I don't think most of Amazon's behavior actually violates any norms and values of traditional open source communities.
I think instead we are finding that norms and values of traditional open source communities are in some ways contradictory/inconsistent; that there can be competing interests where it isn't true that either one of them is the one that "opensource norms and values" privileges; or that the traditional "norms and values" don't necessary lead to the world that enthusiasts had fantasized about.
In a lot of these discussions, I think the underlying basic thing is that some are alleging, often implicitly, that included in the "norms and values of open source" are that if anyone is making money from value provided by open source, it should be authors of that open source, or at least they should get a cut.
I don't think that is in fact one of the traditional norms and values of open source community. In some ways it's even counter to the tradition.
The actual world/ecosystem around open source has evolved to be very different than the one imagined by traditional norms and values though. Compare to how apache httpd was originally written -- 6 or 8 people, each from a different organization, collaborated on company time each getting paid by their employer, to produce something of value to all of their employers, where the only desired 'profit' was the thing being available for all to use.
That is sort of a stereotypical traditional fantasy of open source. It is of software being created without a profit motive, in an ecosystem where people would contribute to such things on 'company time' (they had a steady salary from some company already). The more people using the software you wrote, the better, and you never wanted a cut of their profits -- that is the fantasy of traditional open source norms and values.
That is not the world we ended up with though.
So the problem is that now it is "obvious" to some people that if we wrote the the thing, and then formed a company around that thing we wrote -- it's not "fair" if someone else is making money from it without giving us a cut.
But this isn't a value encoded into open source licenses at all, and that wasn't an oversight, it was intentional because this wasn't in fact a traditional "norm and value" of open source at all, and in fact it is in some ways counter to the actual traditional norms and values, one of which I would say was: Your desire to make a profit from this code should not in fact be allowed to prevent anyone else from using it. It is ElasticSearch which is acting contradictory to norms and values of open source in believing nobody should be able to use their software without giving them a cut of profits from it.
These disputes will keep happening, not because some companies are violating the "norms and values" of open source, but because the actual traditional norms and values of open source are increasingly unable to power a sustainable economy where people can get paid (in the manner they think they deserve?) while producing open source.
I’m not sure if this is true. It looks like Amazon makes lots of contributions to open source [0][1]. They don’t literally contribute to every project they use, but think they add lots to the ecosystem.
But even if they contributed nothing at all, that’s part of open source in that it’s free for everyone to use regardless of anything else, depending on the license.
I think it’s a virtuous byproduct that all this free, allowed use leads to people contributing more open source. Not because of compulsion, but through a shared philosophy.
SO many people and companies make money off of ("take") open source projects like apache httpd, postgresql, or even linux itself, without "giving back". So many companies have stacks based on these software, stacks they make money from, who never would even consider sending a patch back to postgresql or apache httpd or what have you.
Is this considered against typical open source norms and values?
If not, what makes this situation different?
So one difference people talk about is that your stack might be based on postgresql and you might sell a service, but you aren't actually selling postgresql as a service. OK... but I suspect there are people selling (especially) postgresql or mysql as a service, without ever sending patches back; say, a traditional kind of PHP web host, right? This hasn't to my knowledge led to much controversy; or the idea that their entire webhosting/dashboard/management layer has to be open source if they provide postgresql. What's the difference?
I am not saying there can't be a difference, there are all sorts of differences always. But in elucidating what the pertinent/meaningful difference is, we actually are clear about what we think, instead of just a gut-reaction "I don't like amazon and I don't think they should be able to profit off of elasticsearch" -- cause that IMO doesn't have anything to do with "opensource values and norms".
I think, again, is that the real problem is that the traditional models of open source, the traditional norms and vlaues of open source, are becoming less and less capable of supporting sustainability and proper income for open source development. (Which reminds me of the OpenSSL problem of course. Is everyone who uses OpenSSL, which means like everyone, violating "norms and values" if they don't send patches back? Obviously not).
I think instead we are finding that norms and values of traditional open source communities are in some ways contradictory/inconsistent; that there can be competing interests where it isn't true that either one of them is the one that "opensource norms and values" privileges; or that the traditional "norms and values" don't necessary lead to the world that enthusiasts had fantasized about.
In a lot of these discussions, I think the underlying basic thing is that some are alleging, often implicitly, that included in the "norms and values of open source" are that if anyone is making money from value provided by open source, it should be authors of that open source, or at least they should get a cut.
I don't think that is in fact one of the traditional norms and values of open source community. In some ways it's even counter to the tradition.
The actual world/ecosystem around open source has evolved to be very different than the one imagined by traditional norms and values though. Compare to how apache httpd was originally written -- 6 or 8 people, each from a different organization, collaborated on company time each getting paid by their employer, to produce something of value to all of their employers, where the only desired 'profit' was the thing being available for all to use.
That is sort of a stereotypical traditional fantasy of open source. It is of software being created without a profit motive, in an ecosystem where people would contribute to such things on 'company time' (they had a steady salary from some company already). The more people using the software you wrote, the better, and you never wanted a cut of their profits -- that is the fantasy of traditional open source norms and values.
That is not the world we ended up with though.
So the problem is that now it is "obvious" to some people that if we wrote the the thing, and then formed a company around that thing we wrote -- it's not "fair" if someone else is making money from it without giving us a cut.
But this isn't a value encoded into open source licenses at all, and that wasn't an oversight, it was intentional because this wasn't in fact a traditional "norm and value" of open source at all, and in fact it is in some ways counter to the actual traditional norms and values, one of which I would say was: Your desire to make a profit from this code should not in fact be allowed to prevent anyone else from using it. It is ElasticSearch which is acting contradictory to norms and values of open source in believing nobody should be able to use their software without giving them a cut of profits from it.
These disputes will keep happening, not because some companies are violating the "norms and values" of open source, but because the actual traditional norms and values of open source are increasingly unable to power a sustainable economy where people can get paid (in the manner they think they deserve?) while producing open source.