What’s the difference between what Amazon does with Elasticsearch vs what someone like Redhat does with the Linux kernel? Or what every hosting provider including AWS does with the Linux kernel, sell access to a service that is running that software.
I get that Elasticsearch wants to run their own company, but I really have no sympathy for their arguments here. They released open source software and now are mad that it is taking on a life of its own that they don’t 100% control. That’s the whole point of open source as far as I’m concerned, other people can do stuff you might not have expected with your code.
Now they’re making it more closed going forward, which is fine and is certainly their right to do. But this argument is so bizarre, instead of saying that we tried to do this open source but unfortunately it makes it too difficult for us as a business so we’re closing things off, they’re trying to spin it as they are the true, good defenders of open source fighting against the forces of evil by closing off their licensing further.
The real problem that Elastic doesn't like is that amazon reimplements features as part of their core offering that ES tries to charge for. I'm sure they would have no problem contributing back but Elastic doesn't want these features to become part of the core offering.
This sounds like the Docker Inc and Red Hat dance again. Red Hat wanted tighter integration with systemd, Docker Inc not. The debate ended with Red Hat doing:
> I'm sure they would have no problem contributing back
Why the heck would you feel sure of that? What evidence makes you think anything in Amazon's DNA would go in that direction? Amazon is blatantly missing from every open source conversation or ecosystem I've ever encountered. They give essentially NOTHING back except cheap infra as a service, and we pay dearly for it with the losses we get from their predatory behaviour toward any competing products
I use Amazon. But they're garbage for ecosystems.
imho Amazon is only good for Amazon (in the larger timescale), and maybe also for finding whatever economic McGuffin lies at the bottom of whatever race they happen to be in.
Amazon literally started an open source distribution of elastic search and kibana in 2019, one that has been adopted and contributed to by other companies and clouds because it includes feature that are only in the commercial variant of elastic’s offerings. This fact is included in elastic’s blog post as a third party contributed a plug-in to Amazon’s version that Elastic believes copied source code from their commercial product.
The existence and usage of “Open Distro for Elasticsearch” is not debatable. Whether it infringes trademarks is in court and whether a third party infringed elastic’s copyrights is also in court.
Sorry, I was a little too indignant there. Apologies.
But also, that's contributing "out", not contributing "back". It's the difference between working with your neighbours, vs leaving your extra shit around your house on the curb for someone else to take.
The mechanics of how they relate to the groups from which they filter wealth, that matters imho.
When I get frustrated about how they don't really contribute, it's that I'm intensely cynical about the worldview from which their offerings come.
Anyhow, thanks for the generous comment, and the chance to reflect :)
This. Elastic produced a product that is popular because it's open source. (The closed source version of ES is called Splunk or DataDog.) Now they are pissed off that they can't profit from its popularity. I feel their sadness, but I don't think Amazon is the problem. Even before Amazon many non-Elastic hosted ES offers appeared (logz.io ?).
I would hate to be in their shoes, but it brings a valuable lesson to future entrepreneurs: Do fill the "unfair advantage" box in your business canvas.
Did you read the blog post? They are mad about trademark violation and an allegation that their commercial code has been ripped off by Amazon through a third party. They have Elasticsearch trademarked and you can't use their name with your name on it. In their mind, it is a violation.
Yes but how does changing their license affect a trademark? If they are legally in the right and this is a violation of their trademark they should win their lawsuit about it regardless.
Also my initial question was not purely rhetorical, I would assume "Linux" is also trademarked so I'm wondering what is the difference there and why Redhat selling RHEL has not been the same problem.
I don't think Redhat could have built their whole business on the just the implied understanding that Linus is cool with it. I'm more talking about the trademark issue, did they legally get the right to use the Linux trademark in some way that Amazon Elasticsearch didn't? Just curious if there is any substance to what Elastic is claiming here or if it's purely a PR stunt.
Edit: based on the Linux Foundation link in another comment, it seems they have a clear process for sublicensing the trademark. So I guess Elastic is claiming AWS just launched their ES service without their legal team ever having bothered looking into the trademark? That seems very strange for such a large company.
In addition to redhat employing a large number of kernel contributors, ElasticSearch is a complete product the Linux kernel is just a piece of the overall redhat product. The kernel in and of itself is useless. Also redhat provides source rpms for every non-proprietary app/utility that makes up the redhat product.
A more comparable situation would be redhat and centos, and to the point that Elastic is making, redhat is very protective of their trademarks with regards to the CentOs project, they have never stood for and would never stand for a situation like this.
Exactly. I was confused why the Elasticsearch blog is ranting about Amazon when the actual issue is in Elasticsearch license change which makes the source code closed which was open source.
I get that Elasticsearch wants to run their own company, but I really have no sympathy for their arguments here. They released open source software and now are mad that it is taking on a life of its own that they don’t 100% control. That’s the whole point of open source as far as I’m concerned, other people can do stuff you might not have expected with your code.
Now they’re making it more closed going forward, which is fine and is certainly their right to do. But this argument is so bizarre, instead of saying that we tried to do this open source but unfortunately it makes it too difficult for us as a business so we’re closing things off, they’re trying to spin it as they are the true, good defenders of open source fighting against the forces of evil by closing off their licensing further.