I find these kind of obscure, “don’t worry” posts to increase my worrying. Part of the simplicity of open source is that it’s available for easy audit. Having to hire lawyers to use a product means I probably won’t use it.
I also think having people saying “we’re open, but read the fine print” is not good for open source collaboration as it increases confusion and complexity.
Elastic is moving the way of a commercial software company. That’s perfectly fine as it’s their company, but it’s just different than open source.
Yup. If you, understanding your product, your users, and your licensing, write a post for your users not to worry, it means that you thought about your changes and came to a well informed position that there was reason for worry.
Well, you try to make it sound unlikely, but it's exactly like corporate messaging that there are no plans for layoffs in the wake of bad financial news.
The idea that a license change made to prevent competition and enable a business model centered around extracting monopoly rents from customers has no effect on customers is ludicrous. It's whole point is to have an adverse effect on customers.
Or you might have a history of people being mad at you (for good reasons, like the story of security of the ELK stack). They know very well everybody will get mad again, so they precede all explanations by "don't worry".
I also think having people saying “we’re open, but read the fine print” is not good for open source collaboration as it increases confusion and complexity.
Elastic is moving the way of a commercial software company. That’s perfectly fine as it’s their company, but it’s just different than open source.