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Amazon referring to it as "not open source" is a bit like Russia calling Crimea "Russian". This redefinition of open source is intended as a political statement

by pydry 4y ago

Amazon referring to it as "not open source" is a bit like Russia calling Crimea "Russian". This redefinition of open source is intended as a political statement - fighting against open source with restrictions. Especially so, it seems, if those restrictions promote the growth of open source. Elastic changed to a license that is completely open except insofar as it blocked Amazon from profiting from it. >Notably, you could build GPL software on top of OpenSearch. You could not do so on top of ElasticSearch. Notably you can't build MIT software based on GPL software either. This is 100% about MIT being a weak open source license with few restrictions and GPL being a strong open source license with restrictions. Not coincidentally the very-much-also-open-source-license GPL also had a history of infuriating big tech for exactly the same reason - they hate restrictions put in place designed to help open source flourish. E.g. Here's Google getting publicly grumpy about the AGPL: https://www.theregister.com/2011/03/31/google_on_open_source_licenses/ https://www.theregister.com/2011/03/31/google_on_open_source...

dragonwriter 4y ago
> It was changed to a license that is completely open except insofar as it blocked Amazon from profiting from it. It didn’t just block Amazon, and even if it did, selectively blocking a single downstream commercial user would make it not open source. The freedom of third-party competitive commercial downstream use is a guarantee against effective vendor lock in, and it is one of the important reasons to choose open source solutions. Does that make it hard to monetize development of software by just rent-seeking in the “we don’t want to expend the effort to host our own things” SaaS market with a hosted implementation? Yes, but, too bad.
- pydry 4y ago
  >It didn’t just block Amazon No, I guess it also blocked google, oracle, etc. from monetizing their work without sharing the proceeds from the quite considerable profits they make (something they seem happy to do). Didnt block anybody else though, as you well know. Any regular user of Elastic faced 0 additional restrictions. >Does that make it hard to monetize development of software No. As Amazon demonstrates the software can still be monetized by the most powerful rent seeking players in the market like Amazon. Does it make it hard for the companies not running monopolistic rent machines that actually build open source? Yes. MUCH harder. It would have killed elastic. >too bad. Yes, too bad for open source. You can be anti open source if you like (it has made a lot of people mad, not just MSFT and Amazon) but don't try to dress it up.
ryukafalz 4y ago
It is pretty well accepted that "open source" in the context of software is referring to the OSI's Open Source Definition. Elastic themselves say they're not calling Elasticsearch open source: > Does this mean that Elasticsearch and Kibana are no longer Open Source? > Yes. Neither the Elastic License nor SSPL have been approved by the OSI, so to prevent confusion, we no longer refer to Elasticsearch or Kibana as open source. We updated our website and our messaging to refer to these products as “Free & Open,” and when talking about the licenses directly, we describe them as “source-available.” If you notice an area we missed, please let us know, so we can correct it. https://www.elastic.co/pricing/faq/licensing https://www.elastic.co/pricing/faq/licensing
- phpisthebest 4y ago
  OSI has become corporatized with their "approvals"... I am not sure anyone should care what OSI thinks about a given license
- pydry 4y ago
  >It is pretty well accepted that "open source" in the context of software is referring to the OSI To the corporate funded OSI. I know. The same corporate OSI who joined in the character assassination attacks on Richard "open source comes before profit" Stallman for very similar reasons.
  - ryukafalz 4y ago
    If you'd prefer, here's Stallman saying the FSF hasn't gotten around to examining the SSPL but expecting it won't be considered a free software license either: https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2021-10/msg00806.html https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2021-10/msg00...

by pydry 4y ago

dragonwriter 4y ago

> It was changed to a license that is completely open except insofar as it blocked Amazon from profiting from it. It didn’t just block Amazon, and even if it did, selectively blocking a single downstream commercial user would make it not open source. The freedom of third-party competitive commercial downstream use is a guarantee against effective vendor lock in, and it is one of the important reasons to choose open source solutions. Does that make it hard to monetize development of software by just rent-seeking in the “we don’t want to expend the effort to host our own things” SaaS market with a hosted implementation? Yes, but, too bad.

pydry 4y ago
>It didn’t just block Amazon No, I guess it also blocked google, oracle, etc. from monetizing their work without sharing the proceeds from the quite considerable profits they make (something they seem happy to do). Didnt block anybody else though, as you well know. Any regular user of Elastic faced 0 additional restrictions. >Does that make it hard to monetize development of software No. As Amazon demonstrates the software can still be monetized by the most powerful rent seeking players in the market like Amazon. Does it make it hard for the companies not running monopolistic rent machines that actually build open source? Yes. MUCH harder. It would have killed elastic. >too bad. Yes, too bad for open source. You can be anti open source if you like (it has made a lot of people mad, not just MSFT and Amazon) but don't try to dress it up.

ryukafalz 4y ago

It is pretty well accepted that "open source" in the context of software is referring to the OSI's Open Source Definition. Elastic themselves say they're not calling Elasticsearch open source: > Does this mean that Elasticsearch and Kibana are no longer Open Source? > Yes. Neither the Elastic License nor SSPL have been approved by the OSI, so to prevent confusion, we no longer refer to Elasticsearch or Kibana as open source. We updated our website and our messaging to refer to these products as “Free & Open,” and when talking about the licenses directly, we describe them as “source-available.” If you notice an area we missed, please let us know, so we can correct it. https://www.elastic.co/pricing/faq/licensing https://www.elastic.co/pricing/faq/licensing

phpisthebest 4y ago
OSI has become corporatized with their "approvals"... I am not sure anyone should care what OSI thinks about a given license
pydry 4y ago
>It is pretty well accepted that "open source" in the context of software is referring to the OSI To the corporate funded OSI. I know. The same corporate OSI who joined in the character assassination attacks on Richard "open source comes before profit" Stallman for very similar reasons.
- ryukafalz 4y ago
  If you'd prefer, here's Stallman saying the FSF hasn't gotten around to examining the SSPL but expecting it won't be considered a free software license either: https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2021-10/msg00806.html https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2021-10/msg00...