Give 'em SSPL, says Elastic. No thanks, say critics: 'Doubling down on open' not open at all
- Reference: 1610997426
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2021/01/18/elastics_doubling_down_on_open/
- Source link:
ElasticSearch is a database manager designed for enterprise search, and Kibana a data visualisation tool. Both are open source; but late last week Elastic’s co-founder and CEO Shay Banon [2]said in a post : “We are moving our Apache 2.0-licensed source code in Elasticsearch and Kibana to be dual licensed under Server Side Public License (SSPL) and the Elastic License.”
[3]
Licence to grill: A year on, MongoDB's Eliot Horowitz talks to The Reg about SSPL [4]READ MORE
The [5]Elastic License is a non-commercial licence which covers “basic features and functions” only and excludes the product’s use in software as a service offerings where the Elastic features are a primary reason for the service.
[6]
The SSPL (Server Side Public License) was [7]devised by MongoDB Inc and includes the clause “if you make the functionality of the Program or a modified version available to third parties as a service, you must make the Service Source Code available via network download to everyone at no charge.”
The service source code is defined to include everything required to offer the service including management, user interface, automation, monitoring, backup, storage and hosting. Banon claims that the chance has “no impact on the overwhelming majority of our user community who use our default distribution for free,” but this point is contentious.
The stated reason for adopting SSPL in place of Apache 2.0 is to “protect investment in free software”. Banon refers to “attempts to splinter our community with “open” repackaging of our OSS products,” and likely has in mind AWS, against whom Elastic filed a trademark complaint in September 2019. AWS [8]created the Open Distro for Elasticsearch in March 2019, stating that it is a “value-added distribution of Elasticsearch that is 100% open source (Apache 2.0 license).”
According to an [9]FAQ on the licence change, projects which use Elasticsearch as a backend are not affected, and the company will offer a redistribution licence to non-commercial open source projects which request it. That said, the FAQ also acknowledges that Elasticsearch and Kibana are no longer open source. “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,’” it says.
Open source advocate Vicky Brasseur [10]argued that SSPL is a problem for businesses. “It’s a hostile proprietary license masquerading in open source clothing,” she said. She observes that “when you agree to a license you are agreeing to the text of that license document and not to a FAQ.”
She said that “if your organisation uses the Apache v2 licensed Elasticsearch or Kibana in its projects or products, it must now assume that it is at risk one way or another.”
The Apache Skywalking project for observability analysis, which uses Elasticsearch, [11]said “with that, we can’t only focus on it anymore. We need to consider other storage options.”
The provider of feature management software Hopsworks had already moved to the AWS Open Distro and [12]said that “the need for an open-source alternative to Elasticsearch has recently become more evident.”
Peter Zaitsev, co-founder of open source company Percona, [13]said “RIP Elastic Open Source... Great loss for Open Source Community but may help you to make some extra $$, short term.”
Amanda Brock, CEO and Chief Policy Officer for Open UK, which promotes open source technology, told The Reg that “open source is all sorts of things, but it’s not a business model.”
She said she thinks that companies who, like Elastic, are disgruntled with the way cloud providers use their code, are not fully understanding what open source licences mean. “The cloud providers in my experience are using it in a way that’s acceptable within the open source licences,” she said.
Brock agreed with Brasseur about the implications of SSPL for Elastic customers and said that “it leaves five options. “One is that you stay on the existing version which is on Apache 2.0. The second is that you accept SSPL. The third is you go to a subscription where you are paying for services. The fourth is to swap Elastic out. And the fifth is to ignore it and see what happens, which isn’t good business practice. I think we’ll see a number of people moving away.”
Elastic is one of several companies retreating to some extent from open source. Alongside MongoDb Inc, there is the Qt Company which is making long-term support releases [14]commercial only , and Red Hat which is withdrawing the free [15]CentOS Linux in favour of the less useful CentOS Stream.
However, Brock does not believe that the open source movement is waning. “There are many more companies doing well developing in the open source space. With the whole Kubernetes, cloud-based, CNCF environment, I think we’ll see more and more of those.”
She believes that open source companies should learn to work alongside the cloud giants rather than try to invent special terms for them.
It is not unusual for open source projects to suffer from lack of a strong business model, or to complain about the number of people who use free software without giving back in either money or contributions.
[16]
That said, MongoDB reported “continued strong growth” with revenue up 38 per cent year on year in its most recent quarterly results
[17]PDF , for Q3 ended Oct 21, 2020], while Elastic reported revenue up [18]43 per cent year on year for the same quarter with Banon celebrating “excellent results in the second quarter.” It does not appear therefore to be any immediate financial pressure that is driving these changes. ®
Get our [19]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.theregister.com/2018/10/16/mongodb_licensning_change/
[2] https://www.elastic.co/blog/licensing-change
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x250&tile=2&c=2YAYTAbS-z4wCnrzGHgQrfQAAAFY&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[4] https://www.theregister.com/2019/10/07/mongodb_eliot_horowitz/
[5] https://github.com/elastic/elasticsearch/blob/master/licenses/ELASTIC-LICENSE.txt
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x250%7C300x252%7C300x600&tile=3&c=33YAYTAbS-z4wCnrzGHgQrfQAAAFY&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[7] https://www.mongodb.com/licensing/server-side-public-license
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2019/03/12/aws_elasticsearch_distro/
[9] https://www.elastic.co/pricing/faq/licensing
[10] https://anonymoushash.vmbrasseur.com/2021/01/14/elasticsearch-and-kibana-are-now-business-risks
[11] http://skywalking.apache.org/blog/2021-01-17-elastic-change-license/
[12] https://www.logicalclocks.com/blog/elasticsearch-is-dead-long-live-open-distro-for-elasticsearch
[13] https://twitter.com/PeterZaitsev/status/1349786364548550656
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2021/01/05/qt_lts_goes_commercial_only/
[15] https://www.theregister.com/2020/12/22/red_hat_defends_its_centos/
[16] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251&tile=4&c=44YAYTAbS-z4wCnrzGHgQrfQAAAFY&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[17] https://d18rn0p25nwr6d.cloudfront.net/CIK-0001441816/8b9a8df1-d563-4ca5-a6d6-85203d739708.pdf
[18] https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20201202005881/en/Elastic-Reports-Strong-Second-Quarter-Fiscal-2021-Financial-Results
[19] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: Kill this licecence with fire, its' replicating.
Sorry but, bollocks.
If 3rd parties have provided code to these then they will need to approve the change in license for their code. Otherwise it will need to have been changed (no pulling the rug from under the devs).
If anyone isn't happy with the change in licensing terms, fork it, its open source.
If the people that are complaining cant fork it due to them not having the dev abilities or money to support the project, now you know how they are feeling.
Amazon, Azure, Google all take these open source projects, provide them as a service (removing these companies source of income that are developing it), provide no fixes to the projects and provide no donations or revenue, yet wish to sell the products they are developing.
What do you think would happen to these companies that produce these products if they can not get money from somewhere, magically keep going via fairy dust and unicorn arse rainbows?
Oh the developers that are providing their time to develop it, yeah, they do not provide as much code as is needed or priorities what should be done.
The cloud providers will pick up the slack... Yeah, they haven't been helping now, why would they later, you will still be paying for their services and no one else with have this product anymore either. The product will die someone else will have something new, same thing will happen.
MongoDB, yep, may not have helped them, but you think keeping the same license would have, no, the cloud providers are providing the services that they have tried to make money off.
Try a different way to make money I hear you say.... OK provide one business model that can make them money, other than hosting services and support?
Extra paid features, ah, but that's devils work, closed source, oh no, can't have that...
If people wanted these products to continue on as they are, they need money, people need to donate or buy support if they are using the product for their business. Otherwise, what do you expect?
Devil is in the detail
...to complain about the number of people who use free software without giving back... If I'm not mistaking, Elastic is complaining about Amazons of this world which as the richest enterprises on this side of the galaxy could afford to spare some loose change just sitting in their pockets.
The software is still open but not for abuse.
Is this particularly different to an AGPL / commercial dual license?
In some ways I do hope the GPL isn't actually encouraging more companies to make annoying internet based Software as a Service rather than "real" software just as a way to avoid opening up their own source in return. To me it seems that this and the Affero GPL is trying to address this shortcoming of the license.
Kill this licecence with fire, its' replicating.
This license has been problematic since day one. It also isn't working. MongoDB isn't riding high on a wave of good fortune as a result of this license change, nor are it's other handful of adopters. Their long term viability is more in doubt then ever.
It's hard for me seeing an Apache licensed project going that route. It, along with the BSD license, are the go to forms for permissive use for many of us that want to contribute to projects that really support code re-use over political concerns and the monopolist urges of some of these companies. Unfortunately the pressures on these companies that spun up a startup thinking that "Benevolent Dictator for Life" was a universal business model have been dashed by the Ellisons and Bezoids of the real world.
I look at these events through the eyes of a sysadmin and programmer, and I can't help but feel like these operations are a bait and switch. They lure in a group of developers and users, then pull out the rug once the project has build up an exploitable base, then pivot off of a permissive license. The license is part of a contract with the community, both users and developers, and one actor shouldn't be unilaterally making that decision. That's where the model becomes a tricky fit for a VC funded startup business model. By definition the people involved are beholden to their investors first and their employees second. That means contributing developers and and users are going to be thrown to the sharks.