout "the community" without realizing that taking software freedoms away (which is what this not-open-source license does) is ultimately an antisocial move. Being able to run a business off of a private fork of the software you gave away is not a bug, it's a feature. It's not exploiting anyone. There are lot of fake open source people and companies around now. Docker Desktop, for example, isn't even source available. Similarly, I personally view the AGPL as a nonfree license, although it's being pushed by anticapitalist zealots at the FSF who of course invented the notion of software freedom in the first place so my classification is, of course, controversial.

ttybird 5y ago
AGPL is both capitalist and socialist at the same time, depending on the developer. "Oh, you want to use my software for a nonfree internet service? Sure! You just got to negotiate a license with me :)" I can't see anything anticapitalist here.
5e92cb50239222b 5y ago
As I understand it, it was never about developer's freedom at all. FSF puts user's freedom first and foremost. From that point of view, AGPL makes a lot of sense (even if in practice it is almost exclusively used as a poison pill to sell proprietary licenses).
- galaxyLogic 5y ago
  I believe that is right, AGPL is great for users. AGPL is a license, a contract between developers of software and users of that software. It gives certain rights to both parties. I think it is often implied that AGPL is somehow more "ethical" than other software licenses. I don't know why some people may think so and would like to hear the main arguments behind that. Is all copyright evil as well?

janikvonrotz 5y ago

Aka the anti AWS licensing.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

EdwardDiego 5y ago

> Many successful companies built on open-source technology (such as Elastic, MongoDB, and Confluent) have followed the path we’re taking to protect their communities I'm pretty sure Confluent's licensing isn't to protect the Kafka community.

VoxPelli 5y ago

The only reasonable commercial license to have on an open source friendly project is the Business Source License which MariaDB created and which eg. Sentry has adopted as well. That license will always to resolve to a GPL-compatible license after at most 4 years after release, ensuring that even if the creator goes out of business, the code will always be forkable eventually. More info: https://perens.com/2017/02/14/bsl-1-1/ https://perens.com/2017/02/14/bsl-1-1/

orra 5y ago
Indeed. At least BSL licensed software will eventually be FLOSS. But this? The Elastic Licence? Apollo is now indefinitely proprietary software, disingenuously masquerading as open source.
- smichel17 5y ago
  It's interesting to me that the BSL is something like, "copyright, with a reasonable term".

jensneuse 5y ago

Here are 2 MIT alternatives: https://github.com/jensneuse/graphql-go-tools https://github.com/jensneuse/graphql-go-tools, written in Go, I'm the author. https://github.com/mercurius-js/mercurius https://github.com/mercurius-js/mercurius, written in NodeJS. Here's a benchmark comparing the two with Apollo: https://wundergraph.com/blog/benchmark_apollo_federation_gateway_v1_vs_v2_vs_wundergraph https://wundergraph.com/blog/benchmark_apollo_federation_gat...

Sytten 5y ago
Nice to see you here jensneuse. It seems there v2 implementation uses a fair amount of rust too for parsing at least so it is not pure JS. I was a bit worried that they changed the license of the spec but it doesn't seem like it, only the code so that is good. Like I suggested a while ago, splitting this go module would probably help drive adoption specially with this announcement.
- jensneuse 5y ago
  We're planning on doing exactly this! Here's the starting point: https://github.com/graphql-alliance https://github.com/graphql-alliance
chatmasta 5y ago
Also see @graphql-tools/schema-stitching [0] and its handbook [1] with examples. Note the stitching gateway approach is slightly different than Apollo Federation. We are (lightly) using schema-stitching and happy with it so far – but haven't pushed it much yet. [0] https://www.graphql-tools.com/docs/schema-stitching/stitch-combining-schemas https://www.graphql-tools.com/docs/schema-stitching/stitch-c... [1] https://github.com/gmac/schema-stitching-handbook https://github.com/gmac/schema-stitching-handbook

rapnie 5y ago

There's another HN submission [0] of Drew Devault's take [1] on the license change: "Breaking down Apollo Federation's anti-FOSS corporate gaslighting". [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29116938 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29116938 [1] https://drewdevault.com/2021/11/05/Apollo-federation-2-gaslighting.html https://drewdevault.com/2021/11/05/Apollo-federation-2-gasli...

ralmidani 5y ago

I used to be a Copyleft zealot. Thanks to the emergence of AWS and GCP, I’ve come around to being OK with licenses like Elastic, and if I start a software company in the future, I wouldn’t rule out protecting myself by licensing critical parts of my code with Elastic or a similar license. I don’t even agree that these kinds of licenses are inherently “anti-FOSS”, but I do object to them being portrayed as actual FOSS licenses. “Source-available” is a reasonably well-defined term that should be used more often in these kinds of situations. Edit: “You’re either with us or against us” is corrosive whether it’s in war, politics, software licensing, or any other realm.