3 ms·

Somehow Amazon's Open Source Fork of Elasticsearch Has Succeeded

29 points by PrimeMcFly 3y ago

BoorishBears 3y ago
Has succeeded in what? Making a half-dead fork that trails behind on every single interesting feature Elasticsearch has put out in years? Opensearch is a spiteful distraction and in a just world Amazon wouldn't have been allowed to call it "OpenSearch"
- unmole 3y ago
  > Has succeeded in what? As TFA puts it, building a "bonafide open source" project. How is it half dead? Just because it doesn't have the latest shiny features that Elastic has? Was Elastic useless before? OpenSearch is Apache 2.0 licensed. Why shouldn't it be called "open"?
  - BoorishBears 3y ago
    Elastic was useless without X-Pack after a few versions And calling it open is fine, Amazon got dinged for calling their ES service Elasticsearch because it was confusing. Calling it Opensearch while touting Elasticsearch support is just as confusing, people fail to realize it's not Open Source Elasticsearch, it's fallen so far behind it doesn't touch on half the functionality ES offwrs
    - unmole 3y ago
      > Elastic was useless without X-Pack after a few versions But somehow users still manage to derive value from OpenSearch. > Calling it Opensearch while touting Elasticsearch support is just as confusing Right. Because it's not like Amazon explicitly state that they won't support Elastic Search versions beyond 7.10. Oh, wait: https://aws.amazon.com/what-is/opensearch/ https://aws.amazon.com/what-is/opensearch/
      - BoorishBears 3y ago
        > But somehow users still manage to derive value from OpenSearch. Because OpenSearch is built on the X-Pack components before they got moved to X-Pack. > Right. Because it's not like Amazon explicitly state that they won't support Elastic Search versions beyond 7.10. Oh, wait: https://aws.amazon.com/what-is/opensearch/ https://aws.amazon.com/what-is/opensearch/ You missed that your own linked post was speaking about hosting ES, not ES compatibility. https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/opensource/keeping-clients-of-opensearch-and-elasticsearch-compatible-with-open-source/ https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/opensource/keeping-clients-of-o... > OpenSearch aims to provide wire compatibility with open source distributions of Elasticsearch 7.10.2, the software from which it was derived. You also missed that it's about the literal name OpenSearch vs Elasticsearch. Amazon benefits from people believing that OpenSearch is equivalent to Elasticsearch but open source, when really its this trailing orphaned fork that represents a significantly worse product: It'd be like if MariaDB had been named OpenMySQL.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- gkbrk 3y ago
  Elastic isn't really an OpenSearch competitor if you want an open source solution. When I check their Github, I see recent commits, merged pull requests etc. Doesn't look half-dead at all. I don't know if other open-source alternatives (like meilisearch perhaps) have more activity, but OpenSearch looks far from half-dead. > in a just world Amazon wouldn't have been allowed to call it "OpenSearch" Any reason an open-source project for search should not be called "OpenSearch", aside from "I don't like Amazon, so the project is bad"?
  - BoorishBears 3y ago
    [flagged]
  - BoorishBears 3y ago
    > Any reason an open-source project for search should not be called "OpenSearch", aside from "I don't like Amazon, so the project is bad"? If you want to pretend that the thought process was "open source search" => OpenSearch you're free to do that. The rest of us realize the project exists because they were unfairly benefiting from the Elasticsearch trademark and got push back... So naming it "OpenSearch" then mentioning Elasticsearch 70 times in your FAQ https://opensearch.org/faq/ https://opensearch.org/faq/ isn't a coincidence: they want to drive the same kind of confusion they got called out on in the first place.
    - capableweb 3y ago
      > The rest of us realize the project exists because they were unfairly benefiting from the Elasticsearch trademark and got push back... Wasn't Elasticsearch initially 100% FOSS and you were allowed to sell it as a service? Where is the "unfairly benefiting" part coming from?
      - BoorishBears 3y ago
        Amazon lied about partnering with Elastic, stole Elastic's closed source extensions by proxy, and used Elasticsearch's trademarked name without permission FOSS doesn't mean you can steal their name, even in the purest forms of open source. And the irony is AWS has mountains of closed source components that would benefit others to actually productize "OpenSearch". Under SSPL Amazon would be able to serve Elasticsearch... if they were willing to walk the walk and open source the stuff that enables their orchestration.
- Proven 3y ago
  [dead]
paxys 3y ago
The drama was never about the level of Amazon's contribution to Elasticsearch. Whether they had opened 1 PR in the project or 1 million, the end result would be exactly the same – they wouldn't be allowed to offer it as a hosted service because it would be prohibited under the Elastic License/SSPL. Same goes for every single contributor to the project other than Elastic Co.
- AndyNemmity 3y ago
  That isn't entirely true. I'm being pushed to replace Elasticsearch with Opensearch by my manager with only negatives that I can see in the move, and zero positives. We will be contributing greatly because a lot of the libraries are significantly worse... I don't understand it honestly, but the specter of Elasticsearch potentially doing something horrible has made it so that I have to move off of it. I've tried all I could to explain the fears are misplaced, and have no relevance, but I've lost this battle. A year and a half ago, I could have probably had our company just pay for the license. But the winds blow and change, and now I can't even keep it.

29 points by PrimeMcFly 3y ago

Has succeeded in what? Making a half-dead fork that trails behind on every single interesting feature Elasticsearch has put out in years? Opensearch is a spiteful distraction and in a just world Amazon wouldn't have been allowed to call it "OpenSearch"

unmole 3y ago
> Has succeeded in what? As TFA puts it, building a "bonafide open source" project. How is it half dead? Just because it doesn't have the latest shiny features that Elastic has? Was Elastic useless before? OpenSearch is Apache 2.0 licensed. Why shouldn't it be called "open"?
- BoorishBears 3y ago
  Elastic was useless without X-Pack after a few versions And calling it open is fine, Amazon got dinged for calling their ES service Elasticsearch because it was confusing. Calling it Opensearch while touting Elasticsearch support is just as confusing, people fail to realize it's not Open Source Elasticsearch, it's fallen so far behind it doesn't touch on half the functionality ES offwrs
  - unmole 3y ago
    > Elastic was useless without X-Pack after a few versions But somehow users still manage to derive value from OpenSearch. > Calling it Opensearch while touting Elasticsearch support is just as confusing Right. Because it's not like Amazon explicitly state that they won't support Elastic Search versions beyond 7.10. Oh, wait: https://aws.amazon.com/what-is/opensearch/ https://aws.amazon.com/what-is/opensearch/
    - BoorishBears 3y ago
      > But somehow users still manage to derive value from OpenSearch. Because OpenSearch is built on the X-Pack components before they got moved to X-Pack. > Right. Because it's not like Amazon explicitly state that they won't support Elastic Search versions beyond 7.10. Oh, wait: https://aws.amazon.com/what-is/opensearch/ https://aws.amazon.com/what-is/opensearch/ You missed that your own linked post was speaking about hosting ES, not ES compatibility. https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/opensource/keeping-clients-of-opensearch-and-elasticsearch-compatible-with-open-source/ https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/opensource/keeping-clients-of-o... > OpenSearch aims to provide wire compatibility with open source distributions of Elasticsearch 7.10.2, the software from which it was derived. You also missed that it's about the literal name OpenSearch vs Elasticsearch. Amazon benefits from people believing that OpenSearch is equivalent to Elasticsearch but open source, when really its this trailing orphaned fork that represents a significantly worse product: It'd be like if MariaDB had been named OpenMySQL.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
gkbrk 3y ago
Elastic isn't really an OpenSearch competitor if you want an open source solution. When I check their Github, I see recent commits, merged pull requests etc. Doesn't look half-dead at all. I don't know if other open-source alternatives (like meilisearch perhaps) have more activity, but OpenSearch looks far from half-dead. > in a just world Amazon wouldn't have been allowed to call it "OpenSearch" Any reason an open-source project for search should not be called "OpenSearch", aside from "I don't like Amazon, so the project is bad"?
- BoorishBears 3y ago
  [flagged]
- BoorishBears 3y ago
  > Any reason an open-source project for search should not be called "OpenSearch", aside from "I don't like Amazon, so the project is bad"? If you want to pretend that the thought process was "open source search" => OpenSearch you're free to do that. The rest of us realize the project exists because they were unfairly benefiting from the Elasticsearch trademark and got push back... So naming it "OpenSearch" then mentioning Elasticsearch 70 times in your FAQ https://opensearch.org/faq/ https://opensearch.org/faq/ isn't a coincidence: they want to drive the same kind of confusion they got called out on in the first place.
  - capableweb 3y ago
    > The rest of us realize the project exists because they were unfairly benefiting from the Elasticsearch trademark and got push back... Wasn't Elasticsearch initially 100% FOSS and you were allowed to sell it as a service? Where is the "unfairly benefiting" part coming from?
    - BoorishBears 3y ago
      Amazon lied about partnering with Elastic, stole Elastic's closed source extensions by proxy, and used Elasticsearch's trademarked name without permission FOSS doesn't mean you can steal their name, even in the purest forms of open source. And the irony is AWS has mountains of closed source components that would benefit others to actually productize "OpenSearch". Under SSPL Amazon would be able to serve Elasticsearch... if they were willing to walk the walk and open source the stuff that enables their orchestration.
Proven 3y ago
[dead]

paxys 3y ago

The drama was never about the level of Amazon's contribution to Elasticsearch. Whether they had opened 1 PR in the project or 1 million, the end result would be exactly the same – they wouldn't be allowed to offer it as a hosted service because it would be prohibited under the Elastic License/SSPL. Same goes for every single contributor to the project other than Elastic Co.

AndyNemmity 3y ago
That isn't entirely true. I'm being pushed to replace Elasticsearch with Opensearch by my manager with only negatives that I can see in the move, and zero positives. We will be contributing greatly because a lot of the libraries are significantly worse... I don't understand it honestly, but the specter of Elasticsearch potentially doing something horrible has made it so that I have to move off of it. I've tried all I could to explain the fears are misplaced, and have no relevance, but I've lost this battle. A year and a half ago, I could have probably had our company just pay for the license. But the winds blow and change, and now I can't even keep it.